IMF managing director arrested, accused of sexual attack

[barracuda]

Wow, I didn't know Michelle Obama was 6'1"

She's five-foot, eleven inches tall, which is why she has largely forsaken stiletto heels. Even in a medium heel, she's as tall as Barack, so she tends to go out with him in flats. But not always.

It seems you're still hoping DSK turns out to be a hobbit rather than a horny-toad.

[Nordic]

Wow, I didn't know Michelle Obama was 6'1"

She's five-foot, eleven inches tall, which is why she has largely forsaken stiletto heels. Even in a medium heel, she's as tall as Barack, so she tends to go out with him in flats. But not always.

It seems you're still hoping DSK turns out to be a hobbit rather than a horny-toad.

I couldn't resist. I'm sure DSK wears shoes that make him taller, like Tom Cruise.

I swear, in spite of all the pictures here, EVERY TIME I'm flipping channels on the TV and I see the guy, he looks like he's about 5'2!! Maybe it's just some weird synchronicity with my brain and the TV, because I barely ever even watch any mainstream stuff, but yesterday I caught a clip of him being taken out of a car, and he was BARELY as tall as the car, and the guy pulling him out was a good foot taller than he was!

So either it was a mighty big tall car (and it looked like a Crown Vic or a Town Car) or else ...... fuck I don't know. The pictures you post don't jibe with what I've seen on video, but then again I haven't seen THAT much video. But 100% of the video I have seen, he looks like a dinky little fellow.

And I'm not "hoping" for anything except that the truth comes out. That's all I ever hope for. My expectations are low.

People who do try to get away from The Almighty Dollar have a bad habit of turning into bad guys. Some of them are bad guys anyway, (this guy's probably bad to begin with) but you know what I'm saying.

[seemslikeadream]

[quoteStrauss-Kahn’s Lawyers Claim to Have Evidence Undermining Accuser
By JOHN ELIGON
Published: May 26, 2011

Lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn have contended that they possess information that they believe will undermine the credibility of the hotel housekeeper who has accused their client of sexual assault.

The suggestion, contained in a three-page letter from the lawyers to Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, was almost entirely devoted to the lawyers’ complaints about unauthorized disclosures of the case to the press. But it included a reference to unspecified information that they said would hurt the prosecution’s case.

In the letter, sent Wednesday and made public Thursday, the lawyers, William W. Taylor III and Benjamin Brafman, said “our client’s right to a fair trial is being compromised by the public disclosure of prejudicial material even before these materials have been disclosed to his counsel.”

“Indeed,” they added, “were we intent on improperly feeding the media frenzy, we could now release substantial information that in our view would seriously undermine the quality of this prosecution and also gravely undermine the credibility of the complainant in this case.”

The letter seemed to serve as a form of legal gamesmanship — allowing Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers to hint at damaging information about the housekeeper without revealing it. Mr. Brafman declined to elaborate on that information.

Mr. Vance’s office responded with its own letter, noting it was dismayed that Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers “chose to inject in the public record your claim that you possess information that might negatively impact the case and ‘gravely’ undermine” the woman’s credibility.

The letter, by Joan Illuzzi-Orbon, the chief of the hate crimes unit, who was just appointed to the case, indicated that prosecutors knew of no such information. “If you really do possess the kind of information you suggest that you do, we trust you will forward it immediately to the district attorney’s office,” Ms. Illuzzi-Orbon wrote.

Lawyers for the accuser did not return calls seeking comment.

Attacking her credibility may be a crucial part of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s legal strategy. Although there have been leaks that DNA evidence ties him to a sex act, it would not indicate whether that act was forced or consensual — putting greater weight on the credibility of the woman and of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who stepped down last week as head of the International Monetary Fund.

Both sides have begun the process of gathering background evidence on Mr. Strauss-Kahn and the housekeeper, who said Mr. Strauss-Kahn attacked her May 14 after she entered his room at the Sofitel New York to clean it.

Prosecutors, for example, have said they have been in contact with “more than one” woman who said she had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Strauss-Kahn; at one court appearance, a prosecutor said, without elaboration, Mr. Strauss-Kahn had “a propensity for impulsive criminal conduct.”

