France's highest court has ruled that the stalled corruption trial of former President Jacques Chirac can resume.
Mr Chirac, 78, is accused of embezzling public funds in the 1990s, when he was serving as mayor of Paris.
The trial was adjourned in March after a co-defendant argued that some of the charges were unconstitutional.
However, the Court of Cassation ruled against the challenge on Friday, saying the matter did not need to be referred to the Constitutional Council.
Jacques Chirac, who was mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995, is the first former head of state to stand trial in France since World War II.
'Ghost jobs'
He is accused on two counts of paying members of his Rally for the Republic (RPR) party for municipal jobs that did not exist.
The first count accuses Mr Chirac of embezzlement and breach of trust relating to 21 so-called "ghost jobs".
The second came about from a separate investigation in the Paris suburb of Nanterre and involves an illegal conflict of interest relating to seven ghost jobs.
Mr Chirac denies all the charges.
For years there were persistent rumours of wrong-doing, but Mr Chirac enjoyed immunity from prosecution while he was president from 1995 to 2007.
After 11 years of legal wrangling, he and nine other defendants finally went on trail in March.
On the second day, a lawyer representing Mr Chirac's former chief of staff at city hall, Remy Chardon, challenged the two cases being brought together.
He argued that the statute of limitations had expired in the first case.
The judge decided to refer the question to the Court of Cassation. It ruled on Friday that the constitutional challenge was not valid.
A Paris court will now convene on 20 June to decide when the trial will resume.
The US administration is examining the legality of continuing in the Nato-led Libya campaign beyond Friday.
The War Powers Resolution, passed after US withdrawal from the Vietnam War, rules that involvement in combat operations unauthorised by Congress must be terminated after 60 days.
That deadline is on Friday and deputy secretary of state James Steinberg has said the government is aware of it.
"President Obama has been mindful of the War Powers Resolution," he said.
In reference to the deadline, he said the administration was "actively reviewing" its role.
The president formally informed Congress of US involvement in Libya on 21 March.
White House lawyers are reportedly looking at ways US action in Libya can continue without contravening the resolution.
But Bruce Ackerman, a law professor at Yale University, says continuing without Congressional consent sets a dangerous precedent.
"A future president not as reasonable as President Obama is going to use this case to engage in something much more ambitious.
"From the point of view of long-term constitutional development, this is an important decision which will have precedental force in a very different context."
Congress passed the War Powers Resolution at the end of the Vietnam War, overriding President Nixon's veto.
It built on efforts by the founding fathers to repudiate the model of executive war-making, said Professor Ackerman.
It's bound to be a tense meeting. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President Obama at the White House Friday, just hours after rejecting the central tenet of Obama's latest peace plan proposal.
In his speech about Middle East issues Thursday, Obama reiterated U.S. support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, suggesting that Israel revert to the territory it held prior to its gains in the Six-Day War of 1967, while allowing for swaps of land between the two future states.
Just before boarding his plane to Washington, Netanyahu released a statement saying that Obama's proposal would leave his country vulnerable. He implicitly threatened to block Obama's ideas by calling on Israel's many friends in Congress.
Obama has been criticized domestically before after trying to pressure Netanyahu. Although Obama's idea builds on stated U.S. policy, negative reaction was immediate.
"President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, an all-but-declared presidential candidate, said in a statement.
It's likely to be just the beginning of months of difficult negotiations and angry politics leading up to an expected United Nations vote in September regarding the prospect of Palestinian statehood.
"I think Obama will be cordial and polite, but there will be an absence of warmth here," says Robert Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Caught Off Guard By Events
Obama's plan was an attempt to restart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which have been moribund for months. His Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, resigned last week.
Some of the developments that have taken place in the last few weeks have only enhanced Bibi's position, vis a vis the Palestinians. All these support the narrative that Israel is under siege, and how can we make compromises with these people.
- Robert Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
Netanyahu's visit to Washington comes at what was already a difficult moment for Israel. In the coming days, he will speak to a joint session of Congress. He also addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential pro-Israel advocacy group. Obama will speak to AIPAC as well.
