FRANCE: Dominique Strauss-Kahn is charged with "sexual assault" in New York

The Director General of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the French Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been formally charged Sunday with sexual assault and attempted rape a few hours after being arrested at the airport in New York, officials said Source police.

Strauss-Kahn, known as "DSK", Socialist candidate preferred by the French presidential polls for 2012, "has been charged with sexual assault, forcible confinement and one of attempted rape on a young person 32 year old woman in a hotel room in New York, "Ryan told reporters Sesa, a spokesman for police in Harlem (north of Manhattan).

Mr.Strauss-Kahn, 62, was still detained at the police station in Harlem, where he was taken in the afternoon of Saturday, after being arrested while preparing to leave for Europe.

It should be referred to the prosecutor in the day Sunday, and should remain at the police station in Harlem by then, it was clear from the same source.

UNITED STATES: The Federal Reserve has revolutionized the communication

Chairman of the Central Bank of the United States (Fed), Ben Bernanke, has dealt a further blow to the reputation of secrecy and opacity of the institution in deciding to hold regular press briefings.

Mr. Bernanke will hold press briefings four times a year to present the latest economic forecasts Monetary Policy Committee of the Fed and to provide additional circumstantial evidence on the Committee's decisions, "the Fed said in a statement.

The first briefing is scheduled for April 27, after the next monetary policy meeting of the Federal Reserve.Two more are planned for 2011: June 22 and November 2.

It is a revolution in communication and transparency for the Fed, which until 1994 did not communicate the decisions taken during meetings of its Monetary Policy Committee (FOMC).

It was then scrutinize the evolution of the interbank lending market on a daily basis, on which the Fed has daily, to get an idea of ​​what she had decided.

Since then, the FOMC announces its decision in a statement issued at the end of its meetings and whose every word is weighed and analyzed by experts.

The Fed said that "the launch of regular press briefings designed to further improve the clarity and timeliness of [his] communication."

The FOMC holds a regular meeting every six weeks, eight times a year.

At the Committee meeting in December, several members had insisted on "communication challenges" facing the Federal Reserve to make it understand as precisely as possible its intentions.

Quiet by nature, Mr. Bernanke seemed rather reluctant to exercise press conferences.

He had participated in early February at a Washington press conference - where the questions were filtered by a moderator - who had the air of a trial run.

Mr.Bernanke said last year that his institution had not yet taken the decision "difficult" to communicate more often, just like what the European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan, whose respective presidents, Jean -Claude Trichet and Masaaki Shirakawa, give regular press conference.

"We do not want to create inappropriately uncertainty or volatility in financial markets by saying things that could be misinterpreted," he had said the same.

At the head of the Fed since 2006, Mr.Bernanke has profoundly changed the habits in the central bank, rejecting the "cult" which was under his predecessor Alan Greenspan, and leading the Fed to communicate a lot about his action.

Where Mr. Greenspan had made a specialty of small cryptic sentences, Mr. Bernanke, a former economics professor, is trying to explain in the simplest possible action.

The announcement of regular press briefings of the President of the Fed takes place while the U.S. central bank will soon have to clarify how it intends to fly the "crisis", that is to say how she intends to use to return smoothly to the hundreds of billions of dollars it has pumped into the U.S. economy to enable it through the crisis.

CHINA: dissident artist Ai Weiwei arrested at Beijing airport

AFP - The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, outspoken government critic, was arrested when he was about to board a plane for Hong Kong and police raided his studio outside Beijing, have announced its employees on Twitter.

The arrest of Ai Weiwei, 53, comes just days after he announced his intention to move abroad to avoid being harassed by the time the authorities have further strengthened their crackdown on people criticizing the regime.On Tuesday, he spoke German.

Have announced in mid-February the cancellation of his first major exhibition held in China in March, organizers had explained to him that the timing was inappropriate and they wanted to reschedule.

According to messages on Twitter accounts assistant to the artist, police visited his studio in the District Caochangdi equipped with a search warrant.

Eight of his assistants were taken by police for questioning while his wife was under police surveillance at their homes, according to these same sources.

