SYRIA: Damascus regime predicted the imminent end of the revolt

It is a media outlet even more remarkable that Syrian officials were not usually speak in Western media. Boutheina Shaaban, Special Advisor to President Bashar al-Assad - who often takes on the role of spokesperson - awarded the "New York Times an interview in which she displays confidence regime against the protests that rocked the country for two months.

"I hope we are going through the end of this story. I think the most dangerous moment is behind us.I hope, I think, "said Councillor journalists from U.S. daily, which had special permission to enter a couple of hours in the country to meet briefly with their interlocutor.

Since the beginning of the protest movement, Syria is in effect closed to journalists and the few reports emerging about the violence between security forces and opponents of the regime come from witnesses and activists of human rights.

On Monday, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (OSDH) has reported that authorities have made further arrests in the capital, Damascus and Banias, a town on the Mediterranean coast.Since the beginning of the revolt in mid-March, between 600 and 700 people were killed and at least 8,000 arrested, according to NGOs.

In this regard, Boutheina Shaaban justified in the New York Times "the repressive regime, which" may not be sympathetic with people who lead an armed rebellion. "

Sanctions "manageable"

The international community does not share this analysis. The sanctions against 13 officials and Syrian arms embargo adopted by the European Union (EU) to halt "repression against the people" came into force on Tuesday.

Among these leaders face particular Maher al-Assad, younger brother of Syrian president and head of the Republican Guard, officials said Tuesday morning.The Head of State, himself, is currently not covered by the EU sanctions.

The United States has in turn imposed economic sanctions on officials of the country and warned Friday that they could adopt new measures if Damascus did not put an end to repression.

But these retaliatory measures do not undermine the optimism of the plan. In the interview with U.S. newspaper, Councillor Bashar al-Assad believes that these sanctions are manageable. "This is a form of pressure that has often been used against us. Just arrange a time that our country will be safe again. We're not going to live forever this crisis," says she.

RENAULT RE: "Patrick Pelata was the only one to head to Carlos Ghosn"

It is no longer CEO of Renault. Patrick Pelata, emblematic of the French automotive group, presented Monday his resignation to the board's special company, which accepted it. The right arm of Carlos Ghosn is the most senior of the company to make false charges of espionage affair that rocked the automaker

This former home of the Renault was the current office of the company. So much so that some, like Peter Alanche, a former employee and author of "Renault, side yard" (ed.Workshop, 2007) believes that his departure is bad news for the group.

FRANCE 24: The resignation of Patrick Pelata the post of director general is it bad news for Renault?
Alanche Peter: Yes, Patrick Pelata had managed to make the connection between the base of the group and management. Near Carlos Ghosn - they were classmates at the Polytechnic, he is considered one of the principal architects of social dialogue at Renault. He was also responsible for all operational and has personally overseen the implementation of the strategy of the electric car of Renault.

His resignation also marks the withdrawal of a leading critic of the social tradition of the group.Patrick Pelata has worked 30 years for Renault. He went through all services prior to accessing the highest offices. Do not forget that he is the author of a thesis on the social dimension of any industrial strategy and has been a time fellow traveler of the French Communist Party.

F24: How was he regarded by employees of Renault?
Alanche stone: He was clearly regarded as one of the leaders most open to dialogue.The company is not just for him at an industrial strategy. Instead, Patrick Pelata has always highlighted the social dimension in the company, which was for years the specificity of Renault.

Most importantly, everyone agrees that Patrick Pelata was the only dare stand up to Carlos Ghosn. He was never afraid to contradict the boss and discuss his choices. However, we should not kid ourselves, the two men had the same strategic vision for the group.

F24: Under these conditions, why the board did accept the resignation of Patrick Pelata?
Pierre Alanche: Carlos Ghosn did not want to part with his No. 2. He had already once refused his resignation in early March.He is convinced that Patrick Pelata committed no errors. So here it is not a power struggle. But public opinion and the state wanted to cut off heads, and only Patrick Pelata has sufficient stature to play the sacrificial victims. The other option was to sacrifice Carlos Ghosn as CEO but is the glue of the entire Renault-Nissan, it was impossible to drop it.

Patrick Pelata still remains within the group, which is still a strong signal. Now it is still necessary to know what role he will be awarded?

JAPAN: TEPCO continues to reject radioactive water at sea and plunges to the Exchange

AFP - Shares of TEPCO, which owns the plant at risk of Fukushima, plunged to a historic high at the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tuesday because of the spill in the Pacific Ocean thousands of tons of radioactive water from the reactors Nuclear.

