IMF managing director arrested, accused of sexual attack

[vanlose kid]

Strauss-Kahn New York Case May Curb Libertine Ways of Powerful French Men
By Helene Fouquet -

Strauss-Kahn Lawyer Says Hotel Sex-Assault Charges Untrue

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, right, with attorney Benjamin Brafman during his arraignment in Manhattan criminal court in New York. Photographer: Andrew Gombert/Pool via Bloomberg

The sexual escapades of powerful men in France have always been met with Gallic shrugs. Not anymore.

The arrest in New York of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of attempted rape is forcing men to watch what they say and emboldening women to challenge the modern-day version of France’s “droit de cuissage,” a feudal practice giving masters the right to have sex with female servants. It’s prompting introspection in the media over whether its laissez-faire attitude toward private lives of those in power helps them act with impunity.

“Since power is often thought of as an aphrodisiac, there was a sort of acceptance of men’s excesses toward women,” said Rachel Mulot, a member of a feminist group called “La Barbe,” or The Beard, which on May 22 joined protests in Paris against the “dominant male.” The Strauss-Kahn case may serve as a trigger to help victims of sexual assaults to break the “taboo of rape” in France, she said.

Strauss-Kahn, 62, was indicted May 19 on charges of criminal sex, attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching of a 32-year-old maid at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan. The former French finance minister, who had been a leading contender for next year’s presidential elections, denies the allegations and will plead not guilty, his lawyers say. DSK, as he’s known in France, is under house arrest in Manhattan.

After DSK

Early reactions from male French commentators to the maid’s allegations sparked outrage. Jean-Francois Kahn, founder of weekly magazine Marianne and a witness at Strauss-Kahn’s third marriage in 1991, laughed as he said on state-owned radio station France Culture, that “there may have been a careless action, how should I put it… the shagging of a servant.” He later apologized.

For France, “there will be a before and an after DSK,” former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was quoted as saying in Le Figaro newspaper over the weekend. “We are not saints, but our actions need to be coherent with our thinking. Those in power need to be exemplary.”

While sexual assault and attempted rape allegations that Strauss-Kahn is accused of in New York are also crimes in his home country, the French have been more indulgent when it comes to the indiscretions of their politicians.

“Earlier, kings had their droit de cuissage with servants in palaces; this looked like a powerful person trying it on a maid in a New York hotel,” Jean Quatremer, a journalist with newspaper Liberation, said in an interview.

‘Sexus Politicus’

Unlike in the U.S., where sexual scandals have forced the resignation of four members of the House of Representatives in the past five years and ruined the careers of a former vice- presidential nominee and presidential candidate, sex is treated as private matter in France. No French politician in recent years has been brought down by a sex scandal.

In a 2006 book called “Sexus Politicus,” co-authors Christophe Deloire and Christophe Dubois show how sex and politics are inextricable in France, even though there is little in the press to prove it.

Former President Felix Faure died in 1899 in the arms of his mistress, the wife of painter Adolphe Steinheil. President Jacques Chirac’s nocturnal adventures were widely known, the authors said. “Do you know where my husband is tonight?” his wife is supposed to have asked the chauffeur, the book said. During Francois Mitterrand’s reign, it was an open secret that he had fathered a daughter with his mistress.

Just last year, Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand, who admitted to having paid for sex with boys during trips to Asia, kept his job after saying the boys were of legal age.

Laissez-Faire

The laissez-faire attitude gives powerful people in France a sense of impunity, said Claude Katz an attorney, specializing in sexual harassment cases.

The Strauss-Kahn affair “can move the lines slowly but surely,” Katz said. “It will empower victims of sexual abuse in France because if a maid can speak against a powerful man, others will have a stronger voice.”

Laws reinforcing women’s rights and safety are relatively recent in France. The law making rape a crime dates back only to 1980. Earlier decrees were based on 19th century moral codes. A law on sexual-harassment was approved in 1992 and one on moral harassment was passed in 2002.

The last bill to fight violence against women was passed last year. Government studies show there are 75,000 rapes a year in the country. Only about 10 percent of the victims filed complaints, women’s groups say.

Soul Searching

The sufferer is “often seen as a bit guilty,” said Chantal Brunel, a lawmaker from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement party who submitted the 2010 bill on violence. “Some people said the maid ‘wanted it,’ which was stunning and revolting. The reality of a possible rape has broken the code of silence. ”

Brunel said the mood has begun to change among lawmakers at the National Assembly, the lower chamber of Parliament.

