Standard Chartered agrees to a $340 million settlement for money laundering

Standard Chartered, the British bank accused by the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) of laundering $250 billion for Iranian institutions, has agreed to a $340 million settlement ahead of a trial that had been set for Wednesday. The settlement will be the largest ever paid to a U.S. regulator in a money laundering case. The settlement came just over a week after the New York state regulators accused Standard Chartered of hiding 60,000 financial transactions for Iranian organizations, in violation of U.S. sanctions against Iran, which have been in place for decades. The bank admitted to only 300 transactions that breached sanctions on Iran, totaling $14 million. According to the agreement, Standard Chartered will pay the "civil penalty" to the DFS, which will allow the bank to keep its New York State license. Additionally, it will place a monitor in the institution to evaluate money-laundering controls and permanent staff for auditing. Also, DFS examiners will be installed at the New York branch. Standard Chartered remains under a criminal investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as well as the U.S. Department of State and Department of Justice.

Syria

A bomb hit central Damascus on Wednesday near a military compound and a hotel housing U.N. observers, wounding three people. Syrian state television said no U.N. workers were hurt in the attack, which it reported was caused by a bomb planted in a diesel tanker truck in a parking lot near the hotel. A senior member of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) claimed responsibility for the assault, which he said was scheduled to go off during a meeting of army officers, however the statement was not verified. Another spokesman for the FSA told Al Jazeera they were targeting the central security command, not the United Nations. Heavy shelling was also reported in Damascus and fighting continues in Aleppo. Meanwhile, 57 Muslim leaders at a summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Wednesday will discuss suspending Syria from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, despite objections from Syria’s Iranian allies. The U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made a statement Tuesday warning about an Iranian presence in Syria. He said there is evidence that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are working to create and train a pro-regime militia in Syria. Panetta also reasserted the U.S.’s hesitancy toward military involvement in Syria, by responding to requests for a no-fly zone saying "that is not a front-burner issue for us."  

Headlines  

• An Egyptian court has sentenced 14 "Islamist militants" to death, eight of whom were tried in absentia, for a deadly attack on a police station in the Sinai town of El Arish in July 2011.
• Yemen’s Republican Guard clashed with pro-government forces near the defense ministry in Sanaa a week after President Hadi announced military restructuring.

• Egypt’s Major General Hassan el-Roweiny unexpectedly resigned from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces on Tuesday just days after President Morsi replaced five other positions.

Arguments & Analysis

‘The Rise of Settler Terrorism‘ (Daniel Byman and Natan Sachs, Foreign Affairs)

"Late this past June, a group of Israeli settlers in the West Bank defaced and burned a mosque in the small West Bank village of Jabaa. Graffiti sprayed by the vandals warned of a "war" over the planned evacuation, ordered by the Israeli Supreme Court, of a handful of houses illegally built on private Palestinian land near the Israeli settlement of Beit El. The torching of the mosque was the fourth such attack in 18 months and part of a wider trend of routine violence committed by radical settlers against innocent Palestinians, Israeli security personnel, and mainstream settler leaders — all aimed at intimidating perceived enemies of the settlement project."

‘Morsy, the Coup and the Revolution: Reading between the Red Lines‘ (Hesham Sallam, Jadaliyya)

"President Mohamed Morsy’s recent decision to force Egypt’s most prominent military leaders into retirement has been lauded as a major step toward the demilitarization of the Egyptian state. For some optimists, his decision represents the triumph of the revolution over its adversaries inside the military establishment. There is indeed little doubt that this event will prove monumental and may be the prelude to a new era in civil-military relations in Egypt.

‘Tripoli’s Troubles to Come‘ (Maren Milligan, Middle East Research and Information Project)

"Tripoli is the epicenter of a high-stakes conflict unfolding in Lebanon. In 2012 alone, armed clashes have erupted six times, in mid-February, thrice in May, again in early June and most recently in late July, between Sunnis and ‘Alawis there. The firefights in Lebanon’s second city, a port town of some 500,000 on a head of land jutting from the northern coast, have added to fears stoked by the proximity of the increasingly lethal civil war in Syria. The three days of battles in May left 11 dead; the July skirmishes took two more lives, and have put the population on edge."

–By Jennifer Parker and Mary Casey