When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Geopolitics

DSK Conspiracy Theory Du Jour: What About The Hotel Management?

With major doubts about the reliability of the alleged victim, France is buzzing again with conspiracy theories around the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case. The latest focuses on the Sofitel hotel, site of alleged act.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the Aid for Trade conference in 2009 (by the World Trade Organization)
Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the Aid for Trade conference in 2009 (by the World Trade Organization)

Worldcrunch NEWS BITES

Many theories have emerged about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal. For those convinced of the innocence of the former International Monetary Fund chief, suspicions abound that it was all a set-up. The latest such "complot" is focused on the apparent lack of cooperation from the Accor hotel chain, which owns the Manhattan Sofitel, where a chambermaid says Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her.

The French-owned Accor Company has always refused any requests from Strauss-Kahn's lawyers Benjamin Brafman and Bill Taylor about the hotel staff's schedules and room-cleaning protocols.

This complete lack of cooperation has raised suspicion among some top members of the French Socialist party, for which Strauss-Kahn was a leading contender to run as the candidate to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy for President. Some have questioned whether the company could have ties with Sarkozy's party, the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

Claude Guéant, the French Interior Minister and close Sarkozy ally, recently responded to long-unanswered questions about the affair. He claims that he was informed about Strauss-Kahn's arrest by his own Chief of Staff, who had himself had been informed by Ange Mancini, the current Coordinator of Intelligence for President Nicolas Sarkozy. And therein lies the suspicion: Mancini had apparently been informed of the arrest by his friend René-Georges Querry, the Accor group Head of Security, also a former chief of the French Anti-Gang Brigades (BRI).

Accor group executives insist they "had nothing to do" with Strauss-Kahn's arrest. However, information like this still feeds conspiracy theories suggesting Strauss-Kahn might have been set up and that members of the Accor group were in touch with members of the French government.

Read the full story in French by Marie-France Etchegoin

Photo credit - World Trade Organization

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Geopolitics

Why The Latin American Far Left Can't Stop Cozying Up To Iran's Regime

Among the Islamic Republic of Iran's very few diplomatic friends are too many from Latin America's left, who are always happy to milk their cash-rich allies for all they are worth.

Image of Bolivia's ambassador in Tehran, Romina Pérez Ramos.

Bolivia's ambassador in Tehran, Romina Pérez Ramos.

Bolivia's embassy in Tehran/Facebook
Bahram Farrokhi

-OpEd-

The Latin American Left has an incurable anti-Yankee fever. It is a sickness seen in the baffling support given by the socialist regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela or Bolivia to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which to many exemplifies clerical fascism. And all for a single, crass reason: together they hate the United States.

The Islamic Republic has so many of the traits the Left used to hate and fight in the 20th century: a religious (Islamic) vocation, medieval obscurantism, misogyny... Its kleptocratic economy has turned bog-standard class divisions into chasmic inequalities reminiscent of colonial times.

This support is, of course, cynical and in line with the mandates of realpolitik. The regional master in this regard is communist Cuba, which has peddled its anti-imperialist discourse for 60 years, even as it awaits another chance at détente with its ever wealthy neighbor.

I reflected on this on the back of recent remarks by Bolivia's ambassador in Tehran, the 64-year-old Romina Pérez Ramos. She must be the busiest diplomat in Tehran right now, and not a day goes by without her going, appearing or speaking somewhere, with all the publicity she can expect from the regime's media.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest