Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF chief whose French presidential ambitions were shattered by a sex scandal last year, is making a comeback in business and at conferences. The 63-year-old Strauss-Kahn was accused of trying to rape a New York hotel maid in May 2011. He protested his innocence and criminal charges against him were dropped,…
Two men hit and threatened a Jewish schoolboy at a Paris bus stop, according to the security unit of France’s Jewish community, SPCJ. The two men, both in their 40s, hit the 12-year-old boy with a belt on Oct. 22 and told him to remain silent, SPCJ wrote in a statement on Wednesday. The boy…
For Nevada gaming companies grappling with a weak economy and a splintering market at home, the Asian casino boom has been a godsend. But it has left the Nevada Gaming Control Board facing difficult questions about how to confront the influence of Asian organized crime, both overseas and inside the state. With no full-time staff…
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Shalom Prize for his commitment to seeking peace in his country and worldwide. The prize, bestowed Tuesday at a ceremony in Bogota, is awarded by the Latin American chapter of the World Jewish Congress based in Buenos Aires. “Both the people here and the people in Israel…
Many in the Middle East believe Barack Obama failed to deliver on promises of a new U.S. approach in the region but still prefer him to presidential rival Mitt Romney, who they see as too close to Israel and too keen to project U.S. military might. Whoever wins the Nov. 6 election faces a knot…
A rebel Catholic traditionalist group has expelled British-born Bishop Richard Williamson who deeply embarrassed the Vatican by denying the Holocaust shortly before he was readmitted to the Church three years ago. The World Jewish Congress (WJC) welcomed the step but said it was “too little, too late” to restore credibility to the Swiss-based Society of…
More than 60 rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza have hit southern Israel in the last 24 hours, striking several homes and injuring three. Four Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza sites that the military says are used for launching rockets at Israel. The Palestinian Ma’an news agency has identified the…
An Israeli flag was burned in front of a Budapest synagogue. The incident occurred Tuesday in downtown central Budapest, in front of the Dohany Street Synagogue. The Israeli flag reportedly was desecrated by members of Jobbik, an ultrarightist Hungarian political party. The Jobbik members were taking part in the day’s commemorative events recalling the Hungarian…
Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a Romanian member of the European Parliament, denied the Holocaust on television, the country’s National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust said. The Bucharest-based Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of Holocaust in Romania said in a statement issued Monday that Vadim Tudor, leader of the nationalist Greater Romania Party,…
French security “failed” in assessing the danger posed by Mohammed Merah, the French Interior Ministry said in a report about the Jihadist killer of three Jewish children and a rabbi in Toulouse in March. The 17-page report, which was submitted on Oct. 23, confirmed that the French domestic intelligence agency DCRI had been monitoring Merah…
Lithuania’s outgoing chancellor agreed in principle to a lump sum transfer $47 million to the country’s Jewish community as compensation for lost Holocaust-era property. Chancellor Deividas Matulionis, chief of staff for Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, agreed to the transfer at a meeting last week with Gunther Saathoff, director of the German government’s EVZ Foundation for…
