syria's president and his cronies. new sanctions as the u.s. calls for an end to the security crackdown. waiting for water levels to fall, for thousands of people forced out of their homes by the mississippi floods, life becomes a waiting game. and the disaster that rocked an economy to its foundations, japan sinks back into its third recession in a decade. dominique strauss-kahn has resigned as head of the international monetary fund to focus on clearing his name. his decision follows charges he tried to rape a hotel maid in new york. strauss-kahn denies the allegations but since he was arrested on saturday, he's come under increasing pressure to step down. one european minister said he should reflect on whether he was damaging the imf. just a few hours ago, strauss-kahn said this in a letter to the imf board, quote, i deny with the greatest possible firmness all the allegations against me. i want to protect the institution i have served with honor and devotion. and i want to devote all my strength, time and energy to proving my innocence. well, in the next few hours strauss-kahn's lawyers will go to court to ask for him to be allowed out of jail. he's spent the last three days in the infamous new york rikers island prison. he's offering to post bail of $1 million and hand in his travel documents. he would also be confined to his manhattan home and be electri l electrically tagged. a source close to his legal team says strauss-kahn could be released as early as today. cnn's john defterios is following this from brussels. and jim bitterman is also in paris. first, john, who are the contenders to take the helm at the imf? >> monita, the first thing is, due process was not allowed to play out, at least for the managing director's role of the imf, that is due in part because of the profile built by dominique strauss-kahn in the midst of the global financial crisis. now we moved into the phase of the european financial crisis with greece, ireland and portugal and the strong belief here is that you can't leave the seat empty. this is the president of the european commission, jose manuel barroso. >> in terms of leadership, i think it will be important as soon as possible to have this matter resolved. >> reporter: president barroso was also saying we shouldn't concentrate on the flag, ie, where the country where the next candidate will come from. although people have talked already locally with christine lagarde and angel guerria. it moves into this g20 horse trading phase. i call it phone diplomacy and face-to-face diplomacy. watch out for meeting next week with president obama and david cameron. angela merkel had bilateral meetings over the weekend and nicolas sarkozy, wen jiabao, king abdullah of saudi arabia, all different countries that make up the g20, china, saudi arabia, raising the profile and share holdings in that process. it will get much more complicated. it will be accelerated in the next three to four days. >> all right, john, let's go over now to jim bitterman in paris. and jim, of course, while that's happening on the one side, the political side, let's take a look at how it's also this fallout has continued to take place in paris. tell us about, again, the scanned that'll continues to rock france. >> reporter: well, i think one of the things that happened here this morning was the idea that they saw this letter from dominique strauss-kahn, it's the first time anyone here has heard anything from him. and the resignation letter to the imf was the first thing they heard. i'll read a little bit more of that. you read a bit in the introduction. he also said i think at this time first of my wife, who i love more than anything, my children, my family and friends and colleagues at the fund. to all i want to say i deny with the greatest possible firmness all the allegations that have been made against me. clearly he plans to continue denying everything and i would think that's what we'll hear in court this afternoon when he does appear. there's one other interesting development here this morning and it came out of the newspaper the figaro. they say they have a source at the hotel has told them there was a second person in the hotel room at about the same time as the alleged attack occurred. according to the figaro, their hotel source says this was a room serviceman who came up and was cleaning away trays and did not have to use his key card to get into the room, that the door to the room was open. that appears to contradict what the maid told police. at least what we're seeing of the police reports. another small contradiction, according to this hotel source, there is no video camera in the corridor outside the hotel room. that also appears to contradict the information we heard at the very beginning. monita? >> all right, jim, thank you for that. jim bitterman there for us in paris. the role of managing director of the imf requires expertise in economics and international relations. manufacture the people now being described as contenders are from the developing world. let's begin with the first contender, kemal dervis. he's from turkey where he served briefly as the economy minister. he's former head of the united nations development program and spent more than 20 years at the world bank. up next, agustin carstens. he's experienced of the inner workings