Hotel video surveillance footage which emerged on Thursday is "further proof" the maid accusing Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault was telling the truth, her lawyers say.
But Strauss-Kahn biographer Michel Taubmann, meanwhile, accused "a small group of people from the Sofitel" of having ensnared Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a "trap."
France's BFMTV broadcast images showing the former International Monetary Fund chief paying his bill, leaving and getting into a taxi after he was alleged to have sexually assaulted chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo at the New York Sofitel.
They showed that Strauss-Kahn, who admits that a sexual liaison took place but insists it was consensual, was not in a hurry when he left the Sofitel hotel at 12:27 pm on the day of his arrest, May 14.
Other images showed Diallo seated in a corridor and being looked after by Sofitel employees after she said Strauss-Kahn attacked her in his suite.
A hotel employee is shown and heard calling police to inform them of the alleged attack.
Puppet Masters
© UPI/Kevin Dietsch
President Barack Obama annouces Richard Cordray (R) as his nominee to be the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington on July 18, 2011.
President Barack Obama annouces Richard Cordray (R) as his nominee to be the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington on July 18, 2011.
Senate Republicans were near unanimous in voting to stop a former Ohio attorney general, Richard Cordray, from becoming director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency they said had too much power and too little accountability.
The vote had immediate consequences. Without a director, the agency designed to shield consumers from the excesses behind the 2008 financial crisis is unable to operate at full strength.
Republicans said that until the Obama administration agrees to changes at the agency, they will keep blocking the president's pick from taking charge.
Obama said immediately after the vote that there was no reason to deny Cordray the top spot. He did not rule out a recess appointment, whereby a president makes a temporary appointment to a government post when Congress is not in session. Under such a move, an appointee can serve until the close of the next session of Congress, which would be the end of 2012.
© The Associated Press/Hatem Moussa
Palestinians gather around the wreckage of a car after an explosion in Gaza City, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011.
Palestinians gather around the wreckage of a car after an explosion in Gaza City, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011.
The airstrikes, confirmed by the Israeli military, followed Israeli air attacks a day earlier that killed two Islamic militants and touched off rocket fire from Gaza on southern Israel. The rockets caused no casualties but further ratcheted up frictions.
Gaza rescue officials said three separate airstrikes took place in Gaza City against training facilities of the militant Hamas group that rules the densely populated seaside territory. One set a nearby house on fire, destroying it and killing a 42-year-old civilian man, identified by health official Adham Abu Salmia as Bahajat Zaalan. Seven members of Zaalan's family - his 65-year-old father, wife and five of his children - were wounded, Abu Salmia said.
Fire also erupted in other houses and some were hit by shrapnel. In all, 25 people, including an infant, were wounded, seven of them critically, Abu Salmia said.
© Revolutionary Guards, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Photo shows Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, right, looking at what Iranian officials say is an American RQ-170 Sentinel high-altitude reconnaissance drone that crashed in Iran.
Photo shows Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, right, looking at what Iranian officials say is an American RQ-170 Sentinel high-altitude reconnaissance drone that crashed in Iran.
The unmanned, robotic aircraft - a RQ170 Sentinel drone plane - disappeared last week. American authorities quickly dismissed claims that they lost the plane over Iran, only to later admit that the CIA was flying a reconnaissance mission over Afghanistan when they lost touch with the top-secret stealth drone. Soon after it was believed that communication was cut once the plane waded through the air in Iranian territory. American officials then claimed that satellite imagery showed that the drone had crashed and was beyond repair.
Officials out of Tehran, however, now say that they intercepted the craft and have it in perfect shape. For proof, Iran television has even broadcast footage of the craft.
© The Associated Press
France and Germany are the main driving force behind the plan to change EU treaties
France and Germany are the main driving force behind the plan to change EU treaties
The key item on the agenda in Brussels is a Franco-German plan on budgetary discipline, with automatic penalties for eurozone nations that overspend.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the euro has "lost credibility".
Meanwhile, world shares fell after the European Central Bank ruled out any substantial aid for indebted nations.
The US Dow Jones index closed down 1.6%. French and Italian shares ended down 2.5% and 4.3% respectively. Shares on Asian markets opened lower on Friday.
© Alamy
The council of Europe has issued an alert to European countries about the risk to free speech by cyber attacks and political pressure on internet platforms, internet service providers (ISPs), independent media, whistleblowers, human rights defenders and political dissidents.