“The men’s views and jokes have changed,” she said. “You can sense that they are and will be much more careful from now on and we won’t hear as many sexist remarks.”

The press is doing some soul searching of its own.

“In this country of sleazy men, will we finally dare to say that macho behavior breeds impunity?” Christine Lambert, a reporter for Marianne, wrote in the May 21 issue.

Liberation’s Quatremer called Strauss-Kahn’s relations with women a “problem” in a 2007 article, before he took the IMF job, saying “he often skates close to harassment.”

‘Cultural Leap’

Debates on the media since the DSK case have focused on whether journalists owe their readers more than what they are often ready to divulge on politician’s private lives.

The effects of Strauss-Kahn’s case also may be felt in other walks of French life, said Catherine Mabileau, who heads international human resources for Roseland, New-Jersey based ADP Inc., a payroll-services company.

“We’re not like in the U.S. where work relations are extremely respectful, codified in ways that sometimes kill spontaneity,” she said. “But we are changing what is acceptable and what can no longer be accepted. There is a cultural leap here to be made.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-2 ... h-men.html

*

[vanlose kid]

Strauss-Kahn DNA Matches Semen on Maid's Shirt
By SEAN GARDINER

Tests found a match between a DNA sample submitted by former International Monetary Fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and semen found on the shirt of the hotel maid who told police she had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Strauss-Kahn, law-enforcement officials said.

Benjamin Brafman, one of Mr. Strauss-Kahn's attorneys, declined to comment when told of the DNA test results.

The French economist and presidential hopeful was indicted Thursday for sexual assault and attempted rape.

He submitted to the DNA test after his arrest. Lawyers for Mr. Strauss-Kahn have said in court that there is no evidence of a forced sexual encounter.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62 years old, was taken off an Air France flight on May 14 after a 32-year-old maid at the Sofitel New York hotel in Midtown Manhattan reported to police that she had been sexually assaulted around noon that day after she entered Mr. Strauss-Kahn's room to clean it. Mr. Strauss-Kahn subsequently resigned his position with the IMF but has maintained his innocence.

On Friday, after spending most of the week being held without bail at Rikers Island jail, Mr. Strauss-Kahn was released on a bail package that required him to post $1 million cash, a $5 million bond and that be placed under 24-hour, guarded-home confinement.

Write to Sean Gardiner at sean.gardiner@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 69862.html

[vanlose kid]

*

the fact that DSK is sold as a socialist is irrelevant.
he's a salesman. he sells IMF policies. he's the kid glove on the iron fist.
that was the whole point: revamping of the IMF.
and the IMF is just the foreign arm of the Fed and Treasury.
Tammy and the Bernanke just cut their "loss" immediately.
the janitor f*d up and was let go pronto.
Goldman Sachs will decide who the new salesman will be.

*

[vanlose kid]

The Strauss-Kahn scandals we ignore
David Cronin

... Beyond some cosmetic changes to policy, Strauss-Kahn has continued to sign the same ruinous prescriptions for many economies that his predecessors have signed since the institution was hijacked by acolytes of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. ...

there never was a time when the IMF was a force for good. unless by good you mean good for the US, but if that's what you mean then it has always been a force for good. which again means that the concept "good" has been completely perverted.

*

[lupercal]

You've accused (in a 'nice way') the author, Dave Cronin,of being a mockingbird, i.e. a CIA stooge.

More likely an MI6 stooge. Look spooks aren't dumb and they're experts at plucking the emotional strings and this guy Cronin looks to me like every inch a spook: evidently he a) writes for the Spook Guardian and b) staged a bogus "citizens arrest" of Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman at the start of a press conference at the EU in Brussels on the charge of "apartheid." If he was serious he would have found a specific actionable crime that Lieberman had committed, but he didn't, which suggests to me that he was engaged in some kind of bogus theater, which suggests to me that he's some kind of stooge.

Anyway his article is pure spookery for the reasons I already mentioned and I've read enough to know it when I see it. If you find it "intensely irritating" to have bullshit called on bullshit articles I suggest that you don't post them. Seems simple enough, no?

[kenoma]

Anyway his article is pure spookery for the reasons I already mentioned and I've read enough to know it when I see it. If you find it "intensely irritating" to have bullshit called on bullshit articles I suggest that you don't post them. Seems simple enough, no?