The mobile phone of the artist was off Sunday and did not answer the phone at his studio in Beijing.

In January, the artist's studio in the suburbs of Shanghai had been demolished. Ai was briefly placed under house arrest last November for trying to "celebrate" with her fans announcing the forced demolition.

Have defended many humanitarian causes and won renown with a broad inquiry into the collapses of school buildings during the earthquake in Sichuan province (southwest) in 2008, apparently related to corruption.

JAPAN: Authorities put all the nuclear reactors of the archipelago under surveillance

AFP - The Japanese government on Wednesday ordered an urgent check of all the country's nuclear reactors to ensure they do not meet one day the same damage as those endured by the power plant in Fukushima damaged by the earthquake of March 11 .

A letter to that effect, made public, was addressed by Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Banri Kaieda, CEOs of the nine regional electricity companies in Japan and two other operators nuclear power plants.

Japan has more than 50 reactors, all located on the seafront, on an archipelago that is integrally threat of earthquakes.

The central Fukushima Daiichi (1 Fukushima, north-east) faces an extreme situation, power was cut off by the earthquake and tsunami, embedded generators and cooling devices turned off, all leading to overheating fuel, explosions and radiation leaks.
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As for facilities that are currently under arrest or under construction, they can not be used without having been vetted, "said Minister of Industry, Banri Kaieda, at a press conference partially televised.

The Department also requests that the exercises are conducted to train the teams to deal with such emergencies.

Measures will also be implemented to secure sources of emergency power and a means to cool the fuel, especially in cooling ponds.

The minister stressed that Japan could hardly do without nuclear power, given their needs and lack of resources.

"The nuclear electricity makes up 30% of production in Japan," he said.

The arrest of more than a dozen reactors after the earthquake of March 11 requires the company Tokyo Electric Power, which manages Fukushima Daiichi and supplies the capital, to schedule outages and forcing users to limit their consumption.

UK: Hundreds of thousands of Britons in the streets against the austerity plans

AFP - Britons are descended en masse on Saturday in the streets of London to say no to austerity, a manifestation of a magnitude rare in a country not customary for such demonstrations social, but tarnished by vandals.

The unions, who dreamed of making this day a milestone in the mobilization against the austerity policy, believe they have won their bet, even if they complain clashes with police at the march, which ended in nine arrests five policemen injured.

"We are absolutely delighted: there are hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps half a million, welcomed Paul Nowak, an official of the organization.

A spokesman for the Confederation of British unions, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said that "between 250,000 and 300,000 people" had responded, and some media evoked in the absence of police estimates, 400,000 to 500,000 participants.

"This is the biggest event in London for a generation," enthused the union Unite.

This rally is actually the largest in London since the war against Iraq, which brought together nearly one million people in 2003.It is also the largest social movement since the riots two decades ago and which precipitated the fall of Margaret Thatcher.

A large police contingent had been set up by the TUC, in addition to the 4,500 police officers mobilized, not to relive the excesses of student demonstrations this fall, who had stunned the British.

But clashes have broken out anyway in the march. Disrupters were attacked with paint and glass bottles of stores and banks and smashed windows, around Oxford Street, a major shopping street.

Bulbs filled with ammonia were thrown at the police, police said.The Ritz has been made the target of projectiles and activists broke into the famous department store Fortnum & Mason.

Unions have bitterly deplored the violence scenes, especially as the parade itself was held for more than five hours in a friendly atmosphere.

Many had come with family, strollers and vuvuzelas, the famous horns used by fans at football matches in South Africa.

Scots played the bagpipes and musicians and dancers have joined the march, giving it an air of carnival.

"Do not break Britain," "Defending our public services," proclaimed the banners.

"I'm here because the government wants us to pay to repair what did the bankers.It is currently building a society where the rich are even more, and weak, the poor, "said Gillian Siddons, a retiree of 60 years.

"People are gathered today the spokespeople of Great Britain deep," shouted the leader of the opposition Labour Ed Miliband as a warning to the government, which imposed a cure to the country of unprecedented stringency with wage freeze for civil servants and removal of more than 300,000 public sector jobs.