Israel has been caught off guard by the events of the Arab Spring, particularly the downfall of its longtime ally in Egypt, ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Now protests demanding self-determination have come to Israel.
"Israel today, because of events in its own neighborhood and developments at home, has been forced into a very passive posture to maintain the status quo," says Scott Lasensky, a senior research associate at the U.S. Institute of Peace. "What's happening in the Arab world is hard for Israelis to get their hands around."
Further Difficulties At Home
On Sunday, Palestinians staged mass protests in honor of Nakba, or "catastrophe," their term for Israeli independence day. Palestinians demonstrated in the territories and in neighboring countries, breaching the border between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israeli security forces shot at Palestinians in various locations, killing 16 and injuring scores more.
Fatah, the political party that controls the West Bank, recently reached an accord with Hamas, which governs Gaza, with the two sides working to create a unity government. The U.S., Israel and several other nations classify Hamas, which condemned the killing of Osama bin Laden, as a terrorist organization.
All of this seems to have hardened the Israeli government's position.
"Some of the developments that have taken place in the last few weeks have only enhanced Bibi's position, vis a vis the Palestinians," says Danin, a former State Department official who has been involved in peace process negotiations, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. "All these support the narrative that Israel is under siege, and how can we make compromises with these people."
The Palestinian Position
After Obama's speech, which appeared to reject the idea of a U.N. vote recognizing Palestine as a state, Palestinian officials vowed to press on with their effort.
I don't think the Arab Spring is going to stop at the borders of Egypt or Syria or Libya. It's going to go beyond that. This is an eventuality that the Israelis have to be prepared for.
- Diana Buttu, former adviser to the Palestinian Authority
"We cannot wait indefinitely while Israel continues to send more settlers to the occupied West Bank and denies Palestinians access to most of our land and holy places, particularly in Jerusalem," Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, wrote in The New York Times on Sunday. "Neither political pressure nor promises of rewards by the United States have stopped Israel's settlement program."
As Obama spoke Thursday, Israelis approved construction of 1,500 new homes in disputed quarters of Jerusalem.
Danin suggests that Palestinians will proceed with the political plans, both in terms of setting up a unity government that includes Hamas and pushing for a statehood vote, because there are no "opportunity costs" involved in doing so. By which he means, they don't expect to get anywhere with the Netanyahu government at the negotiating table at this point.
"It's clear to us that he is not interested in negotiating," says Diana Buttu, a former legal and communications adviser to the Palestinian Authority, who is now a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
More Protests To Come
Buttu suggests that if Israel is unwilling to make any serious concessions, Palestinians will continue to press their grievances, appealing to the court of world opinion.
"I don't think the Arab Spring is going to stop at the borders of Egypt or Syria or Libya," she says. "It's going to go beyond that. This is an eventuality that the Israelis have to be prepared for."
Palestinians have shown themselves in the past to be fully capable of launching a sustained set of protests. The prospect of a third intifada has led some U.S. and Israeli officials to argue that Israel will have to get serious about negotiations or offer the Palestinian something of substance — or risk increasing international isolation.
Any Way Out?
The new approach is balanced. Palestinians have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Israel has to accept the 1967 lines as the baseline for the future borders.
- Yoram Peri, director of the Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland
Obama's plan has some potential to break the logjam, suggests Yoram Peri, a former political adviser to the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Peri is now the director of the Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland.
Obama's approach is "interesting and new," Peri says, because it would divide negotiations into two stages. First, questions surrounding borders and recognition and secondly, the even more intractable problems of the status of Jerusalem and the right of Palestinian refugees to return.
"The new approach is balanced," Peri says. "Palestinians have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Israel has to accept the 1967 lines as the baseline for the future borders."
Peri believes Obama would bring the same balanced approach to the second, more difficult stage of negotiations. But that doesn't mean he'd be likely to meet with success.
"My assessment: Neither party will accept the new proposal," he says. "The march to the U.N. in September continues."
US President Barack Obama is to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington shortly amid sharp differences on the way forward for the Middle East peace process.
Mr Obama has said a future Palestinian state must be based on the borders that existed prior to the 1967 war.
He said "mutually agreed swaps" would help create "a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel".
