GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Mary Richardson Kennedy’s death and burial, like her life, has been a struggle. The 52-year-old designer/architect and environmentalist, estranged wife of Robert Kennedy Jr involved in a rancorous divorce case, was found dead 16 May and her hanging was ruled a suicide. The Kennedy family held a wake Friday near Boston, Massachussetts, but the the Richardson family also announced it was holding a wake in Manhattan at an unspecified date. The families went to court over custody of the body; the court documents were then sealed. “The medical examiner’s office in Westchester County had been told there would be court proceedings related to custody of Mary Kennedy’s body and waited for a court order before releasing it to a funeral home in Bedford,” NPR cites county spokeswoman Donna Greene as saying.
The couple had four children. Mary was Kennedy’s second wife; the two married in 1996 but had known each other since she was a teenage friend of Robert’s sister Kerry, who told US media outside the Catholic church where the service was held that “She struggled so hard, for so long, with mental illness, which so many Americans suffer with … She fought with dignity, and in the end, the demons won.”
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Parents whose jobs could see them moving abroad will have to get permission in future
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Divorcing parents in Switzerland will soon be faced with joint custody as the norm. Switzerland is changing its child custody laws to balance the rights and responsibilities of both parents, in the case of divorce but also of non-married parents who do not live together.
The Federal Council adopted measures Thursday 17 November that makes joint custody the rule; only when a child’s welfare is considered at risk will the courts be able to make an exception. Examples of this could be inexperience, sickness or infirmity, a tendency towards violence or absence.
The Swiss parliament will need to approve the new measures which were recommended to the council, or cabinet, by a parliamentary commission. They have also been reviewed by a roundtable that involved parliament and the measures are not likely to face strong opposition.
The law currently gives custody to one parent in the case of divorce but only to the mother if the parents never married. Parents who want joint custody must apply for it after coming to an agreement on visits and financial support.
Parents who are not married but who split up will no longer have custody automatically given to one parent; if they cannot resolve issues of visits and money, child protection authorities will decide which parent is given custody.
Joint decisions about domicile, daily life
IMF head to appear before judge Sunday to hear sexual assault charges
Update 2, 11:00 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), has been formally charged in New York Sunday with sexual assault, sequestering a person and attempted rape, charges filed after a maid in his New York City hotel room Saturday 14 May was taken to hospital with minor injuries, according to French newspaper Liberation.
New York police pulled him off afternoon Air France flight 23 for Paris just as the doors of the plane were closing. Paul Browne, New York Police Department spokesperson, Saturday evening told several journalists in the US that police expected to press charges soon that were “anticipated to include criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment”. The charges were reportedly filed early Sunday.
Undeclared but presumed candidate for French Socialists
Strauss-Kahn, 62, is widely expected to be the 2012 French presidential candidate for the Socialist party against President Nicolas Sarkozy after preliminaries next September. His arrest comes on the heels of attacks by French media over his high-flying lifestyle and his wife’s wealth: Anne Sinclair is a television news celebrity in France and grand-daughter of one of the 20th century’s wealthiest art merchants, Paul Rosenberg. She was born in New York but completed her studies in Paris. The couple, married in 1991, have been living in Washington, DC since 2007. They reportedly have several homes around the world.
Not the first peccadillo
The Tribune de Geneve 13 May carried a long article detailing the couple’s wealth, based on several French media reports. Anne Sinclair’s blog Sunday makes no mention of her husband’s arrest. She publicly forgave him in 2008 after he admitted to having an affair with an economist, Piroska Nagy, who worked at the IMF and was the wife of noted Argentinian economist Mario Blejer. The scandal created a furor at the IMF.
He is being held in Harlem, at a special victims unit of the NY Police Department.
His job makes him a United Nations technical expert, a position that does not give him diplomatic immunity, according to ABC News in the US. Browne told reporters that he had not said a word to police, hours after being taken into custody.
Police call maid’s report “credible”
The 32-year-old maid, whose report is called “credible” by police, told them “that she entered Strauss-Kahn’s room at the Sofitel near Manhattan’s Times Square at about 1 p.m. [13:00] Saturday and he emerged from the bedroom naked, threw her down and tried to sexually assault her, Browne said. She escaped and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said. They called police,” reports NPR.
Le Monde in France is following the story closely, with an online front page blog on the breaking news. The French newspaper notes that “DSK” is scheduled to meet this coming week with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, followed by a European Commission event in Brussels, an economic forum.
The New York Times, which broke the story, immediately put Strauss-Kahn’s presidential chances in the past tense, saying that he “was widely expected to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency”. The newspaper reported Saturday that he would be represented by his lawyer William Taylor, but first AFP and then later Libération said Taylor was unable to reach his client Saturday. The Village Voice interprets Le Figaro’s take on where all this will lead, in a Paris to New York assessment of the incident that gives more graphic, if unconfirmed, detail than most stories.
Strauss-Kahn, whom New York police describe as apparently in a hurry to leave the Sofitel, left his cell phone behind in his hotel room.
A woman in Wearside, England, has been taken into custody for breaking a ban issued to her earlier in July after neighbours complained that she was making too much noise during sex in the early hours of the morning. She had been given a four-year ban on making excessive noise anywhere in England, but now faces three charges of breaking the ban in just 10 days. She has opted for a jury trial, reports the BBC.
Update 3 July 06:15 Debbie Rowe, mother to performer Michael Jackson’s two oldest children, implied in a 90-minute interview with US television network NBC that she intends to fight for custody of the children but her lawyer later softened that, after media reports, saying that she is undecided. BBC