Simple. Yes. You are very fucking simple.
Anyway, I have had enough of your contrived stupidity. You're on ignore for me. Continue your relentless fuckwittery at your own leisure.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Yets here's my source:

INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION

ITUC OnLine
084/140411

IMF’s Strauss-Kahn backs ITUC analysis on global threat of unemployment and inequality

there's a clue

I thought I responded to this ... anyway.

What about the rest? Seriously you're playin semantic games over a trivial definition of words in order to make false statements. But there you go. The article you have in that quote also refers to a debate. I'm struggling with seeing an honesty malfunction in my comments and beginning to wonder if there's one in yours. Maybe we need a poll.

[DoYouEverWonder]

Anyway his article is pure spookery for the reasons I already mentioned and I've read enough to know it when I see it. If you find it "intensely irritating" to have bullshit called on bullshit articles I suggest that you don't post them. Seems simple enough, no?

Simple. Yes. You are very fucking simple.
Anyway, I have had enough of your contrived stupidity. You're on ignore for me. Continue your relentless fuckwittery at your own leisure.

I wonder if Lupie is any relation to BTA? If they're not, they probably went to the same school of advanced trolling.

[lupercal]

^ sing it Judy:

[lupercal]

A Pakistani perspective:
........................
Why Strauss-Kahn had to go?
Ali Ashraf Khan - Pakistan Observer - Tuesday, May 24, 2011

(snip)

So, Strauss-Kahn was trying to move the bank in a more positive direction, a direction that didn’t require that countries leave their economies open to the ravages of foreign capital that moves in swiftly-pushing up prices and creating bubbles, and departs just as fast, leaving behind the scourge of high unemployment, plunging demand, hobbled industries, and deep recession.

Strauss-Kahn had set out on a “kinder and gentler” path, one that would not force foreign leaders to privatize their state-owned industries or crush their labour unions. Naturally, his actions were not warmly received by the banker’s mafia and multi national corporations who look to the IMF to provide legitimacy to their ongoing plunder of the rest of the world. These are the people who think that the current policies are “just fine” because they produce the desired results they’re looking for, which is bigger profits for themselves and deeper poverty for everyone else.

Here’s Stiglitz, this time was imparting the “kiss of death” to his friend Strauss-Kahn: “Strauss-Kahn is proving himself a sagacious leader of the IMF”. As Strauss-Kahn concluded in his speech to the Brookings Institution shortly before the Fund’s recent meeting: "Ultimately, employment and equity are building blocks of economic stability and prosperity, of political stability and peace.”

This would go to the heart of the IMF’s mandate. It must be placed at the heart of the policy agenda. So, now the IMF was going to be an agent for the redistribution of wealth for strengthening collective bargaining, restructuring mortgages, restructuring tax and spending policies to stimulate the economy through long-term investments, and implementing social policies that ensure opportunity for all” writes Stiglitz. Can you imagine how much this kind of talk unnerves the Big Money guys? How long do you think they’d put up with this claptrap before they decided that Strauss-Kahn needed to take a permanent vacation?

Not long. Check this out from World Campaign and judge for yourself whether Strauss-Kahn had become a “liability” that had to be eliminated so the business of extracting wealth from the poorest people on earth could continue apace: For decades, the International Monetary Fund has been associated claiming anti-poverty, hunger and development activists as the poster child of everything wrong with the rich world’s fiscal management of the rest of the world, particularly of poor nations, with its seemingly one-dimensional focus on belt-tightening fiscal policies as the price of its loans, and a trickle-down economic philosophy that has helped traditional wealthy elites maintain the status quo while the majority stayed poor and powerless, a real reflection is Pakistan’s economic and financial situation today directly attributed to the battery of its imported financial managers from the World Bank.

With a world increasingly in revolution because of such realities, and after the global financial crisis in the wake of regulatory and other policies that had worked after the Great Depression being largely abandoned, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has made nothing less than stunning observations about how the IMF and the world need to change policies.