But Mr Netanyahu said the pre-1967 borders were "indefensible".
An estimated 500,000 Israelis live in settlements built in the West Bank, which lies outside those borders.
The settlements are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
In a keynote speech on Thursday on the future of US policy in the Middle East, President Obama said: "The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine.
In many ways the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, should be a man content with his lot. He is on a high-profile visit to Washington where he will be met with a firm handshake and warm words from President Barack Obama.
In a historic address to a joint-session of Congress next week, he can expect to be repeatedly applauded as he describes how his government tirelessly searches for peace.
And at the annual conference of Aipac - the American pro-Israel lobby - he will be feted as a hero and beacon of light in an otherwise hostile region.
But at home, in a dramatically changing Middle East, the Israeli leader appears increasingly out-manoeuvred and out of step with the attempts of others to resolve the frustrating and long-standing stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognised borders are established for both states."
In a statement, Mr Netanyahu's office said he appreciated Mr Obama's "commitment to peace" but that for peace to endure, "the viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state".
The statement called on Mr Obama to reaffirm commitments made to Israel by the US in 2004.
"Among other things, those commitments relate to Israel not having to withdraw to the 1967 lines which are both indefensible and which would leave major Israeli population centres in Judea and Samaria beyond those lines," it said.
"Those commitments also ensure Israel's well-being as a Jewish state by making clear that Palestinian refugees will settle in a future Palestinian state rather than in Israel."
One Israeli official travelling to Washington on the plane with Mr Netanyahu said: "There is a feeling that Washington does not understand the reality, doesn't understand what we face."
'Arab Spring'
The BBC's Wyre Davies in Jerusalem says that while Mr Netanyahu will be warmly welcomed in the US, he is coming under increasing international pressure to ease his objections to a Palestinian state following the unity deal signed between rival Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah earlier this month.
If the unity project holds, says our correspondent, Mr Netanyahu could find himself foundering while other countries embrace fresh Palestinian initiatives.
Israel's claim to being the only democratic state in the region has also been undermined by the dramatic developments of the "Arab Spring" anti-government uprisings, our correspondent adds.
The push for democracy began with the overthrowing of Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January. Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was later toppled in Egypt, with demonstrators in Libya currently working to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi.
Similar uprisings are also taking hold in Bahrain, Yemen and Syria.
The Palestinian leadership is split between the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by the Fatah political faction and governs the West Bank, and the Islamist movement Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet colleagues to decide on the next move, with senior officials saying they have been ordered not to speak to reporters beforehand.
A senior member of Hamas, Foreign Minister Mohamed Awad, told the BBC that tangible steps were needed from the US president, not mere slogans.
"Obama didn't say anything about the suffering of the Palestinian people, who are suffering for more than 63 years," he said.
"He didn't say that the peace process had already reached a dead end... He tried to please everyone but he didn't try to please the Palestinian people."
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – The middle-aged woman, her husband and her son became perfect neighbors after they arrived a year ago on a quiet suburban cul-de-sac, residents recalled.
That peace was disrupted Wednesday as the media descended on the Bakersfield area after unconfirmed reports flashed across the Internet that former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the father of the woman's 13-year-old son.
The reporters and photographers didn't see Mildred Patricia Baena or her family, the three having left just ahead of the horde.
Baena's name was first reported Wednesday by Radar Online and subsequently by other news outlets, including The New York Times, which cited two unnamed friends of the family.
The AP has not independently verified that she is the mother of Schwarzenegger's child.
As TV satellite trucks gridlocked the block and spilled over to an adjacent street, residents sat in their homes, stunned. Some worried about the effect the news would have on the polite 13-year-old boy who they say often walked a white poodle named Sugar through the neighborhood when he wasn't swimming in his backyard pool or playing basketball.
"We just want this child to be protected as much as possible. We've all made mistakes and to totally destroy a child's life over that would not be fair," said Marilyn Steelman, who lives next door.
Residents said the family was friendly and, like other homeowners on the block of fashionable houses with red-tiled roofs and two- and three-car garages, they kept up their house and its neatly trimmed lawn and palm trees.