of the imf where he was one of three deputy managing directors. another contender is this gentleman, montek-singh ahluwalia. he's from india, he joined the world bank after he graduated from oxford university and became the youngest ever divisional head at the age of 28. an early favorite was britain's former prime minister and finance minister gordon brown. his chances, though, seem to have vanished because the current prime minister, david cameron has not backed him. then of course we heard there from john defterios talking about this woman right here, christine lagarde. she's been the french finance minister since 2007, the first woman to hold that position in a g8 nation. she's a renowned lawyer and was an intern on capitol hill. he has talked about freedom and the spread of democracy, now it's time for barack obama to put his money where his mouth is. the u.s. president plans to offer economic assistance to egypt and to tunisia in a speech that will shed new light on his administration's policy in the region. let's get more now from cnn's brianna keilar. >> reporter: president obama will be talking generally about just how historic the last few months have been in the middle east. he'll be talking about season this opportunity to help democracy grow in the region but he'll also be dealing with specifics when it comes to aid for egypt and tunisia. senior administration officials say you'll hear from him, economic proposals they say will be powerful incentives for other countries in the region considering democratic reforms. so specifically, what are some of the proposals here? pouring money into ngos, think tanks, universities, so they can help bolster the economy, make it run more smoothly and creating jobs, getting the droves of young people into the work force and also on a larger scale, proposals to forgive the debt of egypt and tunisia. we're talking about $1 billion here and also guaranteeing loans that would help grow financial systems in both countries. the idea essentially, pour money into these countries, create economic stability, grow democracy from there and why these two countries you may ask? senior administration officials say egypt because it's a bellwether for the region and tunisia because that's where the arab spring uprisings began. brianna keilar, cnn, the white house. as president obama extends a helping hand to egypt and tunisia, he's taking a different tact elsewhere in the region. the u.s. is imposing sanctions on syria's president and other figures in the government and calling for damascus to end its brutal crackdown on opposition. arwa damon has been following the story. she joins us now. there are many who will say while these sanctions don't have a lot of practicality and teeth behind them, it's certainly symbol symbolic. >> reporter: it most certainly would appear to be that way, monita. in fact, the impact they're actually going to have is not likely to be all that severe when it comes to how the syrian regime is choosing to deal with the uprising within its own borders. these sanctions are basically financial, they're freezing at sets of president assad and six of his top government officials. they are barring u.s. persons from doing business with those against whom they are leave individual. at this stage it's not known exactly how much financial assets syria actually has in the united states. analysts in fact believe the bulk of syria's assets would be in europe or more likely in the middle east. but at this stage, they do most certainly send a message to the syrian president, to the regime as a whole that they will be held accountable. whether or not that message will be strong enough or exert enough pressure on the regime in terms of it altering its behavior, that remains to be seen, again, not very likely, monita. >> has there been any word coming out of damascus as a result of the sanctions from the united states. >> reporter: monita, no. we've been trying to reach out to damascus. we tried to reach out to the syrian embassy here in beirut. there's nothing as of yet on the syrian state-run news agency, the syrian-arab news agency. this say regime known for its defiance, especially in the face of international condemnation and in the face of sanctions that have already been slapped against the regime as recently as at the end of march when the syrian military went into the southern part of dara. we saw the military crackdown intensifying. at the same time, this is a regime that has been pulling to try to pull itself out of international isolation. the regime has been focusing a lot of efforts on trying to put forward the president's image of being a reformer. it's been an image that the international community has been willing to buy into. the syrian regime believes it still holds the upper hand when it comes to dealing with this uprising within its own borders. it realizes and the reality is, the u.s. has very little real leverage against the syrian regime and it is also capable of fomenting, if it feels truly threatened, fomenting here in lebanon and also more importantly, fomenting unrest instability for america's number one ally in the region and that is israel. if we look at what happened on sunday as an indication of what syria is capable of, on sunday, palestinian ref hugees and dem strarts were in the