FRANCE: The DSK case undermines the French political scene

The arrest and prosecution of sexual assault, attempted rape and kidnapping of Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Sunday by the prosecutor of New York, has been a bombshell in France. The reactions were quick to share fuser and others of the French political scene, especially, the former Socialist minister was seen as the favorite of the latest polls for the 2012 presidential election.

Prudence left

On the left, despite the shock, caution is the rendezvous. Martine Aubry, the Socialist Party first secretary, said she was "totally stunned" by the DSK case she described as "thunderbolt".

She called for "respect the presumption of innocence and decency to keep the required" before a few reporters in Lille, where she was mayor. Also very conservative, Segolene Royal, Socialist candidate in the primary, spoke of "an upsetting news about all that remains to be seen." The unfortunate rival Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election said on Europe 1 that "this man must be respected, his family must be respected." François Hollande, also a candidate for the primary, spoke of "restraint", citing a "terrible news".Finally, the member-strauss kahnien Pierre Moscovici recommended Sunday "prudence and decency," describing the new "shock that overwhelms us," in an interview with AFP.

"Expect the DSK version of events. I've known him for 30 years, it does not look like I know him. My thoughts are with his family and himself in this ordeal," he added.

For his part, Jean-Luc Melenchon, co-chairman of the Left Party, told AFP he was "appalled". "I hope this is false because rape is a crime.There would be a victim, "he continued, saying" it's enough of the humiliation that this information among his causes. "" I call for restraint. Do not judge until you know, "he said.

"A president who would have looked like Berlusconi"

Unsurprisingly, the DSK affair has caused reactions more sharply toward the right and the extreme right. Bernard Debré, UMP deputy from Paris, has blasted the IMF chief. "This is humiliating for France, is disastrous. Like it or not, DSK represented our country," he said on air on FRANCE 24.While acknowledging that the Socialist was presumed innocent, he nevertheless stated that "the facts argue against this man" whose "known propensities."

Asked about the future president of DSK, the deputy of Paris responds bluntly. "My God, you realize, we would have a president who would have looked like Berlusconi who made orgies over here and there", he said. "If the facts are proven, it must be treated to avoid uncontrolled impulses and impure, it is pathological," he said.

Only member of the government to react to the moment, the Secretary of State for International Trade, Pierre Lellouche, said on ITélé need to "give Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the presumption of innocence and let the process unfold. "If all this were proved, it would be devastating," he added.

Chairman of the modem, François Bayrou, saw something "confusing, sad and extremely disturbing." He also argues that if the facts were "verified", it would be "degrading behavior towards a young woman and women in general."

For Marine Le Pen, president of the National Front, the IMF chief is "permanently discredited as a candidate for the highest office of the state" while it believes "all Paris, the Paris newspaper, the Paris political noise since months slightly pathological reports that Mr. Strauss-Kahn appears to maintain against women. "

COTE D'IVOIRE: the pro-Ouattara control the last bastion of pro-Gbagbo in Abidjan

AFP - Yopougon in the west of Abidjan, the last stronghold of militiamen loyal to ousted President Laurent Gbagbo, is now entirely under the control of the forces of the new leader Alassane Ouattara of State, announced late Wednesday authorities Ivorian.

"This is the only sector that remains (to be conquered, Ed) and the whole area is now permanently occupied by us," said the Ivorian television TCI commander Cherif Ousmane, operations officer in the military republican Coast Ivory (FRCI).

Yopougon was the last neighborhood that escaped the control of the forces of the new power.Militiamen loyal to Laurent Gbagbo made it their stronghold and fought again in the morning in the area of ​​the naval base in southeastern district, bordering the lagoon.

Guillaume Soro on site

Prime Minister and Defence Minister, Guillaume Soro, visited the premises in the afternoon.

"I saw the streets littered with corpses. Militiamen At HQ, we saw a makeshift cemetery. I guess all the abuses that have occurred. I'm still in shock from all the dead, all dead," he said on the TCI.

"The militiamen executed civilians, if you had a name that was not correct. I find this unacceptable," he said.

"Everything Yopougon throughout Abidjan must be secure.I count on you, "Guillaume Soro launched his troops.

AFP journalists accompanying a team from the Ivorian Red Cross noted Wednesday that dozens of bodies, riddled with bullets and burned or reduced to skeletons, littered the streets of several areas of this vast neighborhood of more than one million inhabitants.

Corpses and mass graves

Mass graves contained the bodies of residents killed by militiamen, according to testimony gathered by residents told AFP.Of half-naked body lying on the ground: the militia for some residents, neighborhood youth killed by FRCI according to others.

In two days, the bodies of more than 60 people killed in recent violence have been recovered by the team of the Red Cross.

The area was Wednesday unrecognizable stalls that have not been looted and burned retain their iron curtain fell, garbage are collected over a long time. Yopougon has nothing to do with Abidjan, where life has returned to normal and it brings back even with the morning traffic jams.