The defense has hired the firm Guidepost Solutions to investigate the housekeeper’s background and examine any weaknesses in her account.

Mr. Taylor and Mr. Brafman also appeared to be using the letter as a way to try to speed up the discovery process, in which the prosecution turns over evidence to the defense.

In addition to asking Mr. Vance to try to stop the leaks, the lawyers asked that his office “promptly provide us with copies of all of the scientific reports that have been completed and have already been leaked to various media outlets.”

The defense was referring to reports that Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s DNA was found on the uniform of the hotel housekeeper.

The letter also asked the prosecution to turn over all police reports and formal statements made by the accuser because her statements already had been reported by the news media.

The letter said the leaked information had been attributed to sources in the New York Police Department. Asked about the lawyers’ contention that the police were leaking information, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said, “I certainly hope that’s not the case.”

The lawyers also cited a “wide array of prejudicial information about Mr. Strauss-Kahn, including information which, even if true, would never be admissible in any court.” [/quote]

[Peachtree Pam]

Excellent article on rape from Ottawa Citizen

A disturbingly familiar concept


By Janice Kennedy, The Ottawa CitizenMay 28, 2011 8:01 AM

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/distu ... story.html

Anne Sinclair, the wealthy and influential wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, once said what she thought of her husband's womanizing: "I'm rather proud of it. A politician needs to be a seducer."

Who cares that DSK-style seduction, according to 2002 victim Tristane Banon, apparently included chasing a young journalist around the room, tearing at her clothes and, later, sending her the repeated text message, "Are you scared of me?"

Seduction. Right. Or maybe "masterful wooing," the phrase Keith Spicer used recently in his explication of Parisian mating rituals.

Which is not to be confused with rape. Because rape is such an ugly word, isn't it? Four letters in a single aggressive syllable, it sounds like an assault. Nobody likes talking about it. Nobody likes thinking about it.

And nobody likes picturing powerful, worldly men -men with money, fame and smarts -as no better than brutal thugs in sweatstained uniforms raping whole villages of women and children.

Still, the subversive mind insists on entertaining this thought: If rape is essentially the vicious exercise of one person's power over another, then what's the difference?

In a nicely confluential turn of current events, an international conference on rape took place this week, just as Strauss-Kahn was settling into his secure New York digs, awaiting the next step in his legal journey, and just as the rest of the world ramped up its discussion of l'affaire DSK, including the possibility of colluding cultures that excuse powerful men just about anything.

The conference, which wrapped up Wednesday in Montebello, was organized by Nobel laureates to examine the critical issue of rape as a weapon of war. "Women Forging a New Security: Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict" raised awareness about something most of us have never considered. Rape on a massive scale -as a weapon? Really?

Because we imagine that our civilization norms are ubiquitous, the very idea seems preposterous. Yet there is abundant tragic proof that it is not only happening, but increasing. Military shows of force in third-world conflicts are frequently demonstrated through rape campaigns.

In Africa alone, hundreds of thousands of girls and women have been brutally and systematically assaulted by enemy soldiers.

There is also a phenomenon called, amazingly, "corrective rape." That involves attacks on lesbian women to "cure" them of their sexual orientation. In South Africa, it has apparently reached critical levels, and an online petition for action to President Jacob Zuma has been organized by Avaaz, the activist group that lobbies for human rights and freedoms worldwide.

Still, what's that to us? Rape as war weapon or tool for behaviour modification is a ludicrous concept in most western minds, something distinctly foreign -except for the underlying commonality. And that makes it look disturbingly familiar.

Why? Because all rape is the brutal abuse of power.

Sometimes it looks just as sinister as it is. Other times, it wears good suits, spends lots of money and has the means, should a victim resist, to make her life hell on Earth.

"Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac," Henry Kissinger opined. But the truth is, power creates an imbalance, and unscrupulous powerful men can exploit it, not unlike those authority figures who prey on children.

