Dominique Strauss-Kahn has accused political allies of Nicolas Sarkozy of orchestrating the New York maid assault scandal that brought his bid for the French presidency crashing down.
Always someone else's fault...
The former International Monetary Fund chief said figures close to the French president and his ruling UMP party choreographed the fallout of the scandal, following accusations he assaulted Nafissatou Diallo.
"Bitch set me up..."
He said that while he did not believe his encounter with the Sofitel housekeeper was a set-up, he believes his rapid arrest on May 14 and the highly public criminal investigation that ended his presidential chances had been "shaped by those with a political agenda".
The former favourite to win the French presidential elections, which enters its second round on May 6, said of the scandal that "more was involved here than mere coincidence".
In an interview with an American investigative journalist for the Guardian, Mr Strauss-Kahn, 63, alleged that French intelligence had been eavesdropping on him weeks before he was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting Miss Diallo. He accused agents linked to Mr Sarkozy of listening in to his phone calls and making sure Miss Diallo complained to the New York police, leading to an explosive international scandal.
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Spain's sickly economy faces a "crisis of huge proportions", a minister said on Friday, as unemployment hit its highest level in almost two decades and Standard and Poor's downgraded the government's debt by two notches.
Unemployment shot up to 24 percent in the first quarter, one of the worst jobless figures in the developed world. Retail sales slumped for the twenty-first consecutive month as a recession cuts into consumer spending.
Standard and Poor's cited risks of an increase in bad loans at Spanish banks and called on Europe to take action to encourage growth.
The downgrade spooked financial markets, raising the interest rate fellow euro zone struggler Italy was forced to pay to sell 10-year bonds at auction. The yield was its highest since January as investors worried about the economic outlook in the bloc's indebted states.
#3
The Spanish economy was in a "huge crisis" BEFORE the credit downgrade.
True, but now it's so bad that they simply cannot deny/hide it any longer. Put another way: if I ever hear the US Government say 'we are in a huge crisis" in the economy...I'm heading for the hills.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/28/2012 7:33 Comments ||
Top||
#6
This was announced/scheduled over a week ago, but just makes the 'crisis' look even worse.
Spanish authorities suspended the Schengen Treaty, which allows unrestricted travel inside member nations, and imposed controls at six border crossings with France and at Barcelona and Gerona international airports.
Security forces have been strengthened with 2,000 extra police on duty until midnight on May 4, when the restrictions are due to end.
[An Nahar] Three people were tossed in the calaboose in Copenhagen on Friday suspected of planning a "terrorist act", Danish intelligence agency PET said.
Remember back in the old days, when Scandinavia was a safe backwater full of beautiful women and equally beautiful furniture?
A 22-year-old Jordanian citizen and a 23-year-old Turkish citizen -- both Danish residents -- as well as a Dane living in Egypt, are "suspected of being illegally in possession of automatic weapons and munitions and are also suspected of preparing a terrorist act," the agency said in a statement.
No details of the alleged planned attack were disclosed.
The three were tossed in the calaboose at two addresses in greater Copenhagen.
"Raids were also conducted in connection with the arrests at several addresses in the Copenhagen area," PET said.
The trio was to appear before a Copenhagen court on Saturday for a custody hearing, police said.
PET said it was collaborating with police on the case.
Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet reported meanwhile in its online edition that police had seized three cars in the Copenhagen suburb of Herlev in an action it said was linked to the terrorism case.
"Police officers in bullet-proof vests have just seized three cars in Herlev and a large police operation is underway in Valby," a neighborhood outside the Danish capital, the paper said.
Friday's arrests come as four other people are currently on trial in Denmark for "attempted terrorism" for allegedly plotting to massacre the staff of a Danish newspaper that first published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2005.
[An Nahar] At least 27 people were maimed Friday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk in four successive blasts that President Viktor Yanukovych called a challenge to the nation.
"There is a total of 27" injured in three kabooms in the city of about a million people east of the capital Kiev, said an emergencies ministry official, adding there was no immediate information on the fourth blast.
"We understand that this is yet another challenge for us, for the entire nation," Yanukovych said, cited by the Interfax news agency.
The kabooms in Dnipropetrovsk, home town of Yanukovych's incarcerated opponent and 2004 Orange Revolution leader Yulia Tymoshenko, come ahead of the Euro 2012 football championship which Ukraine is co-hosting this summer.
Officials earlier said that the first blast went off in a rubbish bin near a movie theater in the center of the city at 11:50 a.m. (0850 GMT).
A second blast followed 40 minutes later and the third, in another busy central street, 15 minutes after that, emergencies officials said.
The fourth kaboom went off at 1:00 p.m. (1000 GMT), the interior ministry said without providing further details.
"Police are looking into the casualties and circumstances" of the last two blasts, it said in a statement on its website.
Ukrainian prosecutors launched a probe into possible acts of terrorism, Interfax news agency reported. Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko quickly left for Dnipropetrovsk to oversee the investigation in person.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] French Socialist presidential frontrunner Francois Hollande toughened his stance on immigration Friday in a campaign increasingly fought on themes dear to the far right.
Hollande will face right-wing Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... in a May 6 run-off for the presidency, and both are scrambling to recruit voters who backed far-right anti-immigrant candidate Marine Le Pen in the first round.
Hollande repeated a pledge to ask parliament to cap the number of migrants allowed into La Belle France every year -- Sarkozy has vowed to halve the number to around 100,000 -- but warned it would never halt the flow.
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Posted by: Fred ||
04/28/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
So which one will win Le Pens beguiling feminine favors?
Let me see - Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
As Italy attempts to chip away at its mountainous public debt, the government's austerity drive has found a new target -- the armed forces. Long considered a hallowed institution that was immune from reform, the top-heavy army, navy and air force now face swingeing cuts in budgets and manpower.
The number of generals and admirals will be cut by a third, one in five colonels will be axed and the armed forces overall will be reduced from 183,000 to 150,000. Civilian staff will be reduced from 30,000 to 20,000.
Italy is one of the largest European contributors to the Nato-led force in Afghanistan and also has peacekeepers deployed in Kosovo and Lebanon.
The cuts were announced to parliament by the defence minister, Giampaolo Di Paola, who is an admiral in the navy and a former military chief of staff.
It is highly unusual for Italian defence ministers to be serving officers, but Di Paola was appointed as part of an unelected technocrat government which replaced the conservative coalition of Silvio Berlusconi in November, amid market jitters over Italy's massive debt.
The cuts were of "fundamental importance" and needed the widest political support, the minister told parliament in Rome. They are part of a far-reaching defence spending review, with the military budget for this year slashed by nearly a third.
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#1
Italy has a long way to go before it catches up with Greece Quiz
Question: Who is the third biggest arms importer in the world, behind India and China?
Answer: Greece
Question: If Greece had spent the EU average on defence over the past 10 years (1.7% of GDP
rather than spending 4% of GDP on defence, how much money would it have saved?
Answer: 52% of GDP, or 150billion euros
So why are France and Germany not demanding that Greece cuts its defence spending?
Question: In the period 2006-2010 which country was Germanys largest market for munitions?
Answer: Greece, which accounted for 15% of total German arms sales.
Question: In the same period, what country was Frances largest arms export market in Europe (third
largest overall)?
Answer: Greece
Question: In 2010 (last year data is available) social spending in Greece was cut by 1.8bn Euros.
How much did military spending change? Was it
a) Decreased by Euro 900 million
b) No change
c) Increased by Euro 900million
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
French Socialist presidential frontrunner Francois Hollande toughened his stance on immigration Friday in a campaign increasingly fought on themes dear to the far right.
