NEWS,29.04.2012

Strauss-Kahn makes dramatic return to French election

 Disgraced ex-IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn, once tipped to win France's presidential vote, made a dramatic incursion into the campaign Saturday with a claim Nicolas Sarkozy orchestrated his downfall.The accusation came as the battle between Sarkozy and Francois Hollande grew ever more bitter, with the incumbent accusing the front-running Socialist of subjecting him to a "Stalinist trial" over his bid to woo the far right.Strauss-Kahn, in his first major newspaper interview since his disgrace a year ago, told Britain's The Guardian newspaper that his spectacular fall was orchestrated by opponents to prevent him standing as Socialist candidate.The ex-International Monetary Fund boss had been favoured to win the vote until May last year, when he was arrested in New York and accused of sexually assaulting hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo. The charges were later dropped.Strauss-Kahn said that although he did not believe the incident was a setup, the subsequent escalation of the event into a criminal investigation was "shaped by those with a political agenda"."Perhaps I was politically naive, but I simply did not believe that they would go that far -- I didn't think they could find anything that could stop me," he told the British daily.The Guardian said it was clear that the "they" refers to people working for Sarkozy and his UMP party.A New York lawyer representing Diallo in an ongoing civil lawsuit against Strauss-Kahn dismissed the claim as "utter nonsense", while Sarkozy himself flatly rejected the accusation."Enough is enough! I would tell Mr. Strauss-Kahn to explain himself to the law and spare the French his remarks," he said in central France while on the campaign trail to get himself re-elected on May 6.Opinion polls say Hollande will win the run-off against Sarkozy. Strauss-Kahn said he was sure he would now be in Hollande's shoes had it not been for the events at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan on May 14 last year."I planned to make my formal announcement on 15 June and I had no doubt I would be the candidate of the Socialist Party," said Strauss-Kahn, who refused to discuss with The Guardian a separate sex scandal that has erupted in France.Sarkozy said that when he thought of all the "scandalous, shameful episodes" that Strauss-Kahn had allegedly been involved in in the United States and France, he was shocked that the ex-IMF chief should dare to speak out now."Mr. Strauss-Kahn starts giving lessons in morality and saying I am the only one responsible for what happened to him, well, that really is too much!", he said.Sarkozy was again under pressure Saturday over the financing of his 2007 campaign after a news website reported late Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi's regime had agreed to fund the election bid to the tune of 50 million euros.His campaign spokeswoman Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet dismissed the latest report as "ridiculous" and a "clumsy diversion" orchestrated by Hollande's camp.She said Sarkozy's 2007 campaign funds had been cleared by the Constitutional Council after the elections with no queries.Hollande and Sarkozy were expected to call a brief truce later Saturday when both head for a soccer match at the Stade de France in Paris to watch third-tier outsiders Quevilly battle Lyon for the French Cup.But the gloves have come off in recent days, with Hollande accusing his rival of "transgression" in his bid to secure the votes of the 6.5 million who plumped for far-right leader Marine Le Pen in last Sunday's first round.