No matter what aphrodisiacal pretence of mutual consent is involved, it is assault, pure and simple. It doesn't matter if there are men who choose not to recognize the difference. It doesn't matter if there are women who give them a free pass. It doesn't matter if there are media and cultural norms that view it all with a nudge-nudgewink-wink.

Rape is rape. And we won't solve the issue of its use as a weapon of war, or as a social "corrective," if we don't understand its fundamental nature in our own neat, civilized world. Whatever culture it chooses to wrap itself in, it remains a violent abuse of power. And whatever its perpetrators -or enablers -choose to call it, it remains criminal.

If any good has come out of the DSK affair, it is this: People right around the world -including Paris -are starting to talk about the nature of sexual assault, as opposed to seduction, and question the cultural norms that encourage it.

Talk is good. If we care about making things better, we cannot let rape be hidden away, a shaming thing that can only enter the conversation in hushed tones. Nobody expects a quick fix -we're dealing with millennia of cultures and some powerful primal stuff to boot -but women and men everywhere can be optimistic.

Through international conferences, through awareness campaigns, through the discussions we have with one another online, at work, at home around the kitchen table, the dialogue has begun.

And with dialogue, no matter how ugly the topic, there is always hope.

[Kate]

I haven't been around lately because of emergency situations at home which made it impossible to not only post, but read regularly at RI as well.

Having spent the last day or so catching up on this story by reading the entire thread, I hope no one will mind if I make comments relating to much earlier pages which no one has spoken about more recently.

First off, regarding the two poles of discussion between "set-up" and "violent crime" --- as some others have said, the two options need not be polar opposites at all.

It seems that Sofitel is not just a very fancy hotel, but that it is also FRENCH. Would this perhaps mean that powerful French citizens would tend to choose this luxury hotel frequently? They might "feel at home" in an establishment where the staff is bilingual Eng/French, and where French customs in food, drink, forms of politeness, etc. are a matter of course.

This being true, then, and especially if it turns out to be ALSO true that DSK had been a frequent guest, then it would NOT be surprising if one or more of Sarkozy's "oppo" researchers made it part of his/their job descriptions to cultivate "friendships" with staff at Sofitel. Right? I can easily imagine a "friendship" where a staff member was told to keep said "oppo" dude(s) well apprised of any potentially damaging info regarding DSK.

I can therefore EASILY imagine that once the housekeeper told the rest of the housekeeping & security staff what happened, that word spread sufficiently (including to management), and that a good MANY key staff heard there was an emergency unfolding regarding accusations against DSK, and that an international phone call to "oppo dude(s)" would not take long to place at all, right? That could explain why DSK's political enemies heard so quickly that DSK was about to be arrested, posthaste. It's also not a stretch to think that perhaps a VARIETY of intelligence agencies might have contacts (or perhaps even actual agents) on the staff of a hotel which caters to high-muckety-muck "elite" international customers.

So, while my comment may be redundant (in that others have said the two "poles" of explanation are not incompatible), for now I just wanted to flesh out in more detail how truly EASY I think it would be for DSK to simultaneously be a criminal (if he is) -- AND -- for things to seem JUST LIKE a "set-up" in that DSK's enemies could hear about the goings-on almost in "real time."

There a couple of other things I'd like to mention, but I have to go do physical therapy right now. I hope I have time to come back here later this evening, but if not, it'll be a.s.a.p.

And last, but not at ALL least, I want to thank everyone in this thread who has debated this topic sanely, rationally, and with compassion for the woman who told both hotel staff and law enforcement what I know must have been a very painful/difficult story to tell, under extremely trying circumstances.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

It's also not a stretch to think that perhaps a VARIETY of intelligence agencies might have contacts (or perhaps even actual agents) on the staff of a hotel which caters to high-muckety-muck "elite" international customers.

I think that is critically important to the equation.

There's still no reason to assume the accusation is anything but spook discrediting for news cycle management.
The stakes are too high.
See 'Jamie Leigh Jones vs Halliburton' 6/12/11 court date + Arnold's wandering penis.

