For Islamic countries, the IMF is "here to help"

From Eric Dondero:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, was arrested Saturday night for sexual assault on an African-American chamber maid at a posh NYC hotel.

As Morocco News explains (MacroMorocco.com), there had been rumors of his "imprudence" on lifestyle manners:

Apparently taking Greece up the behind wasnt enough for battyboy StraussKahn who was just hauled off a plane in New York after an alleged sexual assault on a hotel maid. IMF Director Dominique StraussKahn was arrested Saturday evening in New York on sexual assault charges...

Three Port Authority detectives pulled Dominique StraussKahn from the planes firstclass cabin just two minutes before it was due to depart for Paris the sources said.

He was widely considered the front runner in replacing French President Nicholas Sarkozy in 2012.

Backer of Islamist causes across North Africa

A bio for Dominique Strauss-Kahn notes that the IMF chief grew up in Morocco. His family moved there when he was 5. The family lived there for 8 years.

A diehard Socialist, Strauss-Kahn is an Economics professor by trade. But in 1997, he won election as Mayor to the "melting pot" city of Sarcelles, just north of Paris. The suburb is known as one of the main areas of Muslim Youth riots starting in 2005. It's also been the site of numerous attacks by Muslim Youth on local French citizens.

Strauss-Kahn has long been viewed as an Arabist, and has pushed for more taxpayer-funded bail-outs by northern European nations for Middle Eastern nations.

Helped to fund Islamist Revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia?

From Yahoo News, April 15:

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said Friday that the lender stood ready to offer financial support to Arab countries like Egypt and Tunisia if they ask for it.

"We're here to help," Strauss-Kahn said at a conference on the Middle East and North Africa at IMF headquarters in Washington.

"we have to go beyond" looking at the macroeconomic picture and find ways to help build healthy economies.

"We will be on the side of the people who tried to have things go forward."

Still, he said, economic growth is vital in the battle for social justice...

Later in the article:

"For a democratic revolution, wherever it is, in Africa, in the Middle East... we're going to spend a lot of money, we're going to subsidize a lot of people," he said.

"If Arab revolutions are to be milestones in history, and I believe it can be the case, then I believe the success relies on building democratic institutions, and also labor organizations," he added.

See related LR article from 2009, "France Burns - Muslim Riots" Photo - IMF.org

Polls had him in 2nd place over Sarkozy for French Prez

From Eric Dondero:

By some polls head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn was getting as much as 17% of the French vote in second place behind Marine Le Pen but ahead of Nicolas Sarkozy. He was the expected Socialist Party candidate for president in next year's election.

Now he has been busted in New York for repeatedly assaulting an African-American maid at a posh French-owned hotel. He allegedly forced her to perform sex acts on him. He was pulled off a jet plane on its way to Paris by NYC PD moments before take-off.

From the NY Post "IMF head Strauss-Kahn charged with attempted rape of hotel maid":

The trouble began around noon today, when a housekeeper entered Strauss-Kahn’s room at the Sofitel on West 44th Street.

Strauss-Kahn was in his bathroom, said sources. He emerged from the bathroom naked, said the sources, and grabbed her.

Then, Strauss-Kahn allegedly threw the housekeeper on the room’s bed and forced her to perform oral sex on him, said the sources.

Strauss-Kahn let the maid leave — and soon afterward, headed off to Kennedy Airport for his flight to Paris.

Scheduled to have a private meeting with Germany's Angela Merkel

Somewhat bizarrely, Strauss-Kahn was scheduled to meet with Germany's Angela Merkel today.

From the WSJ "Germany's Merkel To Meet IMF's Strauss-Kahn Sunday":

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet Sunday with Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, to discuss a number of key issues including the European debt crisis.

As well as the problems of the euro zone, the two will discuss the upcoming summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations, the group of 20 most industrialized and emerging economies, Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said at a regular government press conference Friday.

Merkel hopes to get to know Strauss-Kahn's opinion on Greece, Portugal and Ireland, Seibert said.

Strauss was an advocate for greater dependency on the European Union and away from sovereignty for Euro nations. He clammored for a much larger IMF central budget with larger contributions from rich nations like Germany.

"It is time to create a level playing field for European workers, especially in the area of labour taxation, social benefits systems and portability, and employment protection legislation.”

Strauss-Kahn according to the London Guardian, had steered the IMF in recent years away from laissez-faire, towards an aggressively interventionist course.

The IMF suffered from three big problems in the period before the former French finance minister took over in the autumn of 2007: it had been ideologically wedded to the free-market philosophy of financial liberalisation that caused the world's banking system to implode; it had suffered from weak leadershipp; and it was short of money.

Strauss-Kahn moved the fund in a more progressive direction...

Now talk is emerging that his logical replacement would be former UK Labor Party leader Gordon Brown.

Brown would be the obvious European choice to continue Strauss-Kahn's work. Brown chaired the IMF's keep policy committee for almost a decade when he was chancellor and believes the fund should actively intervene to tackle poverty and make the global economy less unstable.

Though, the Guardian notes UK Prime Minister and Tory Party leader David Cameron is likely to oppose such a move.

Santorum to benefit?

From Eric Dondero:

Breaking news this morning...

Mike Huckabee announced on his Fox News Show last night that he will not be a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination for 2012.

He said he prayed over the decision, and as various media are reporting his heart just wasn't into it.

Interestingly, the AP talks of Huckabee's decision to pull out as a blow to social conservatives, leaving them with no candidate.

Huckabee is a prominent conservative who would have been a serious contender for the party nod with instant support among Christian evangelicals who dominate the Iowa caucuses and the early South Carolina primary. And with him out of the race, there is no clear candidate out there to for them to rally around.

But they completely leave out former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.