While the boy was a fixture in the neighborhood, residents say, they rarely saw his mother until she retired 2 1/2 months ago. Until then, she told them, she had been working for Schwarzenegger's family and had kept an apartment near Schwarzenegger's Los Angeles home, 100 miles away.
The Schwarzenegger scandal exploded into public view on Monday when the former movie star confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that he had fathered a child out of wedlock years ago and that Shriver, a prominent TV journalist until she put her career on hold after her husband was elected governor, never knew until this year.
Since then Schwarzenegger has vanished and his office has declined to discuss the matter further.
Baena's adult daughter, Jacqueline Rozo, told The Associated Press her 50-year-old mother had worked for the former governor until recently but would not comment further.
A photo of the boy posted on Baena's MySpace page shows a fairly strong resemblance to Schwarzenegger, particularly when the former governor and movie star was younger.
"If I saw him or his picture, I would see the resemblance," Steelman said.
The birth certificate for Baena's son also shows he was born the same week as the youngest of Schwarzenegger's and Shriver's four children. It lists Baena's ex-husband as the father and says Baena is originally from Guatemala.
Charlene Powers, a real estate agent who represented the home's sellers, said she was told it was being purchased for an employee of Schwarzenegger's and that he was helping with the down payment. Property records show Baena took a loan of $219,224 to buy the $268,000 house.
She is listed on the deed as a single woman, although neighbors say she and her son lived there with a man they thought was her husband.
When the family moved in, Steelman said, Baena said she was planning to retire soon.
The Times has not named the mother of Schwarzenegger's child but quoted her Monday as saying she retired in January after working for Schwarzenegger and his family for 20 years.
Shriver, who has not discussed the matter since issuing a brief statement Monday, made a quick walk-on appearance this week at a taping of one of Oprah Winfrey's final shows that is to air Tuesday. There, she told the talk show host that she had given her "love, support, wisdom and most of all the truth."
A person familiar with the scandal said it has left Schwarzenegger humbled and embarrassed.
"It's been very, very hard for him," said the individual, who requested anonymity out of respect for the family's privacy. "He's embarrassed. He's not focused on what steps he needs to take for himself, but the steps he needs to take for his family."
The scandal has also returned to the public's attention the numerous allegations made over the years that Schwarzenegger is a notorious womanizer.
It has also threatened to bring forth more women. On Wednesday, Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred confirmed she is representing Gigi Goyette, a former child actress who has said she had annual trysts with Schwarzenegger at a bodybuilding competition he sponsored in Ohio.
"I can confirm that I do represent Gigi Goyette," Allred said in an email. "We have no comment at this time and we will also have no comment tomorrow."
Shortly before Schwarzenegger was elected governor in 2003, the Times reported allegations from more than a dozen women who said he had groped them or made unwanted advances. He apologized at the time for having behaved badly in his younger years.
Schwarzenegger biographer Joe Mathews said the public shouldn't have been all that surprised by this week's revelations.
There had been rumors on the political circuit for years of a Schwarzenegger out-of-wedlock child, Mathews said, although the accounts could not be verified until now. The author of the 2006 book, "The People's Machine: Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Rise of Blockbuster Democracy," also noted that both Schwarzenegger and Shriver were careful to parse their words when they addressed the womanizing allegations in 2003, never issuing an outright denial.
"She didn't come out and defend him and say he's a faithful, great husband," he said of Shriver's defense of her husband. "She said he's a person who is really smart and really wants to do this job and has a lot to offer California."
Perhaps more telling, as early as 1999, Mathews said, Schwarzenegger, who was then considering a run for governor, called aides together in Los Angeles and, rather that discuss possible political positions, railed against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for his sexual liaison with Monica Lewinsky. If that was the way politicians' personal lives were exposed, Schwarzenegger told them, he might not seek office.
Since leaving the governor's office earlier this year, Schwarzenegger has indicated some interest in continuing in politics, perhaps becoming a spokesman for environmental causes, including green energy development, one of the issues he worked hardest for as governor. Mathews noted that Schwarzenegger hasn't flatly ruled out a run for U.S. Senate either, although he speculated it would be hard for him to get elected now.