Arnold has been a CIA meme tool to blur the US-Nazi relationship since he was dialed into CIA-Hollywood as Lucien Conein the Barbarian and then made a White House recruiting gym rat under Bush One, son of a Nazi financier named Prescott. 'Hotel Terminus' was about Klaus Barbie hint hint.

The maid 'accuser' also happens to perfectly match the type of immigrant that US spooks lean on HARD to coerce them into assets.

[Joe Hillshoist]

There's still no reason to assume the accusation is anything but spook discrediting for news cycle management.

FFS Hugh.

Thats about as dumb as anything thats been written on this thread yet.

The stakes are too high.

Nice to know your priorities.

The maid 'accuser' also happens to perfectly match the type of immigrant that US spooks lean on HARD to coerce them into assets.

So cos of how she looks you assume she is guilty ... of something.

Thats just fucked.

[vanlose kid]

hmmm...

Two Distractions With One DSK
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/29/2011 17:10 -0400


Who needs birds and stones when you have an insolvent fiat-based world and a IMF head fond of single (and/or) double-dipping. If anyone is still confused about the ritual sacrifice of the head of the world's bailout organization (if only on paper), here is Bill Buckler explaining how the immaculate timing of DSK's being dragged out of a plane and made into a full blown media farce achieved two very substantial targets: "First, it removes the “international” aspect of the moves the EU is making to damp down the ongoing Greek (and others) debt crisis. That turns the “sovereign debt crisis” into a strictly European problem and makes sure the headlines keep coming. Second, the stoush of who the next IMF head will be is now predicted to last until (at least) June 30. This takes the spotlight off the winding down of the Fed’s QE2, which is scheduled to end on - that’s right - June 30." David Copperfield would be so proud...

From William Buckler's latest edition of The Privateer:

Osama Bin Laden was simply “taken out” by US armed forces. That’s the official line anyway. IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn did not suffer so terminal a fate. He was simply stung, hauled off to jail and removed from his post. As with the Bin Laden episode, the timing could not have been improved upon. Strauss-Kahn was removed just as he was on his way to a meeting with European Union (EU) and Euro zone officials to “deal with” the latest flare up of the Greek debt drama. Presto, the Greek debt drama duly worsened, commodity prices fell some more (for a few days), the US Dollar rebounded and the Treasury’s debt limit was hit without a tremor.

As to Mr Strass-Kahn’s “indiscretion”, the entire thing is peurile in the extreme. In what has been called the “honey trap”, it had little to do with removing him as a potential rival to President Sarkosy of France in the next French elections. The whole idea was to put the IMF in disarray. This served and serves two purposes. First, it removes the “international” aspect of the moves the EU is making to damp down the ongoing Greek (and others) debt crisis. That turns the “sovereign debt crisis” into a strictly European problem and makes sure the headlines keep coming. Second, the stoush of who the next IMF head will be is now predicted to last until (at least) June 30. This takes the spotlight off the winding down of the Fed’s QE2, which is scheduled to end on - that’s right - June 30.

The IMF is usually portrayed in the mainstream media as a “Washington-based” international financial organisation. It is. There is only one nation which has enough voting power within the IMF to torpedo ANY major decision it makes all by itself. That nation is the US. Substantial IMF policy actions call for an 85 percent “approval” vote amongst the member nations. The US voting “quota” is 17 percent.

The only substantial IMF change would be a change in these voting quotas. The US quota has not changed. When the “emerging nations” won an increased vote, they won it from Europe, not the US.

Any questions?

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/two-di ... ns-one-dsk

question whether a sting on DSK was necessary to achieve that... most people, even most sting theorists, think DSK and the IMF is a force for good.

*

edit: what i want to say is that what's happening would've happened regardless. it's been in the pipeline for ages and DSK would've worked for it. his fall (for whatever reasons) only provide extra whiffs to the smoke and mirrors that were necessary, not that they are really, most people don't care what the IMF, ECB etc. do. most people support them. – unless of course you buy the theory that a few critics can move "them" into this elaborate theater for the sake of the fringe few.