The Council's Committee of Ministers issued a Declaration expressing concern over pressure being exerted on internet companies and ISPs to tighten controls on internet content, which supports a recent EU Court of Justice ruling that ISP filters are prohibited under European law.
The Council is also worried about the impact of cyber attacks, particularly Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, on advocates of free speech, which it sees as a relatively new way that this right is being violated.
The Declaration asserted the usefulness of social networks, blogs, and other online communities for their role as social watchdogs that have the power to cause positive real-life change. This is likely a reference to the recent uprisings in several countries against oppressive regimes, including Egypt and Libya.
© The Associated Press
Firefighters extinguish burning NATO supply oil tankers and goods trucks at a terminal following an attack by gunmen in Quetta on December 8, 2011.
Firefighters extinguish burning NATO supply oil tankers and goods trucks at a terminal following an attack by gunmen in Quetta on December 8, 2011.
The attack highlighted the vulnerability of the supply trucks that are waiting for the country's two border crossings into Afghanistan to reopen. Around 40 percent of the non-lethal supplies for U.S.-led troops in landlocked Afghanistan travel across Pakistani soil.
Islamabad temporarily closed one of its Afghan crossings to NATO supplies last year after U.S. helicopters accidentally killed two Pakistani soldiers. Suspected militants or criminals took advantage of the impasse to launch many attacks against stranded or rerouted trucks carrying NATO supplies.
© The Associated Press/Dmitry Lovetsky
Riot police detain a protester during a rally in downtown St.Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011. More than a thousand people have protested in St.Petersburg against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his party, which won the largest share of a parliamentary election that observers said was rigged.
Riot police detain a protester during a rally in downtown St.Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011. More than a thousand people have protested in St.Petersburg against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his party, which won the largest share of a parliamentary election that observers said was rigged.
By describing Russia's parliamentary election as rigged, Putin said Clinton "gave a signal" to his opponents.
"They heard this signal and with the support of the U.S. State Department began their active work," Putin said in televised remarks.
Russian protesters have taken to the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg for three straight nights despite heavy police presence, outraged over observers' reports of widespread ballot box stuffing and manipulations of the vote count in Sunday's parliamentary election. The demonstrations have been some of the biggest and most sustained protests Russia has seen in years, and police have detained hundreds of protesters.
© Kamorek
Crystal L. Cox, a blogger from Eureka, Mont., was sued for defamation by attorney Kevin Padrick when she posted online that he was a thug and a thief during the handling of bankruptcy proceedings by him and Obsidian Finance Group LLC.
U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez found last week that as a blogger, Cox was not a journalist and cannot claim the protections afforded to mainstream reporters and news outlets.
Although media experts said Wednesday that the ruling would have little effect on the definition of journalism, it casts a shadow on those who work in nontraditional media since it highlights the lack of case law that could protect them and the fact that current state shield laws for journalists are not covering recent developments in online media.
"My advice to bloggers operating in the state of Oregon is lobby to get your shield law improved so bloggers are covered," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "But do not expect the shield law to provide you a defense in a libel case where you want to rely on an anonymous source for that information."
© Natural Society
Gene patenting has been going on for over 100 years while science and technology has been continually allowing for greater advancements. Over the past 30 years alone, there has been over 40,000 patents created and accepted on genes alone. As genes continue to be acquired and patented, it is only a matter of time before large corporations own patents on a large number of human genes and tissues. What may seem staggering, though, is that the more than 20 percent of the human genome is already patented.
The Fears Alongside with Gene Pattenting
To create a patentable gene sequences an individual must find something in nature, isolate it, and alter it in order to create something deemed 'useful'. Much of the debate in favor of creating gene sequences revolves around society and corporate driven company ownership issues. As a creator of a gene sequence, individuals or companies expect ownership of the creation as well as protection from anyone else stealing the idea. If companies were not able to patent gene sequences, then other companies could exploit the original creators' ideas and ultimately profit themselves. Of course the patents in question revolve around the human genome, which no corporation rightfully owns. In addition, corporations use the argument that many of these gene sequences correlate with diseases like breast cancer and Alzheimer's disease. The creation of such gene sequences give merit to the idea of gene manipulation as the created gene sequence could lead to increased protection against bodily invaders.