"The mercenaries and pro-Gbagbo militias have been taken out of harm's way (...).Yopougon just been released, "said the captain on the TCI Alla Kouakou Leon, spokesman for the MoD, calling the area" from which fortress had desperately caciques Gbagbo camp.

He also warned against "criminals and bandits" armed and in uniform, who claim to belong to FRCI, ensuring that steps were taken to "neutralize".

President Ouattara, in power since April 11 arrest of Mr.Gbagbo, had threatened on April 22 to "disarm by force" the last remaining armed groups, must not file a "fast" guns.

Three independent international experts, commissioned by the UN to investigate serious violations of human rights allegedly committed in Côte d'Ivoire since the presidential election on Nov. 28, arrived Wednesday in Abidjan and remain in the country until the end of May.

CINEMA: The 64th Cannes Film Festival Unveils Official Selection

Follow the announcement at 11 am on the Twitter account and wire CultureF24 # Cannes2011

AFP - A little less than a month before the opening festivities, the 64th Cannes Film Festival unveiled Thursday at 11:00 the selection of films that will compete for the prestigious Palme d'Or awarded by a jury chaired this year by the American Robert De Niro.

The official selection includes twenty films competing for the Palme, and the twenty works of the Un Certain Regard, chaired by Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica.

Among the possible present, the names rumored breath Danish director Lars Von Trier, the Italian Nani Moretti, the Dardenne brothers, and the French side, Marjan Satrapi, Zem Roschy Mathieu Kassowitz or ...

The selection also includes special screenings, midnight screenings of films shown out of competition.Some have already been released in dribs and drabs by the festival.

"Midnight in Paris", the latest Woody Allen with Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, will be screened in the festival's opening on May 11

U.S. director Gus Van Sant's award at Cannes for "Elephant" and "Paranoid Park" will open Un Certain Regard with "Restless". This film explores the relationship of two teenagers, played by Mia Wasikowska and Henry Hooper.

The organizers also announced a special evening will be dedicated May 17 in Jean-Paul Belmondo, in the presence of the actor.The latter, which should be surrounded by his many friends in the cinema, including attending the premiere of the documentary and Jeff Vincent Perrot Domenech "Belmondo, Directions ...".

A Palme d'Honor - awarded to an important director, but never crowned by the festival - will be handed to the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci at the opening ceremony.

French actress Mélanie Laurent officiate as Master of Ceremonies for the evening and for the closing ceremony on May 22

Regional elections risky for Merkel

AFP - The Germans are threatening to inflict a blow Sunday to the conservative Angela Merkel and its nuclear policy in two regional elections that coincide with a worsening situation in Fukushima.

"The whole nuclear fuel," headlined the daily Welt am Sonntag, above articles on the latest developments of the disaster at the Chernobyl Japanese election day.

Saturday, some 250,000 people protested in the streets of nuclear fear, exacerbated by the accident in Fukushima, and request a stay of German reactors.

The information from Japan on Sunday were not likely to reassure voters with radioactivity "10 million times higher" than normal as measured in a water escaped from the reactor 2.

"On election day that shook the black-yellow coalition," headlined the tabloid Bild am Sonntag, referring to the colors of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

All polls indicate that the Christian Democrats (CDU) Chancellor Angela Merkel will lose power in Baden-Wuerttemberg, a prosperous Land of 10 million people in southwestern Germany who voted Conservative for 58 years .

In this Land which stand four atomic reactors, the Greens might even take the head of a regional government for the first time.

The Greens should also enter the regional parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate and emerge as partners of Government in Social Democratic (SPD) Kurt Beck at the helm for 17 years.

The departure of Ms. Merkel after the nuclear accident in Fukushima has angered voters.

The chancellor, who assured that the German plants were "the safest in the world," ordered the temporary shutdown of the seven oldest reactors of 17 and a review of security measures.

Five months earlier, the majority had voted to extend the life of the plants of twelve years on average, while a previous SPD-Green government had promised "the output of nuclear power" in 2020.

The volte-face of Mrs Merkel was seen as an electoral ploy.

A government minister has confirmed in a small committee that electoral considerations are not alien to this shift, according to leaks in the press this week.

The expected defeat in Baden-Württemberg will reduce the flexibility of the conservative-liberal coalition in the Bundesrat, the upper house of Parliament, without threatening the mandate of Ms. Merkel, which runs until 2013.

But Bild, the Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Liberal Westerwelle, plays his "destiny".

If the PDF is missing the two regional parliaments, he asked his chief of accounts that since the 2009 parliamentary election defeats and accumulates has not convinced the head of German diplomacy.

The failure of Germany to the UN during the vote on the resolution authorizing the use of force to protect civilians in Libya has increased voter confusion. For the first time since the war, Berlin was torn from its U.S. and European allies.