*

[Joe Hillshoist]

Egyptian banker Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar arrested on sex charges

A former chairman of one of Egypt's major banks has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing a maid at a Manhattan hotel, just weeks after the arrest of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on similar allegations, police said.

Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar was accused of sexually abusing the maid at the Pierre, a luxury hotel near Central Park and Fifth Avenue on the upper east side, police said.

The maid was called to Omar's room on Sunday night to drop off tissues, police said. But once inside the 74-year-old's room, police said Omar would not let her leave and touched her inappropriately. The encounter was not reported until Monday when Omar was arrested, police said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... ex-charges

[lupercal]

Sarkozy kept close tabs on Strauss-Kahn, says French daily
By FRANCE 24 (text)  - Latest update: 26/05/2011  


French daily Le Monde has reported that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s beefed-up domestic intelligence team helped him strategically leak incriminating information about Dominique Strauss-Kahn when the Socialist starting rising in the polls.

The French have been known to be indifferent to the private foibles of their politicians.

But that did not keep President Nicolas Sarkozy from keeping close tabs on Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his recent history of sexual misbehaviour, according to French daily newspaper Le Monde.

The newspaper reported on Wednesday that thanks to a newly reinforced internal intelligence agency, the Sarkozy administration is privy to “intimate secrets” of rival politicians. I

n the case of Strauss-Kahn, Sarkozy’s aides recently alerted the press to the existence of a document they said would be damaging to the Socialist and former IMF chief at a moment when as he was polling strongly and therefore posing a threat to the sitting president’s re-election prospects.

‘We’ve got him where we want him’

The document mentioned in the Le Monde article is a police report -- written before the 2007 presidential election -- which alleged that Strauss-Kahn was found in “a compromising position” in a car in a part of western Paris known as a pick-up spot for prostitutes.

According to the article, Sarkozy’s entourage did not leak the report in 2007, because Strauss-Kahn was not the Socialist candidate facing Sarkozy and was therefore not a direct adversary. But in recent weeks, Strauss-Kahn rose in the polls and was widely portrayed as the Socialist frontunner -- and likely victor in a face-off against Sarkozy. The president’s aides therefore considered leaking the memo to the French press (including Le Monde), the article says, in an effort to curb the threat of a Strauss-Kahn presidential candidacy. The press chose not to publish the memo, deeming it a violation of Strauss-Kahn’s privacy.

Sarkozy’s advisors have long bragged to the press that they’ve “got [Strauss-Kahn] where they want him”, apparently referring to their alleged knowledge of numerous incriminating sexual situations Strauss-Kahn has been involved in.

An extensive intelligence circle

The monitoring of public officials’ private affairs in France was, in the past, done by the Renseignements Généraux, the French police’s domestic intelligence branch. But in 2008, Sarkozy merged the “RG” with France’s counter-espionage and counter-terrorism body to create the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence, which reports to the Ministry of the Interior (and functions in these matters as the French equivalent of a vice squad).

Sarkozy began bolstering his intelligence circle long before he was president, after his appointment in 2002 as interior minister under former President Jacques Chirac. According to French political scientist Dominique Moisi, all recent French presidents have received private information about political rivals, but Sarkozy’s post as interior minister gave him “even more contacts” and “more direct access to that kind of intelligence”.

“It’s said that if you want to be the next president of France, it’s good to be minister of the interior first, because you get all that kind of information about what’s going on in society,” Moisi said. “Compared to previous presidents, Sarkozy has more people giving him information on rivals, because he kept in touch with people he worked with at the Interior Ministry.”

Le Monde named Bernard Squarcini, who is the head of the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence, and Paris Police Chief Michel Gaudin as key members of the team that has kept Sarkozy informed of other politicians’ potentially career-damaging activities.

Moisi explained that however cloaked in secrecy, these procedures are not illegal. “There is a distinction between private life and public life in France,” he said. “But the private life of a public person is public.”

http://www.france24.com/en/20110526-sar ... rauss-kahn’-private-life-french-paper-says
.....................