After 25 days of an uphill struggle to avoid an uncontrolled fusion fuels in rugged installations, the danger of a major disaster was still not excluded and environmental pollution worsened.

The title of TEPCO Electric Power (TEPCO) has unscrewed from 11.53% in mid-session, investors are increasingly doubting the ability of the utility to pay huge compensations that will be claimed.

The action dropped 51 yen Tuesday mid-day to fall to 391 yen.It even fell in the early morning to 376 yen, or prices lower than the lowest end of session for nearly 60 years.

"The compensation payments are likely to explode with the release of radioactive water," said a broker.

The course of TEPCO has loosened over 80% since March 11 closing in, weighed down by the cascade of explosions and leaks of contaminating stored in Fukushima Daiichi (No. 1).

The group also decided Tuesday to postpone to a date not announced its financial results for the fiscal year from April 2010 to 31 March, because the consequences of the disaster triggered by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in the northeastern Japan, told AFP spokesman.

Opposite the central operations of ocean dumping of 11,500 tonnes of radioactive water were continuing on Tuesday after starting the day at 19:00 (1000 GMT).

Expected to last for five days, these discharges 250 km north of the metropolitan Tokyo and its 35 million people, relate to a slightly contaminated water, assured Tepco.

The evacuation of this water in the ocean where the radionuclides are expected to concentrate, according to TEPCO, is imperative in order to free up storage tanks intended to be filled with highly radioactive water.

The fishing was prohibited within a radius of 20 km around the plant, corresponding to the exclusion zone on earth.

All power supply system of six reactors in Fukushima broke down March 11, stopping the pumps for cooling the nuclear fuel that was allowed to warm dangerously.

Technicians are now scrambling to repair this equipment is locked in a vicious circle: it is vital to cool the reactor fuel and spent fuel stored in tanks, but they use more water, more radioactive groundwater rise.And unless they inject water, the temperature increases in the reactors.

The "wash out" caused massive flooding in buildings and underground service tunnels, which are invaded by thousands of tons of radioactive water, which retards the progress of work to rehabilitate the electricity network.

Even if disposal of polluted water seems to have eclipsed the cooling, it was continuing Tuesday, thanks to huge concrete pumps sent from abroad.

Technicians also continued to try to plug a leak of highly contaminated water that has accumulated in a pit near the shore technical and empties directly into the ocean.

They try to understand where the water infiltrates, presumably coming from the reactor building 2.

"TEPCO will conduct drilling to follow the flow of water and inject water glass (sodium silicate)" to close access to the tank cracked, said Tuesday Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman of the Security Agency Japanese nuclear.

More than three weeks after the tragedy, the results are still provisional police amounted to 12,321 confirmed dead and 15,347 missing.

JAPAN: "It is quite possible that the yen continues to rise"

France24.com: How do you explain the surge in the yen against the dollar?

Danielle Schweissgut: The markets anticipate that the Japanese will repatriate some of their money. These are mainly insurance companies, which will have enormous needs. These companies have placed their currencies around the world and will have to convert them into yen, which will increase demand and thus raising the price of local currency.

F24: The government has denounced speculation ...

DS: Yes, because for now, insurance companies are still assessing the cost of this disaster and have not begun to repatriate that money.So these are speculators who plan what will happen to buy yen in dollars, therefore raising the price of the Japanese currency against the greenback.

F24: Can we expect the yen continues to rise?

DS: That's entirely possible. When everyone has an update on the money to pay insurers and organize the reconstruction, the actual movement of money will start, thus putting further pressure on the yen.

F24: Who suffers the most from this surge in the yen?

DS: This is in theory a bad news for Japanese companies whose business is export oriented. The yen is more expensive, more products would be difficult to sell abroad.In practice, Japanese companies should get out. Indeed, the soaring yen is not new: the course had already appreciated the yen against the dollar last year, and a similar phenomenon occurred after the Kobe earthquake in 1995. These firms have adapted by investing heavily in innovation and positioning themselves in niche markets - where there is little competition, which reduces the importance of the yen.

F24: What can the authorities to counter this surge?

DS: The levers are now in the hands of the Central Bank, which can handle them in two ways. First, it can flood the market by issuing yen, which should lower the value of money.That's what she started, but for now, this has not prevented speculation. The other lever, the central bank could now operate, is to directly intervene by selling yen and buying, as any player in the market in order to counterbalance the speculation.