Syria derides UN chief

Syria has derided UN chief Ban Ki-moon as biased and called his comments "outrageous" after he blamed the regime for widespread cease-fire violations - the latest sign of trouble for an international peace plan many expect to fail.In new fighting on Saturday, activists said regime forces battled army defectors near President Bashar Assad's summer palace in a coastal village and shelled a Damascus suburb in pursuit of gunmen. State media said government troops foiled an attempt by armed men in rubber boats to land on Syria's coast, the first reported attempt by rebels to infiltrate from the sea.The regime's verbal attack on the UN secretary general raised new concerns that Assad is playing for time to avoid compliance with a plan that could eventually force him out of office.Under special envoy Kofi Annan's six-point road map, a ceasefire is to be followed by the deployment of as many as 300 UN truce monitors and talks between Assad and the opposition on Syria's political future. The head of the observer team, Norwegian Major General Robert Mood, is to arrive in Damascus on Sunday to assume command, said spokesman Neeraj Singh.Annan's April 12 ceasefire deadline has been widely ignored. The regime continues to attack opposition strongholds, while rebel fighters keep targeting security forces with roadside bombs and shooting ambushes. Defying a major truce provision, the Syrian military failed to withdraw tanks and soldiers from the streets.Ban and Annan have cited violations by both sides, but generally portrayed the regime as the main aggressor. On Friday, Ban said Syria's repression of civilians reached an "intolerable stage" and demanded that the regime "live up to its promises to the world." His comments came just hours after a suicide bombing the regime blamed on anti-government "terrorists" killed 10 people in Damascus.An editorial on Saturday in the state-run Tishrin newspaper said Ban has avoided discussing rebel violence in favour of "outrageous" statements against the Syrian government. The editorial said the international community has applied a double standard, ignoring "crimes and terrorist acts" against Syria and thus encouraging more violence, according to excerpts carried by the state-run news agency SANA.Mass protests against Assad erupted in March 2011, but gradually turned into an insurgency in response to a violent regime crackdown. Assad's regime denies it faces a popular uprising, claiming it is being targeted by a foreign-led terrorist conspiracy.Saturday's comments were the regime's harshest against the UN since Syria announced last month it would abide by the Annan plan. The Syrian opposition and its Western backers argue Assad is not sincere and just buying time to consolidate his hold on Syria.The regime "wants to make the UN a party to the conflict, rather than a mediator, and to stretch out the process to prevent any kind of serious change," Rami Khoury, an analyst at the American University of Beirut, said of Saturday's editorial.However, the regime and its supporters argue that the world intentionally ignores rebel ceasefire violations, such as targeted killings of security officials, said Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group think tank who has travelled in Syria."In the regime's narrative, its use of force is only a reaction to such assaults," he said. "Officials and sympathisers cling to the idea that they are fighting a legitimate struggle against a fifth column of extremists."Russia, Syria's main ally, repeatedly has demanded that more attention be paid to rebel violations of the Annan plan.In fighting on Saturday, government troops exchanged fire with about 30 soldiers after they defected at a military base near Assad's summer palace in the coastal village of Burj Islam, according to Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group.

NEWS,04.04.2012.

French anti-terror raids: security and protection, or electioneering?

Nicolas Sarkozy's opponents query the 'spectacle' of the raids and their timing in the wake of Mohamed Merah's killing spreeOnce again, France woke to news of a string of dawn raids against suspected Islamists across the country, from the old industrial heartlands of the north to Marseille on the southern coast. Days earlier, rolling TV-news and breakfast bulletins broadcast dramatic images as elite anti-terrorist squads in black body armour smashed windows and bashed down doors shouting "Police!", emerging with hand-cuffed suspects with their faces covered, on residential streets from Nantes to Toulouse.Less than three weeks before the first round of the presidential election, France is gripped by one of its biggest crackdowns on suspected radical Islamists in recent memory. Amplified by TV coverage, it has been led by an unrelenting Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also battling for re-election. Opposition politicians now openly question whether the timing and TV crews are as much linked to electioneering as anti-terrorist crime prevention.France is still in a state of shock and confusion after Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old unemployed panelbeater from Toulouse, went on a 10-day killing spree across south-west France, executing three paratroopers and shooting children and a rabbi at the gates of a Jewish school. Following a dramatic 32-hour siege at his flat, Merah died in a hail of police bullets as he leapt from the balcony. But questions remain over how Merah  who claimed inspiration from al-Qaida, was heavily armed, on police intelligence files and had been under surveillance  was not picked up earlier and his attacks prevented. Some commentators warn that the new anti-terrorist crackdown, which included the deportation of a handful of preachers, should not be used as a smokescreen to distract from potential failings in the Merah operation.The right-wing Sarkozy had long ago seen his election strategy compared to that of his friend George W Bush's 2004 fight for re-election in the US: styling himself as the only trustworthy protector of the nation in the face of serious threat. A month ago, the danger was impending financial meltdown. Now, it is closer to Bush's own target: Islamist fundamentalism and terrorism. Sarkozy last week likened the Toulouse killings to France's 9/11. The scale of the attacks maybe different, he said, but the national "traumatism" was the same.The justice system will have the last word on the arrests, which were not directly linked to Merah. Preliminary charges have been filed against 13 alleged members of a banned fundamentalist group. An intelligence chief suggested militants were planning a kidnapping. The 10 arrested on Wednesday were suspected of links to Islamist websites and of threatening violence in online forums.But in an election more than ever determined by TV coverage, Sarkozy's opponents queried the "spectacle" of the raids and their timing in the wake of the Toulouse killings. "I'm not questioning all that's being done. I'm simply saying that we should have perhaps done more before," said François Hollande, the Socialist candidate. The government insists the arrests had nothing to do with the elections, but with the security and protection of France.The "Toulouse effect" on the presidential race has so far been limited. Crucially, it allowed Sarkozy, during a week of national mourning, to regain presidential stature. Before Toulouse, he had been heckled so badly on the campaign trail in the Basque country that he took refuge in a bar. Now, over 70% of French people approve his stance at the time of the Toulouse killings. His poll ratings have lifted giving him a narrow lead in the first-round, but Hollande remains ahead in the final 6 May run-off.Yet the shootings have not changed French voters' chief topics of concern: crippling unemployment and the difficulty making ends meet. Crime and terrorism remain low on their list. Indeed, many French people feel disappointed that the presidential debate isn't addressing their everyday worries, and abstentionism could be high. But the extreme-right Front National's Marine Le Pen has used Toulouse to hammer home her rhetoric on fears about Islam,terrorism, immigration and what she warned were fundamentalists festering on France's notorious suburban high-rise estates (even if the raids were often carried out on smart semi-detached houses). To win the election, Sarkozy knows he must court Le Pen's voters. Politicians and religious leaders, have warned against stigmatising French Muslims a long held fear following Sarkozy's recent Front National-inspired election crusade against halal meat.

 

Anna Chapman never got anywhere near seducing a member of US cabinet

Anna Chapman, the famously sultry Russian operative who was arrested in the US with nine others for espionage in 2010, was apparently "close to seducing a sitting member of President Barack Obama's cabinet."The reports were based on an interview that Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI's assistant director of counterintelligence, gave to the BBC in which he called the confessed spy a "honeytrap", adding: "She got close enough to disturb us."The story went viral.There's only one problem with it, though: it's not true in the slightest."It's a completely bogus story,"a defense department spokesman told. "They made a giant leap."Figliuzzi never mentions Chapman, 30, by name in the BBC video. And while he did say that one of the 10 operatives had gotten "close enough to a sitting US cabinet member" to "disturb" the agency, he wasn't talking about Chapman. Nor was he talking about seduction. The New York Daily News picked up the story under the drooling headline: "Sexy Russian spygal Anna Chapman got too close to President Obama's inner circle, FBI official tells BBC."heir article, which ran Wednesday, is maddeningly confusing.In the fourth paragraph, the Daily News reports: A high-ranking FBI official says Anna Chapman was busted in 2010 spy ring because flame-haired sexpot got too close to sitting President Obama cabinet member.But the sixth paragraph directly contradicts this: Flame-haired sexpot Anna Chapman was quickly fingered as the tight-bodied temptress by the British press  but the needle slowly moved in the direction of dowdy New Jersey housewife Cynthia Murphy, who was also taken down in the spy sting.It's not until the twelfth paragraph that the paper admits: Figliuzzi refused to reveal the cabinet member  or the female spy.But the "honey trap" may have actually been G-man speak for cold, hard cash  and the access it can gain with powerful people.So why headline it otherwise?It was ABC News that actually bothered to pick up a phone to call the FBI. The network reports that the spy Figliuzzi was referring to is, in fact, Cynthia Murphy. And by "getting too close" to an Obama cabinet member, he meant as a financial advisor to a Hillary Clinton fundraiser.The FBI, for its part, released a statement denying that Chapman attempted to seduce a cabinet member. Mr Figliuzzi's comments to BBC were consistent with and confined to the information outlined in the criminal complaint that was filed nearly two years ago. There is no allegation or suggestion in the complaint that Anna Chapman or anyone else associated with this investigation attempted to seduce a US cabinet officialChapman, of course, is a red-headed beauty who has since modeled in lingerie for Maxim and hosted a TV programme in Russia. She was ratings and Internet gold when her story broke in 2010  a femme fatale in the flesh. So it's perhaps somewhat understandable that the Telegraph and the Daily News would leap at the opportunity to splash her come-hither photograph on its pages without actually bothering to fact check their stories.