..and a few others it seems

[vanlose kid]

Former French minister Luc Ferry makes child abuse claim on TV

Luc Ferry claims state sources informed him ex-minister abused children in Morocco but privacy laws prevented reporting

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 31 May 2011 22.44 BST

Former French education minister Luc Ferry has told a TV chatshow that a member of a previous French government abused children in Morocco, suggesting that reporting of the affair was stifled by strict libel and privacy laws.

Ferry, a French philosopher who was in government from 2002 to 2004, told the Grand Journal on Canal Plus that senior state sources informed him of a former minister taking part in "an orgy with little boys" in the tourist town of Marrakech.

"All of us here probably all know who I'm talking about," he told the panel of high-flying journalists, alluding to a rumour that has long circulated in media circles. Asked if he had any proof, he said: "Of course not. But I have testimony from cabinet members at the highest level, state authorities at the highest level."

He said the affair was detailed to him at the top of government, "particularly by the prime minister".

Ferry said he would not name the former minister, implying that he feared France's strict libel laws. "If I let his name out now, it's me who will be charged and doubtlessly convicted, even if I know that the story is true."

His remarks come as France's political and media class questions the tradition of respecting private life in the wake of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's indictment for sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a New York hotel maid. Strauss-Kahn denies the charges and is expected to plead not guilty at a court hearing on Monday.

But many journalists have predicted a "before and after Strauss-Kahn" suggesting that sexual harassment in political circles will no longer be tolerated and criminal behaviour should not be hushed up just because it pertains to a politician's private life. France has some of the toughest libel and privacy laws in the world.

This weekend, Georges Tron resigned as civil service minister after two former staff members filed complaints for sexual assault, saying they had been emboldened to come forward after the Strauss-Kahn arrest. Tron denies the allegations. He had hoped to keep his post despite the investigation, but Nicolas Sarkozy feared public opinion. The foreign minister Alain Juppé, said members of government, even if innocent until proven guilty, must be "above all suspicion".

Women politicians this week began to denounce the sexism that pervades political life. The sports minister, Chantal Jouanno, said she could no longer wear a skirt in parliament for fear of salacious comments.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... use-claims

*

[vanlose kid]

French minister resigns after being accused of sexual assault

Georges Tron denies allegations made by two women who worked for him at town hall in Draveil, near Paris

Kim Willsher in Paris guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 May 2011 14.44 BST

A French minister has resigned from Nicolas Sarkozy's government after he was put under investigation for allegedly sexually assaulting two women who worked for him.

The departure of the civil service minister, Georges Tron – who denies the allegations – was announced by the prime minister, François Fillon, on Sunday.

French prosecutors were in the preliminary stages of investigating accusations of sexual aggression and rape against Tron, whose lawyer, Olivier Schnerb, said were "pure defamation" and "balderdash".

The investigation comes two weeks after the arrest of the former IMF head and Socialist presidential hopeful, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is facing sexual assault charges in New York.

Tron's position became untenable after the foreign minister, Alain Juppé, told a television show that although his colleague was "presumed innocent", he should consider resigning because "government ministers had to be above all suspicion."

The two women, aged 34 and 36, have lodged complaints with the public prosecutor, claiming Tron assaulted them between 2007 and 2010 while they worked at the town hall in Draveil, south of Paris, where he is the mayor.

The women claim the assaults started after Tron, who says he is a qualified reflexologist, offered to give the women foot massages. They say it was the arrest of Strauss-Kahn that encouraged them to come forward. "When I see that a little chambermaid is capable of taking on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I told myself I did not have the right to stay silent," one of them told a French newspaper.

"Other women have perhaps suffered what I have suffered. I have to help them. We have to smash this omerta."

The Strauss-Kahn affair has triggered soul-searching in France about sex and power. After the shock and disbelief of the arrest of the man nicknamed the Great Seducer, French pundits have been questioning whether strict privacy laws and alleged media complicity have enabled politicians and celebrities to get away with unacceptable behaviour. Sunday's edition of the Journal du Dimanche wrote of a "before and an after DSK" (as Strauss-Kahn is known in France).