The former star has also made it clear he wants to return to Hollywood. He recently announced plans to play himself in an animated TV show called "The Governator" and is scheduled to begin filming this summer on "Cry Macho," a film drama in which he would play a horse trainer. The former world bodybuilding champion is also in negotiations to reprise what is arguably his most popular role, as the relentless killer cyborg in the "Terminator" films.
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara has asked the International Criminal Court to investigate allegations of serious human rights crimes committed during the country's recent turmoil.
This was because "Ivorian justice [was] not at this time best placed to reveal the most serious crimes", he said.
An estimated 3,000 people were killed during the four-month election dispute.
More than 25,000 people are still living in the grounds of a church in the western city of Duekoue.
They say they fear for their safety because they belong to an ethnic group seen as loyal to former President Laurent Gbagbo, who was arrested last month after refusing to accept defeat in last year's elections.
After taking power, Mr Ouattara promised that crimes committed by all sides during the dispute would be investigated.
Several hundred people were reportedly massacred in Duekoue during the unrest.
People in the church are living there in desperate conditions.
"They are living in tents and it is the rainy season in the west of Cote d'Ivoire right now. When it rains, they have to all run away and sometimes they have to sleep standing up," reports the BBC's Abdourahmane Dia, who visited the church.
A number of mass graves have been found in the area.
NEW YORK – The maid came from one of the world's poorest countries to the U.S., working to support the teen daughter she raised alone. To her, the penthouse suite at the Sofitel Hotel was just another empty room to clean.
She says she had no idea there was a man inside or that he was a famous French politician. She says he was naked, chased her down and tried to rape her.
The man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, remained jailed under a suicide watch Wednesday as a lawyer for the woman sought to rebut whispered allegations that her charges were a conspiracy and a setup.
Calls intensified for the 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn to step down as head of the powerful International Monetary Fund, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner saying Strauss-Kahn "is obviously not in a position to run" the agency.
Strauss-Kahn was one of France's most high-profile politicians and a potential candidate for president in next year's elections. His arrest on charges including attempted rape shocked France and cast intense attention on his accuser, a 32-year-old chambermaid from the West African nation of Guinea.
On Tuesday her lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro, said he had no doubts his client was telling the truth about her encounter with Strauss-Kahn on Saturday.
"She came from a country in which poor people had little or no justice, and she's now in a country where the poor have the same rights as do the rich and the powerful," Shapiro said. "What (Strauss-Kahn) might be able to get away with in some countries, he can't here in this country."
Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said at his client's arraignment this week that defense lawyers believe the forensic evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter."
But Shapiro dismissed suggestions that the woman had made up the charges or tried to cover up a consensual encounter.
"This is nothing other than a physical, sexual assault by this man on this young woman," Shapiro said in an interview in his Manhattan office. He said that the woman didn't know who was staying in the 28th-floor suite she went to clean on Saturday afternoon, before she said she was attacked.
"She did not know who this man was until a day or two after this took place," Shapiro said. "She had no idea who this man was."
Strauss-Kahn is also charged with sex abuse, a criminal sex act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. The most serious charge carries five to 25 years in prison.
Because of his high profile, he was being held Tuesday at Rikers Island in a section of the jail that normally houses prisoners with highly contagious diseases like measles or tuberculosis. Corrections spokesman Stephen Morello said Strauss-Kahn has been placed in a wing with about 14 cells, all of them empty except for his.
Norman Seabrook, president of the correction officers union, said Strauss-Kahn did or said something during a mental health evaluation that concerned doctors, and he is being monitored day and night.
A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of prisoner medical information, said Strauss-Kahn had not tried to harm himself.
Strauss-Kahn's cell has a toilet and a sink. He takes his meals there, with breakfast at 5 a.m., lunch at 11 a.m. and dinner at 4 or 5 p.m.
Morello said Strauss-Kahn can occasionally leave his cell and wander the wing, and can go outside for an hour each day. Because he is awaiting trial, Strauss-Kahn isn't required to wear a prison uniform. He may bring his own clothing and wear what he chooses, except for his shoes.
Meanwhile in Europe, Strauss-Kahn's past conduct with other women was getting new scrutiny.