"Of course people are worried and even angry at times, but we inherited an economic situation that we must take steps to bring public finances back in balance," pleaded the Minister of Education Michael Gove.

The 24-hour general strike marred by incidents in Athens

Clashes erupted Wednesday in central Athens between dozens of youths and riot police, splitting in two a procession of demonstrators protesting against the austerity as part of a general strike for 24 hours, was a journalist the AFP.

The security forces, deployed by cable to the Ministry of Finance, at the bottom of the central square of Syntagma fired tear gas to repel irritants and young people, who were of various projectiles.

The police then deployed to push beyond the square mass of protesters split into two incidents and many were coughing and choking.But échaufourrées continued down from the parliament with the firing of Molotov cocktails by young troublemakers.

Police said the various processions union in Athens and Piraeus have collected some 20,000 people, and more than 60,000 according to union estimates, a significant mobilization. In Salonika, the police amounted to some 16,000 demonstrators.

Some 5,000 policemen were deployed in central Athens against the possibility of such excesses, almost automatically give in recent years at events and in particular that had marred the last union demonstration accompanying a general strike on December 14.

The Minister of Citizen Protection, Christos Papoutsis on Tuesday called for calm and "responsibility" to safeguard the country's image in front of the "international community".

The demonstrations were organized by the two major power plants in the country, the GSEE and ADEDY private to the public, and by the communist trade union front Pame, as part of a day of action against the treatment of 24H austerity prescribed in the country by the Union duropéenne and the International Monetary Fund in exchange for his financial rescue.

EGYPT - EXCLUSIVE: Mohamed el-Baradei: "It is time that Mubarak parte"

As thousands of demonstrators gathered again on Saturday morning in Cairo and a new government must be designated in the day, the opponent Mohamed el-Baradei called, in an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24, the departure of President Hosni Mubarak.

"I will continue to participate [events] to ensure that the Mubarak regime to leave," says FRANCE 24 this Saturday the former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), returned Thursday in Egypt.

A speech "meaningless"

One who is ordinarily resident in Vienna, Austria, said he was ready when he left for Cairo to drive the transition in the event of departure of President Mubarak.

"Friday night we were hoping qu'Hosni Mubarak would decide to leave, but at the last minute it became a meaningless speech, which was a big disappointment for the Egyptians," said Mohamed el-Baradei.

"Hosni Mubarak does not clearly understood the message that emanated from the Egyptian people," says Mohamed el-Baradei. His only response was to form a new government, it was almost an insult to the intelligence of the people. People know although he too is responsible for directing all aspects of the country, it offered no political or economic reform. "

The former head of the IAEA believes that this scheme, which he describes as "dictatorial", has "failed on the economic and political.""We need a fresh start with a free, democratic," he said. We will need a transition period. "

"When a system behaves with such meanness, and opens the water cannon at anyone who won the Nobel Peace Prize, this indicates that it is the beginning of the end for this regime and is time he left, "he added, referring to the events of yesterday in Cairo in which he participated.

"The army did not used to confront the Egyptians"

Mohamed el-Baradei said he hoped that new events "even broader" take place this Saturday. "The police no longer on the streets, the army has taken over," he adds. Traditionally, the army did not used to confront the Egyptians.I hope qu'Hosni Mubarak will get the message before things become very serious. "

During the night, U.S. President Barack Obama for his part called Hosni Mubarak to "keep its promises to work for democracy" and to undertake economic and political reforms. A message found "extremely disappointing" by the opponent.

"The United States said they would work with the Egyptian people and government, then it must make a choice," says Mohamed El-Baradei. It is an authoritarian government and the people suffer hardships for 58 years.Although I have great respect for Barack Obama, assign the task to implement economic reforms and policies to a man who is the head of an authoritarian system and in power for 30 years is a paradox. The first real change to democracy would be to assign this task to a Democrat. "

Although Egyptian officials security said Friday that Mohamed el-Baradei was under house arrest, it has so much going forward. "There are no troops stationed in front of me says it Saturday morning. At least I do not think I'll check it out in my house. I do not know to what extent it correct.In my opinion, it is primarily a message to deter people from participating in peaceful demonstrations. "