Strauss-Kahn had already been forced to apologise for a "lack of judgment" after an affair with a junior colleague at the IMF shortly after he took up his post in 2007.

Tristane Banon, a journalist, claimed in 2007 that Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her in 2002, but her claims were largely ignored by the mainstream French press and her mother, a Socialist politician and friend of the Strauss-Kahn family persuaded her not to go to the police.

Last week a women's association said one of the women, claiming she had been attacked by Tron, had come forward in November with a "credible" complaint against the 53-year-old minister.

In a statement, the European Association Against Violence Against Women at Work said: "Her credibility is not in question from our point of view."


Tron claims the women have a vendetta against him after being sacked from their jobs. "I am not naive – they are trying to echo an affair taking place the other side of the Atlantic," he told Reuters last week. In an interview prior to his resignation, he said: "The accusations against me are fantasy."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... NTCMP=SRCH

*

[chump]

http://www.voltairenet.org/article170083.html

Obama, financial war and the elimination of DSK
by Thierry Meyssan*
28 May 2011

From
Beirut (Lebanon)

It is impossible to understand the downfall of Dominique Strauss-Khan without linking it to his project for the creation of a new international reserve currency, which was to be launched on 26 May 2011 at the Deauville G-8 summit. The project was paradoxically anticipated as much by the Emerging States as by stateless capital, but rejected by the U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex. Thierry Meyssan exposes the chicanery of the Obama administration to dodge its commitments...

... The confinement

Is DSK guilty of rape or is he victim of a machination? One only has to think in order to answer the question.

The defendant allegedly spent the night with a call-girl, then raped the chambermaid at brunch time before calmly going to have lunch with his daughter, a student at Columbia University. Finally, he is supposed to have boarded his flight, booked several days in advance, bound for Berlin where he was to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel. Comfortably settled in his Air France business class seat, he was arrested ten minutes before takeoff.

According to the cabin crew, the officers of the Special Victims Unit (the same as in the NBC "Law and Order SVU" serial) didn’t delegate the questioning procedure to their airport counterparts, insisting on doing it themselves despite the risk of arriving too late. However, to prevent any warning from reaching DSK, they ordered the cell phone jamming of the zone until their arrival [6]. Now, this kind of jamming operation exceeds the scope of a vice squad. It could only have been ordered by national security services.

It was explained that DSK’s detention was warranted for fear he might flee to France, with which Washington did not sign an extradition agreement and which has protected another sexual offender accused of rape, film director Roman Polanski. The decision to isolate him was therefore not taken with the aim of preventing him from influencing the witnesses. Nonetheless, the judge decided to lock him up at Rikers Island, one of the largest prisons in the world which houses 14 000 detainees, and one of the bleakest. A hell on earth. "For his protection", he was assigned to a single cell and kept incommunicado.

The IMF Managing Director was held in confinement for 10 days. During this period the functioning of the international institution was blocked in want of a signature. For 10 days the problems related to the euro and the dollar, Greece’s default, and many others crucial issues were put on standby at the mercy of the police, judges and prison guards.

According to U.S. jurisprudence, considering that he had no criminal record and is domiciled in Washington, DSK should not have been placed in protective custody but should, instead, have been released on bail. He obviously quickly assessed the situation and, through one of his lawyers, sent a letter of resignation to the IMF. On the very next day, against all expectation, a new judge acceded to his request and released him on bail, under house arrest and tight surveillance, pending trial. Indeed, it was no longer necessary to keep him locked up now that the IMF had recovered its freedom to act.

The Zhou project

Why were Hollywood-like means deployed to block the IMF during 10 days? There are two possible answers, and they may be linked.

In the first place, on 29 March 2009, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, challenged the predominance of the dollar as reserve currency. Deploring that the objective of economist John Maynard Keynes to create an supranational currency (the Bancor) was not achieved at the end of World War 2, he suggested that the IMF Special Drawing Rights could be used to fulfill this function [9]

At the London G20 summit on 2 April 2009, yielding to pressure, the United States agreed to the tripling of IMF resources and to the issuance by that institution of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) for a value of 250 billion dollars. They also acquiesced to the principle of a Financial Stability Council associating the major emerging countries.