In an article published in the Washington Post, Howard Schneider writes that after the 2008 crash led toward regulation again of financial companies and government involvement in the economy, for Strauss-Khan “the job is only half done,” as he has been leading the fund through a fundamental rethinking of its economic theory. ‘The pendulum will swing from the market to the state. But, it also has a dark side, a large and growing chasm between the rich and the poor.” a fundamental rethinking of economic theory” and a greater “distribution of income” more stringent “regulation of financial companies”, “central banks need to do more to prevent lending and asset prices from expanding too fast”. With all this Strauss-Kahn had signed his own death warrant. There’s not going to be any revolution at the IMF. That’s baloney.

Our financial managers have not been able to convince the IMF to abandon conditionality in the light of new economic theory coined by Strauss-Kahn in its approach towards Pakistan suffering mainly due to IMF strings, whose economy is gripped with highest recession and unable to bear the burden of new taxation measures, whether be it RGST or any new gimmick, recent tour of Prime Minister Gillani to China has met with uncalled for remarks from US, who do not want any other country extending a helping hand towards Pakistan and recent Chinese announcement to extend project assistance and transfer of technology to bring Pakistan back on the rail and cheap supply of electricity.
and in case anyone suspects this guy's bona fides:
Which is our immediate requirement, Iran has offered to complete Oil & Gas pipeline project to boost Pakistan economically, we must immediately adopt Islamic Social Justice programme as the stepping stone for the future economic and financial well being and not bogged down to Western muscle twisting as seen in the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. God may bless us all.

http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=93893

[Peachtree Pam]

EXCLUSIVE: Strauss-Kahn Told Maid 'Don’t You Know Who I Am?' During Alleged Sex Attack

By Jana Winter

Published May 23, 2011 | FoxNews.com


Dominique Strauss-Kahn told a New York City hotel maid, “Don’t you know who I am! Don’t you know who I am?” while pinning her down during the alleged sexual assault, law enforcement sources close to the investigation told FoxNews.com.

That and other details of the maid's complaint to police emerged Monday as police reportedly confirmed that disgraced ex-International Monetary Fund boss Strauss-Kahn's DNA was found on the maid's shirt.

Authorities were able to match a DNA sample taken from Strauss-Kahn with semen on the shirt, law enforcement officials told the Wall Street Journal. Someone briefed on the ongoing investigation confirmed to FoxNews.com that Strauss-Kahn's DNA was found on the maid's uniform.

Strauss-Kahn, who is out on $1 million bail, faces sexual assault charges in the alleged attack.

Sources told FoxNews.com that the 32-year-old African immigrant repeatedly told her alleged attacker, “Please, please stop. No!”

The sources said she had no idea who was staying in the $3,000-a-night junior presidential suite until after the alleged attack, which lasted approximately thirty minutes.

According to the maid’s account, as told to investigators and relayed to FoxNews.com, the maid entered the room and was confronted by a naked Strauss-Kahn, who emerged from the bathroom and began grabbing the maid’s breasts while trying to pin her down on his bed.

The maid is deeply religious, investigators said, and immediately put her hands over her eyes so she wouldn’t see the naked Frenchman. He ran to her, began grabbing her breasts and pulling her down the hallway inside the luxury suite toward the bedroom.

The blood-stained white bed sheets were later taken into evidence by police.

The maid said she tried a variety of tactics to get herself out of the room and away from Strauss-Kahn. She said, “my manager is in the hallway,” which he wasn’t -- but the former IMF chief wasn’t scared off. The single mother allegedly told the Frenchman that the job was important to her and any conflict with a hotel guest would result in her losing her job.

“Please stop. I need my job, I can’t lose my job, don’t do this. I will lose my job. Please, please stop! Please stop!” she told Strauss-Kahn, according to law enforcement sources.

Strauss-Kahn allegedly responded: “No, baby. Don’t worry, you’re not going to lose your job. Please, baby, don’t worry,” Strauss-Kahn responded, according to investigators. “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I am?”

While she continued to plead with him, begging him to stop, he allegedly continued to attack her, dragging her down the hallway.

Ben Brafman, an attorney for Strauss-Kahn, said he couldn’t comment.

Erin Duggan, spokeswoman for New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance also declined to comment.

Jeffrey Shapiro, attorney for the maid, did not immediately return requests for messages left on his cell phone, at his office and via email.

When she pushed him away and ran toward the door, she slipped on a newspaper bag on the floor and fell to her knees. That’s when Strauss-Kahn came up behind her and forced her to perform oral sex, sources said.

The maid finally escaped from her alleged attacker by pushing him into the sharp edge of an armoire in the hotel suite. Sources said the Frenchman has a gash on his back where he hit the armoire.