golan heights. they were able to enter into previously off hi-limit areas. syrian regime, despite all of those sanctions does still remain in a fairly powerful position, monita. >> arwa dameen in beirut, thank you. you're watching "world one" live from london. we'll have the latest on the record-breaking floods in the southern united states. stay with us for that. ork, building up our wireless network all across america. we're adding new cell sites... increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we're covering more people in more places than ever before in an effort to give you the best network possible. at&t. rethink possible. let's raise a glass to cookies just out of the oven. to the morning bowl of cereal. and to lactaid® milk. easy to digest and with all the calcium and vitamin d of regular milk. 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[ children shouting ] [ grunts ] [ whacking piñata ] [ whacking piñata, grunting ] you're watching "world one," live from london. our top stories this hour, the head of the international monetary fund has resigned to focus on defending himself against charges of attempted rape. in a letter to the imf, dominique strauss-kahn said the allegations against him aren't true, but he was stepping down to protect the imf. his lawyers head back to court in just a few hours in a fresh appeal for him to be released from prison on bail. the u.s. is set to offer economic aid to egypt and tunisia. president barack obama is expected to make the pledge in a policy speech on the middle east, touching on uprises across the region. mr. obama hopes to help egypt and tunisia develop through political and economic reforms. a nation rose up and a government fell. more than 800 people lost their lives in the protests that topple hosni mubarak's regime. among the recommendations to egyptian authorities, a full inquiry should be conducted into past violations and guilty parties brought to justice. victims of mistreatment should receive compensation and a formal apology should come from the highest levels of government. for more on that report and what it means for egypt's future, i'm joined via skype by amnesty egypt's researcher. in light of what we are expecting to hear from the president barack obama about his speech on the middle east, specifically when it comes to aid to egypt and tunisia and taking into account what your report has found, what are you hoping he's going to say? >> this is a matter that regards the u.s. foreign policy towards egypt and africa. we have found abuses and violations of human rights have continued in a very bad manner after mubarak has left. this as you pointed out, includes the arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of peaceful protesters and others. >> so do you think -- let me jump in there, sir. do you think then that the united states should be offering aid to egypt if, according to your report, the country is still under a new administration, new regime is still having, i guess, violating human rights accords in that country? >> well, look, i don't want to speak very much about the aid side of things. the u.s. has been providing aid to egypt for a long time. it's not something new there. and the conditionality on aid is something that has been discussed before many times. and tied to human rights violations. what we can say, as amnesty international is that torture continues in egypt. there are testimonies that we have gathered, before mubarak and after his fall. that point to similar abuses that we saw at the hands of the police and security agents, being implemented or committed by military police and armed forces. this means that low-informant officials are committing the same violations that we saw in the past. the police might have withdrawn as law enforcement officials or martyrs. what we can see is the current law enforcement officials which are the military, have resorted to similar patterns of violations. >> what are you hoping this report will do? >> it's very important to reveal the truth about what has happened during that 21st of january revolution. many people have many accounts of what has happened. we look at them from a perspective of human rights and we document objectively and scientifically what has happened during this period. and we noted that beside the killings where a lot of people have spoken about already, killings of protesters, we want to point to the practice of torture that continues in egypt, because this is the current state of affairs. >> mohammed lotfy, thank you so much. >> thank you. you're watching "world one," live from london. water levels on the mississippi are breaking records as forecasters say the floods will be around for weeks to come. we'll show you what's happening in one of the worst hit areas. plus, queen elizabeth opens a new chapter of reconciliation in the long and tangled relations between britain and ireland. eathes easily. eathes easily. it flows with clean water. it makes its skyline greener and its population healthier. all to become the kind of city people want to live and work in. somewhere in america, we've already answered some of the nation's toughest questions. and the over sixty thousand people of siemens are ready to do it again. siemens. answers. 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