This idea was debated at the G8 summit at L’Aquila (Italy) on 8 July 2009. Pushing the pin further, Russia submitted that the new world currency should be minted rather than being virtual. Dmitry Medvedev, who had a few sample of coins minted, slapped them on the table. One side displays the faces of the eight Heads of State, whereas the flip side bears the motto "Unity in Diversity" [10].

The project was submitted to experts from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Their report, in which Professor Popov of the New Economic School of Moscow took part, was examined on 25 April 2010 by a joint IMF and World Bank meeting [11].

This project should have seen the light of day on 26 May 2011 at the G8 summit in Deauville (France). The dollar would thus have met its demise as the reserve currency against the backdrop of an imminent cessation of payments on the part of the U.S. Federal Government. As for Washington, it would have had to give up financing its super-powerful military apparatus through debt and to start concentrating on its domestic restructuring.

The spanner in the works

Unfortunately, in the final months of this process, military and political initiatives disrupted the plan. Countries such as Russia and China were double crossed. DSK’s arrest exposes Washington’s bad faith, and shows that its concessions were a only ploy to gain time.

Although the exact details of Dominique Strauss-Khan’s device for the creation of the new currency sustained by IMF Special Drawing Rights remain secret, it would appear that Libya had a key role to play. On an experimental level, the Libyan Central Bank was the first to base its currency, the dinar, on gold and later on SDRs. This aspect is especially important considering that Libya possesses one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, exceeding even that of Russia.

By waging war against Libya, France and the United Kingdom generated a theoretical asset freeze targeting not only the Gaddafi family but also the Libyan state. Worse, Paris and London dispatched HSBC bank executives to Benghazi to set up a rebel Libyan central bank and attempt to grab the national assets [12]. Without knowing whether Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron got carried away by their own hubris or acted on instructions from their bosses in Washington, the fact remains that the fragile edifice developed by Dominique Strauss-Khan has collapsed.

According to our contacts in Tripoli, at the time of his arrest, DSK was headed for Berlin in order to work out a solution with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Afterwards, he and a German envoy were supposed leave to negotiate with Colonel Gaddafi’s representatives, and very possibly with Gaddafi himself considering that his signature was indispensable for unblocking the situation.

We are now witnessing a financial war on an unprecedented scale. While the economic situation of the United States is on the brink and the dollar could rapidly turn into monkey currency, the agreement concluded at the G8 and endorsed by the G20, implemented by the IMF in conjunction with the World Bank and the international banking circles, of which DSK was the architect, has been suspended. The hegemony of the dollar remains intact albeit more artificially than ever. The dollar which the emerging states wanted to resize but on which the U.S.-Israeli industrial-military complex rests its power.

In that context, what is one man’s honor worth?

[vanlose kid]

^ ^

a bit underwhelming, that. seems TM doesn't read his own articles.

*

[Luther Blissett]

It seems that Sofitel is not just a very fancy hotel, but that it is also FRENCH. Would this perhaps mean that powerful French citizens would tend to choose this luxury hotel frequently? They might "feel at home" in an establishment where the staff is bilingual Eng/French, and where French customs in food, drink, forms of politeness, etc. are a matter of course.

This being true, then, and especially if it turns out to be ALSO true that DSK had been a frequent guest, then it would NOT be surprising if one or more of Sarkozy's "oppo" researchers made it part of his/their job descriptions to cultivate "friendships" with staff at Sofitel. Right? I can easily imagine a "friendship" where a staff member was told to keep said "oppo" dude(s) well apprised of any potentially damaging info regarding DSK.

Sofitel definitely caters to high-end political, business, and celebrity clientele, both American and International. The culture is not necessarily French other than maybe the restaurant associated with the hotel - my girlfriend used to run the VIP reservations, but without knowing French, for example. Another friend is currently a valet there and DEFINITELY doesn't know a spot of French, haha.

The management was actually mostly Belgian, and of course as you know they would like to not be confused with the French.