BAHRAIN: The security forces violently dislodge protesters from the center of Manama

REUTERS - Opponents Bahraini reached Sunday to block access to the Financial Harbour business district of Manama, despite police intervention
of the order who used tear gas and water cannons.

The fighting has been unprecedented violence since February 17, when seven people were killed by the army.

Young protesters set up barricades across the avenue leading to the business district, having overwhelmed riot police who were trying to contain near the Place de la Perle, the epicenter of the dispute.

"The Interior Ministry is currently conducting operations to re-open the avenue of King Faisal and advised the demonstrators to return to the Place de la Perle for their own
security ", officials say in a statement.

Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet, is restless since last month by an unprecedented protest movement since the 1990s, inspired by the popular uprisings of Tunisia and Egypt.

The Youth Movement of 14-Feb, whose militants are encamped on the Place de la Perle, announced Saturday his intention to form a human chain to block access to the Financial Harbour.

TUNISIA - Feature: The flight of migrant workers continues in Egyptian port of Zarzis

The Egyptian military frigate "The Nasser" is the third of its kind to land on for a day in the Tunisian port of Zarzis, 70 km from Ras Jdir, a border post where, for 13 days, thousands of workers to leave Libya to safety.

After landing 25 tons of food, the Egyptian sailors of "Nasser" took over 400 of their countrymen, which will require two to three days at sea to return to their homeland. The passengers, waiting for the departure, look bleak for those who do not know what the future holds. "I returned poorer than when I'm gone", says Mohammed al-Abd al-Sayeh Rabou, province of Kana.

The men carrying bundles or canteens, tell their flight from the hostility of the Libyans.In the aftermath of the revolutions of Tunisia and Egypt, the Egyptians living in Libya have been suspected of being agitators and even echoing the discourse of the "Guide" Muammar Qaddafi, 24 February, "to have distributed drugs to resistant" as reported by Ahmed Hazou, from Al-Mansoura.

The military checkpoints, thirty of the 250 kilometers between the Libyan capital Tripoli, the border crossing, have marked their flight.

Each dam was a pretext for a body search, which it was impossible to escape.Ahmed Hazou had to get rid of its Euro 2000, three telephones and tools for ceramics to avoid being beaten.

Through the words of these men, Libya, and its petrodollars, no longer appears as the El Dorado it has long been the eyes of these young men, driven from their countries by unemployment and population pressure.Neither Mohammed or Ahmed never return, they swear.

Egyptian diplomats present at the port of Zarzis on Saturday, felt that the million and a half Egyptian workers living in Libya, some 500 000 have already fui.12 000 are still capable of crossing the border in coming days if the situation Libya deteriorated.

In addition to 400 evacuees with "The Nasser, 600 others waited to be airlifted to rejoin their families. All Egyptian refugee camp of Shusha, situated at the border will then have left Tunisia.

FRANCE: Prison sought against Jean-Marie Le Pen for the sign "No to Islam '

A sentence of imprisonment was necessary Tuesday before the correctional court of Nanterre against Jean-Marie Le Pen for having, by campaign posters, incited hatred against the Muslim population and people of Algerian origin.

The prosecutor, Yvon Tallec, has left it to the fourteenth chamber, captured on direct quotation by the Movement against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples (MRAP), determine the quantum of sentence and the amount a fine.

The poster in question was a fully veiled woman beside a map of France covered the Algerian flag on which rose the minarets shaped missiles, with the title "No to Islam".

In the last regional elections in February 2010, the movement "Youth" National Front had released the posters in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur and on its website and then across France.

At the time, the case had sparked protests from Algeria.

In early December, the Paris court had exonerated Jean-Marie Le Pen, prosecuted for the same actions by the League against Racism and Antisemitism and SOS Racisme, without addressing the merits of the case, dismissing the two associations pure questions of form.

At the hearing in Nanterre, MRAP's lawyer, Khaled Lasbeur, produced a video of a speech on 7 March 2010 in which Jean-Marie Le Pen "claims authorship of the poster, thereby constituting the offense of incitement to hatred, "the prosecutor.

For his part, counsel for the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen, Mr. Wallerand de Saint Just, said that the poster in question said: "No to Islam" and not Islam.

On the speech of Jean-Marie Le Pen, his lawyer conceded that his client justified the poster, but it does not prove that it "was the author, editor of internet sites who posted the sign, printer or Gluer these posters. "

"This is a baseless accusation that Mr. Le Pen.A politician has the right to say that Islamism is a danger for France! "Said Mr. Wallerand St. Just.

The decision was taken under advisement on April 5.