She ran into the service corridor on the floor where co-workers found her and tried to console her. She was shaking profusely and unable to even hold a cup of water, sources said.

Strauss-Kahn also made passes at two separate female concierges during his 24-hour stay. When he checked in, he grabbed and massaged the hand of the concierge and invited her to his room. She declined. Later on that night, Strauss-Kahn called downstairs and invited a different female concierge up to his room. “Come upstairs, I’ve got a beautiful room, a great bottle of wine.” That employee also declined the Frenchman’s advances, sources said.

Sources close to the maid described her as a model employee with a pristine work record who doesn’t drink or smoke and rushes home after work to take care of her children.

On Saturday, May 14, sources said the Sofitel hotel maid followed hotel protocol, knocking three times while yelling “housekeeping” at increasingly loud volume before finally ringing the doorbell. There was no answer from inside the room, and it was after noon checkout time. Sources said the former IMF chief now indicted on sexual assault charges did not request a late checkout and should not have been in his room, which he’d rented for one night.

Additionally, a room service employee cleared Strauss-Kahn’s room and found the room empty minutes before the maid entered. Investigators said they believe the man known as the “Great Seducer” may have intentionally hid from the room service employee, knowing that the maid would enter the room shortly after.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/23/ex ... ex-attack/

[Stephen Morgan]

Naomi Wolf: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2 ... e-charges/

[Nordic]

Naomi Wolf: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2 ... e-charges/

Interesting, and especially so, considering it's by Naomi Wolf, who any feminist should respect.

Especially this quote:

In other words, ours is increasingly an age of geopolitics by blackmail. Why, after all, were U.S. operatives asked to secure the “biometrics” and DNA of subjects abroad, as some of the U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks were revealed?

We have that, along with the fact, that I posted earlier, that DNA evidence can now be faked. You want fake sperm, you got it. Fake blood? You got it. All you need is a DNA sample which could be from anywhere -- spit on a coffee cup, a hair .......

If we put 2 and 2 together, along with the other things Wolf points out, we can't rule out the possibility that's what happened here.

I stayed out of this thread for days and days, because it got ridiculous. I see very little open-mindedness on display in this thread, instead I see prejudice, strawmen, wild accusations of all different kinds .....

I'm the first one who would like to see all the wealthy bankers drowned at the bottom of the ocean, and I doubt this guy is any less guilty of crimes than any of the others. But bad guys do knock off other bad guys. Happens all the time.

[Joe Hillshoist]

I'm the first one who would like to see all the wealthy bankers drowned at the bottom of the ocean, and I doubt this guy is any less guilty of crimes than any of the others. But bad guys do knock off other bad guys. Happens all the time.

I don't think anyone's saying that doesn't happen. I thought it was assumed over 25 pages back that was a possibility.

To claim they knocked off a good guy cos he was about to turn the IMF into Robin Hood in suits isn't quite the same thing tho is it.

You know what would help? Something other than speculation that he was set up. Some sort of evidence. And by evidence I don't mean bash the maid. And I don't mean nicely worded opinions that don't reflect current events.

I'd be a lot happier to take the idea he was set up seriously if it was presented credibly.

Most of this argument is about whether or not Strasse-Kahn was actually trying to effect some meaningful change at the imf that would actually counter international corporate bastardry. If he was "he'd" be going after Goldman Sachs instead of Greek workers pensions.

[Peachtree Pam]

I'm the first one who would like to see all the wealthy bankers drowned at the bottom of the ocean, and I doubt this guy is any less guilty of crimes than any of the others. But bad guys do knock off other bad guys. Happens all the time.

I don't think anyone's saying that doesn't happen. I thought it was assumed over 25 pages back that was a possibility.

To claim they knocked off a good guy cos he was about to turn the IMF into Robin Hood in suits isn't quite the same thing tho is it.

You know what would help? Something other than speculation that he was set up. Some sort of evidence. And by evidence I don't mean bash the maid. And I don't mean nicely worded opinions that don't reflect current events.

I'd be a lot happier to take the idea he was set up seriously if it was presented credibly.

Most of this argument is about whether or not Strasse-Kahn was actually trying to effect some meaningful change at the imf that would actually counter international corporate bastardry. If he was "he'd" be going after Goldman Sachs instead of Greek workers pensions.