An anonymous source within the party, citing the Tagesspiegel, said that Mr.Brüderle government should resign if the Liberals do not sit in Rhineland-Palatinate, which he headed the federation FPD.

Some 10.8 million voters to the polls in both states. Polling stations close at 6:00 p.m. (1600 GMT) and first preliminary results are expected shortly thereafter.

Iran: Release of two German journalists detained for four months

Iran has released on Saturday after four months of custody, two German journalists who left for Germany on Sunday night with Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle came specially to find them.

During his visit of several hours, the first by a minister of the EU in Iran for several years, Westerwelle was received by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held talks with his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi.

Mr Ahmadinejad also drew attention with Westerwelle "regional issues, the situation in Afghanistan and the need for cooperation against terrorism and drug trafficking," the Iranian presidency website.

During a brief joint press conference with Mr. Salehi, M.Westerwelle said the meeting between the two ministers had allowed "an" exchange of views and opinions, "the direct translation made by the Iranian television channel Press-TV in English.

"It was a meeting to get acquainted," he said, adding she had "not been time to discuss major issues."

Salehi for his part said that the visit of Mr. Westerwelle Tehran was to "strengthen bilateral relations" and that the two ministers had "agreed to further meetings already planned in the future."

He expressed the desire of Iran to "look to the future" in its relations with Germany, saying the two countries had "many issues to discuss."

Iran has been subjected since 2007 to severe political and economic sanctions imposed by the EU because of its controversial nuclear program, which prohibit particular high-level bilateral contacts with Tehran.

Westerwelle departed for Germany immediately after the talks, about 2:00 local Sunday (2230 GMT Saturday) with the two journalists released, Marcus Hellwig, Jens Koch, the newspaper Bild am Sonntag (BAMS).

The two Germans held in Tabriz (northwest) since October 10, 2010, arrived by plane to Tehran in early evening."No comment," replied one of them to journalists who asked them questions.

Before their release, they were each sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 20 months which was immediately converted to a fine of 500 million rials (50,000 dollars), according to the judicial authority who said they were convinced "crime against national security".

The two journalists were arrested in Tabriz while interviewing the son and attorney-Ashtiani Sakineh Mohammadi, an Iranian woman sentenced to stoning in a case of murder and adultery and for which the international community 's is mobilized.

The Iranian authorities accused them of being entered Iran with tourist visas, without asking permission and special press visa that foreign journalists must obtain in order to work in Iran.

The Iranian Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, imprisoned in Tabriz, was sentenced to death by two courts in 2006 for his involvement in the murder of her husband and adulterers. His murder conviction was reduced to 10 years in prison on appeal in 2007 but his sentence of stoning for adultery was upheld by another court of appeal. The court decided to review his case and has not yet delivered its final verdict.

INTERNET: Syria restores access to Facebook and YouTube

Facebook is back in Syria and the White House was delighted. FRANCE 24 Observers have confirmed that this was the subject of many tweets since Tuesday afternoon after two and a half years of censorship, the Syrians can again log on to Facebook. An adviser to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has even split congratulations to Damascus for this gesture.

But the star network social web, often cited for his alleged role in important events in Tunisia and Egypt, is not the only one to be available again in Syria.YouTube, the online video platform owned by Google, has also resurfaced after many years of enforced absence on the Web Syrian.

Two symbolic gestures that the Syrians were discovered by themselves. Authorities have not actually announced officially the lifting of censorship. "It's an important gesture, but not sufficient for a variety of other sites, less known, continue to be inaccessible," said Bassam al-Kadi, a FRANCE 24 Observer based in Damascus and site manager Syrian Women Observatory .

This is particularly the case for Elaph, the largest online newspaper in the Arab world, or Asharq al-Awsat, one of the most renowned Arabic dailies.The Syrian authorities are not ready to let their people have unlimited access to the global network. Why then this leniency toward Facebook and YouTube?

Less censorship for more control

Several commentators believe that the authorities' decision to Damascene Facebook and YouTube is a gesture of appeasement to the people. It would be better safe than sorry and have reasoned President Bashar el-Assad. "For sure this decision is a direct consequence of events in Egypt and Tunisia", recognizes Nourane Kuli, another Syrian Observer for FRANCE 24.

However, the explanation does not seem satisfactory."In my opinion, the main reasons are that the authorities can better control what is going on these sites and they also realized that censorship was not necessarily effective," said Bassam al-Kadi. Indeed, part of the population - as in Egypt and Tunisia - were already using proven methods to circumvent censorship (proxy, virtual networks, etc.)..

Still, making Facebook accessible to all is not without risk to the Syrian regime, but it is a risk that seems perfectly calculated and controlled. "The situation here is very different from Egypt or Tunisia.The use of the Internet is not the same, there is no real activists on social networks which makes sites like Facebook less useful, "concludes Bassam al-Kadi.