The IMF investigated him following a 2008 affair with an employee, the Hungarian-born economist Piroska Nagy. The institution eventually cleared him of wrongdoing, but a person close to Nagy said Tuesday that she had sent the organization a letter at the time warning about his behavior toward women.
The letter voiced "doubts about Dominique Strauss-Kahn's suitability for running an international institution," according to the person, who declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the matter.
The New York Times published an excerpt of the letter, along with an account that said Strauss-Kahn had aggressively pursued Nagy, sent her sexually explicit messages and once had her summoned from the bathroom to speak to him.
The scandal comes at a delicate time for the IMF, which is trying to shore up teetering economies in Europe. The IMF is an immensely powerful agency that loans money to countries to stabilize the world economy. In exchange it often imposes strict austerity measures.
Strauss-Kahn seemed to anticipate that his problems with women could be a political liability ahead of France's presidential elections.
The French daily newspaper Liberation reported this week that at a meeting with Strauss-Kahn in April, he speculated that his presidential campaign might be subjected to low blows over "money, women and my Jewishness."
Strauss-Kahn also theorized that his enemies might try to pay someone to accuse him of rape, according to the newspaper.
The Associated Press does not name victims of alleged sex crimes unless they agree to it. But in the days since the alleged attack in Manhattan, details are beginning to emerge about Strauss-Kahn's accuser.
The woman came to the United States under "very difficult circumstances" in 2004 from Guinea, one of the world's most destitute countries, said Shapiro, her lawyer.
Guinea's average annual income of $1,000 per person is lower than Haiti's and Rwanda's and about the same as Afghanistan's, according to the CIA World Factbook.
The woman's daughter, then 8, came with her. The girl's father is dead, and they have no other relatives in the United States, Shapiro said.
"They are very much alone in this world," he said.
The United States gave the pair political asylum, he said, though he was unsure of the reason.
The woman found work as a chambermaid in hotels, he said, eventually landing a job in 2008 at the French-owned Sofitel Hotel on 44th Street in Manhattan. The hotel said she was a satisfactory employee.
The woman and her daughter moved into an apartment building in the Bronx about 10 months ago, said Zulema Zuniga, who lives on the same floor. The neighbors would occasionally meet in the elevator and say hello.
"She was very nice," Zuniga said.
But this humble immigrant life was shattered, police say, on Saturday afternoon, when the woman entered Strauss-Kahn's suite at the Sofitel to clean the room.
Strauss-Kahn came out of the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, the woman told police. Then he dragged her into a bathroom, forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear, she said.
She broke free, fled the room and told hotel security, but Strauss-Kahn was gone by the time detectives arrived, authorities said. They arrested him soon afterward on an airliner that was just about to depart for Europe.
Brafman said he is confident his client will be exonerated once all the physical evidence is collected.
Shapiro, a personal injury attorney, said he was put in touch with the woman through a mutual acquaintance. He said they had not discussed the possibility of a civil lawsuit against Strauss-Kahn.
Media attention has made it impossible for his client to return to her house or to work, Shapiro said. This week television crews and photographers hung around the employee entrance of the Sofitel and loitered outside her apartment, hoping for a glimpse of her.
Shapiro said his client is now in a "safe place," but would not elaborate.
"Her life has now been turned upside down," Shapiro said. "She can't go home, she can't go back to work. ... This has been nothing short of a cataclysmic event in her life."
The maid who has accused International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault is "scared" but will testify against him, her lawyer says.
Jeffrey Shapiro says when the 32-year-old woman discovered Mr Strauss-Kahn's identity a day after the incident she feared for herself and her daughter.
He said there was "nothing consensual about what took place in that hotel room" in New York on 14 May.
Mr Strauss-Kahn denies all the charges.
The woman told New York police Mr Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her and picked him out at an identity parade.
He is charged with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape, sexual abuse, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.
Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, is currently on suicide watch at New York's infamous Rikers Island prison. He will be back in court on Friday.
His wife, former French television interviewer Anne Sinclair, is thought to be visiting him on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said Mr Strauss-Kahn is not in a position to run the IMF and an interim replacement should be named.
