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Originally posted by incrediblelousminds
I suggest you dig a bit deeper. No one is defending Straus-Kahns actions. Certainly not me. That's a distraction.
I'm not even suggesting that DSK's removal was a bad thing. It might be a great move. I don't really know. What I am more interested in highlighting is the way in which the US media is guiding this story.
more insight into why the Americans would have a vested interest in taking DSK down....
Originally posted by Reaching
Several pages ago Incrediblelousminds suggested this incident could be related to world leaders' possible desire to have a representative from the developing world head the IMF.
Yesterday, Britain endorsed French Finance Minister Christine Legarde for the position. Meanwhile, weeks ago British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that it may be time to have a candidate from the developing world.
Just a few years ago, before the world recession, this may have been a fairly quiet position. Today, strong voices are weighing in on who should take the role next.
The fact that powerful people are blatantly invested in the IMF's leadership makes the DSK case suspicious.
www.reuters.com...
Originally posted by pimpinette
But, ehum, if they wanted to remove DSK, why not just fire him? Why go through all this trouble? They could have just fired him behind closed doors and then constructed an explanation that would make both involved parties look good "We are very content with DSK's job, but he is off to new exiting projects, blabla" and then sent him off with a large wad of money.
And anyways, if he was going to try to be the president of France next year, it surely wasn't like he was going to keep the IMF job then?
Originally posted by 11andrew34
Which media outlets do you think are out to get him? That is, if you do think some are out to get him. Mass media outlets are largely global in nature now. Good luck finding an "American" one.
Originally posted by incrediblelousminds
Originally posted by pimpinette
But, ehum, if they wanted to remove DSK, why not just fire him? Why go through all this trouble? They could have just fired him behind closed doors and then constructed an explanation that would make both involved parties look good "We are very content with DSK's job, but he is off to new exiting projects, blabla" and then sent him off with a large wad of money.
Who is this 'they'? IS the US able to dictate who is in charge of the IMF?
And anyways, if he was going to try to be the president of France next year, it surely wasn't like he was going to keep the IMF job then?
He was expected to be the winner of the next election. That's still a way off, and not ensured. The nw changes the IMF would have been instituting in regard to SDRs, as well as the specific meeting DSK was going to have with Merkel just last week were very time sensitive, and needed to be dealt with immediately, as far as the US was concerned.
Originally posted by pimpinette
I guess I was alluding to TPTB, which is referred to many times in this thread.
Originally posted by pimpinette
reply to post by incrediblelousminds
I get your point, and it is as good as any speculation I guess.
But the IMF is not a one man show, and if DSK have been able to make any changes he must have been supported from within the organization. So how much of a change of direction can a new person in a leading role really make?
Originally posted by Reaching
Information has been leaked indicating that DSK's DNA matches material found on the maid's shirt.
www.msnbc.msn.com...
Originally posted by Reaching
Information has been leaked indicating that DSK's DNA matches material found on the maid's shirt.
From my perspective it's not a big surprise that there is a match and it's certainly not a big surprise that this information was leaked.
www.msnbc.msn.com...
Originally posted by Reaching
This is not journalism. Not a single source is named. Not one attempt to get the other side of the story is mentioned.
Given that the media is an incredibly powerful tool, abusing it in this way is much more troubling than the alleged individual incident.
DSK's pals bid to to pay off woman's kin:
www.nypost.com...
Originally posted by incrediblelousminds
Not accurate. . Find me one major American media outlet that isn't dragging him through the mud. I havent seen the US media this lockstep since they were all telling us saddam had WMD's tht were gonna kill us all.
Originally posted by AuranVector
So now the prosecution's case is collapsing because there are questions about the veracity of the accuser.
Smells like a set up to me. They knocked him out of the April elections and his IMF seat. Mission accomplished. They don't really need to send him to jail.
Washington attorney William Taylor referred to an upcoming investigative article in the New York Review of Books as evidence that the then powerful French politician may have been derailed, just as he was preparing to run against French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
According to several sources who are close to DSK, he had received a text message that morning from Paris from a woman friend temporarily working as a researcher at the Paris offices of the UMP, Sarkozy’s center-right political party. She warned DSK, who was then pulling ahead of Sarkozy in the polls, that at least one private e-mail he had recently sent from his BlackBerry to his wife, Anne Sinclair, had been read at the UMP offices in Paris.(footnote 1)
footnote 1 : These statements, along with others in this article, were confirmed by sources who prefer to remain anonymous but are known to the author, who has shared his information with the editors.