'Man of great power'
Mr Shapiro told NBC television that his client was expected to testify before a grand jury later on Wednesday.
2006: Publication of Sexus Politicus, book by Christophe Deloire and Christophe Dubois, with chapter on Mr Strauss-Kahn and his tendency to "seduction to the point of obsession"
2007: French journalist Jean Quatremer, Brussels correspondent for Liberation, writes on his blog that Mr Strauss-Kahn "verges on harassment" with his behaviour towards women
2008: Mr Strauss-Kahn admits an affair with a colleague at the IMF; he is cleared of abuse but admits an "error of judgement"
2011: Writer Tristane Banon comes forward to say Mr Strauss-Kahn tried to assault her in 2002; she did not go to the police but did raise the allegation in a TV chat show in 2007, when Mr Strauss-Kahn's name was bleeped out
He said she had only become aware of Mr Strauss-Kahn's identity "a day later when a friend called her to tell her, 'do you have any idea who this man is who did this to you?'".
Mr Shapiro said his client was "scared and incredulous".
"When she found out this encounter was with a man of great power and wealth she feared not only for herself but more importantly for her daughter."
The woman had now been reunited with her 15-year-old daughter in a "safe place", he added.
Mr Shapiro said she had tried to return to her home - a sub-let flat in the Bronx - but had found about 30 people waiting outside.
He said: "She has been in a whirlwind since this has taken place... She has not had a moment of peace, has not been able to return home or seek help.
"She doesn't know what her future will bring."
The woman came originally from the West African state of Guinea. She arrived in the US seven years ago with her daughter and had been in her job at the Sofitel hotel for three years.
Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said on Monday that the defence believe the forensic evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter".
But Mr Shapiro said that "when a jury hears her testimony and sees her in person" it would become clear that "there is nothing consensual about what took place in that hotel room".
He said that his client had "no agenda" and believed it was her responsibility to follow the judicial process "and she will do that".
Support in France
Public opinion in France appears to be largely on the side of Mr Strauss-Kahn, who until his arrest was considered one of the leading candidates for the French presidential election next year.
Lawyer Jeffrey Shapiro: "She had no idea who this man was when she went into the room"
An opinion poll for RMC radio, BDM television and the 20Minutes website found 57% of those who replied believed Mr Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a conspiracy.
That number rose to 70% among those who identified themselves as favouring Mr Strauss-Kahn's centre-left Socialist Party.
The philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, a friend of Mr Strauss-Kahn for 25 years, has spoken out in his defence.
"Nothing in the world can authorise the way this man has been thrown to the dogs," he wrote on his blog.
"I do not know... how a chambermaid could enter on her own the room of one of the most watched people on the planet, against the normal practice in most big New York hotels, which provide for 'cleaning brigades' of at least two people."
But Mr Shapiro said: "The idea that someone would suggest she was involved in some form of conspiracy is ridiculous."
'Difficult position'
The US treasury secretary said the most important thing for the IMF was that it found a leader to fill Mr Strauss-Kahn's shoes.
Mr Strauss-Kahn is on suicide watch at Rikers Island prison
"He is obviously not in a position to run the IMF," Mr Geithner said.
"It is important that the board of the IMF formally put in place for an interim period someone to act as managing director."
It is the first time that a top official from President Barack Obama's administration has publicly spoken about the impact of Mr Strauss-Kahn's alleged sexual assault.
However, Mr Geithner refused to comment on the case or the details of the charges against Mr Strauss-Kahn.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Mr Strauss-Kahn was in a "very difficult position" and it was "important that the IMF... is able to run effectively".
The BBC's Steve Kingstone in Washington says that with the Americans seemingly distancing themselves from Mr Strauss-Kahn and some European figures saying similar things, there appears to be a groundswell of opinion that he should go.
Since Mr Strauss-Kahn's arrest last Saturday, his deputy John Lipsky has been serving as acting managing director.
The maid who accused International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault did not know who he was at the time of the alleged incident, her lawyer says.
The woman, 32, told New York police Mr Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her in his hotel suite on 14 May and picked him out at an identity parade.
Mr Strauss-Kahn denies all the charges.
An opinion poll suggests 57% in France believe the charges are part of a plot against him.
The maid's lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro, said his client "had no idea who this man [Mr Strauss-Kahn] was when she went into the room" and only learned his identity the following day.
"The idea that someone would suggest she was involved in some form of conspiracy is ridiculous," he said. "This is someone who has been the victim of a violent act."
Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, is currently on suicide watch at New York's infamous Rikers Island prison. He will be back in court on Friday.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said Mr Strauss-Kahn is not in a position to run the IMF and an interim replacement should be named.
Support in France
The maid is now living through an "extraordinary" trauma and is in hiding, Mr Shapiro says.
"It's not just my opinion that this woman is honest," Jeffrey Shapiro said. "The New York City Police Department (NYPD) reached the same conclusion. This is a woman with no agenda."
Mr Geithner refused to be drawn on the legal challenges facing Mr Strauss-Kahn
He said his client came originally from the West African state of Guinea. She arrived in the US seven years ago, along with her daughter, now 15, and had been in her job for three years.
"There is no way in which there is any aspect of this event which could be construed consensual in any manner," Mr Shapiro said.
However, Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, has said defence lawyers believe the forensic evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter".
Public opinion in France appears to be largely on the side of Mr Strauss-Kahn, who until his arrest was considered one of the leading candidates for the French presidential election next year.
An opinion poll for RMC radio, BDM television and the 20Minutes website found 57% of those who replied believed Mr Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a conspiracy.
That number rose to 70% among those who identified themselves as favouring Mr Strauss-Kahn's centre-left Socialist Party.
2006: Publication of Sexus Politicus, book by Christophe Deloire and Christophe Dubois, with chapter on Mr Strauss-Kahn and his tendency to "seduction to the point of obsession"
2007: French journalist Jean Quatremer, Brussels correspondent for Liberation, writes on his blog that Mr Strauss-Kahn "verges on harassment" with his behaviour towards women
2008: Mr Strauss-Kahn admits an affair with a colleague at the IMF; he is cleared of abuse but admits an "error of judgement"
2011: Writer Tristane Banon comes forward to say Mr Strauss-Kahn tried to assault her in 2002; she did not go to the police but did raise the allegation in a TV chat show in 2007, when Mr Strauss-Kahn's name was bleeped out
The philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, a friend of Mr Strauss-Kahn for 25 years, has spoken out in his defence.
"Nothing in the world can authorise the way this man has been thrown to the dogs," he wrote on his blog.
"I do not know... how a chambermaid could enter on her own the room of one of the most watched people on the planet, against the normal practice in most big New York hotels, which provide for 'cleaning brigades' of at least two people."
Mr Strauss-Kahn is able to leave his cell occasionally and is allowed outside for one hour each day.
According to the NYPD, the maid told officers that when she entered Mr Strauss-Kahn's suite on Saturday afternoon, he emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her and sexually assaulted her.
The woman was able to break free and alert the authorities, a NYPD spokesman added.
Impact on IMF
Addressing the Harvard Club in New York on Tuesday, Timothy Geithner said the most important thing for the IMF was that it found a leader to fill Mr Strauss-Kahn's shoes.
Mr Strauss-Kahn is on suicide watch at Rikers Island prison
"He is obviously not in a position to run the IMF," Mr Geithner said.
"It is important that the board of the IMF formally put in place for an interim period someone to act as managing director."
It is the first time that a top official from President Barack Obama's administration has publicly spoken about the impact of Mr Strauss-Kahn's alleged sexual assault.
However, Mr Geithner refused to comment on the case or the details of the charges against Mr Strauss-Kahn.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Mr Strauss-Kahn was in a "very difficult position" and it was "important that the IMF... is able to run effectively".
The BBC's Steve Kingstone in Washington says that with the Americans seemingly distancing themselves from Mr Strauss-Kahn and some European figures saying similar things, there appears to be a groundswell of opinion that would like to see him go.
Since Mr Strauss-Kahn's arrest last Saturday, his deputy John Lipsky has been serving as acting managing director of the global lending agency.
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