According to the hotel’s electronic key records, which were provided to DSK’s lawyers, Nafissatou Diallo, a maid, had entered the presidential suite (room 2806) between 12:06 and 12:07 PM (such records are only accurate to the nearest minute) (footnote 2). Ordinarily, cleaning personnel do not enter a room to clean when a guest is still in it. According to DSK’s account, his bags were visible in the foyer when he emerged naked from the bathroom into the interior corridor. At this point, according to his account, he encountered the maid in the corridor by the bathroom. (The maid, for her part, says she encountered him coming out of the bedroom.) Phone records show that by 12:13 PM he was speaking to his daughter Camille on his BlackBerry. The call lasted for forty seconds.
footnote 2 : For this article, along with court and other legal documents, I had access to Sofitel electronic key swipe records, time-stamped security camera videotapes, and records for a cell phone used on the day of May 14 by John Sheehan, a security employee of Accor, the company that owns the Sofitel hotel.
What took place between DSK and the maid in those six to seven intervening minutes is a matter of dispute. DNA evidence found outside the bathroom door showed her saliva mixed with his semen. The New York prosecutor concluded that a “hurried sexual encounter” took place and DSK’s lawyers have admitted as much, while claiming that what happened was consensual. The maid has brought a civil suit claiming he used force. It is not clear when she left the room since key card records do not show times of exit. What is known is that DSK called his daughter on his IMF BlackBerry at 12:13 to tell her he would be late.
After DSK completed his call, he dressed and put on his light black topcoat. He carried with him only one small overnight bag and a briefcase (which contained his iPad and several spare phones) and took the elevator to the lobby. At 12:28 PM the hotel security cameras show him departing. He had to go eight blocks to the McCormick & Schmick’s restaurant on Sixth Avenue between 51st and 52nd Street. He was delayed by heavy traffic on Sixth Avenue. The restaurant camera shows that he arrived at 12:54.
[...]the footage from the two surveillance cameras shows Yearwood and an unidentified man walking from the security office to an adjacent area. This is the same unidentified man who had accompanied Diallo to the security office at 12:52 PM. There, the two men high-five each other, clap their hands, and do what looks like an extraordinary dance of celebration that lasts for three minutes. They are then shown standing by the service door leading to 45th Street—apparently waiting for the police to arrive—where they are joined at 2:04 PM by Florian Schutz, the hotel manager.
When asked why she had not used her pass key to go into another room, she said they all had “Do Not Disturb” signs on the door. After her grand jury testimony, prosecutors discovered that this was false when the hotel belatedly provided them with the electronic key records showing that Diallo had entered room 2820 at 12:26 PM, after her encounter with DSK. The same record also showed that she had also entered room 2820 prior to her encounter with DSK at a time when the occupant had not checked out and may have been in the room. Why she concealed visiting 2820 was “inexplicable” to the prosecutors, who noted in their motion for dismissal that if she had mentioned her visits to 2820, it would have been declared part of the crime scene and searched by the police. But she did not do so.
Nor were DSK’s lawyers able to find an explanation. When they attempted to learn the identity of the occupant of 2820, Sofitel refused to release it on grounds of privacy. Given Diallo’s conflicting accounts, all that we really know about what happened in the nearby room 2820 is that Diallo went there both before and after her encounter with DSK and then omitted the latter visit from her sworn testimony to the grand jury. We still do not know if there was anyone in 2820 when she entered it again following the encounter with DSK or if, prior to the police arriving, anyone influenced her to omit mention of room 2820.
The Sofitel electronic key record, which the hotel did not turn over to the prosecutors until the next week, contained another unexplained anomaly. Two individuals, not one, entered DSK’s suite between 12:05 and 12:06 PM while he was showering. Each used a different key card entry. The key card used at 12:06 belonged to Diallo; the key card used at 12:05 belonged to Syed Haque, a room service employee who, according to his account, came to pick up the breakfast dishes. If he did so, he would have turned left and gone to the dining room. But Haque has refused to be interviewed by DSK’s lawyers, so his precise movements have not been made public. Since the key cards do not register the time of exit, it cannot be determined from them if both parties were in the room at the same time or, for that matter, at the time of Diallo’s encounter with DSK.