Al-Qaida’s leader said in remarks posted Wednesday that a prisoners’ hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay has revealed the “odious” face of America and claims that the terror network will spare no effort to free prisoners held at the U.S. military-run detention center in Cuba. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Al-Qaida’s leader says a prisoners’ hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay has revealed the “odious” face of America and claims that the terror network will spare no effort to free prisoners held at the US military-run detention center in Cuba. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Deep divisions among members of a Senate panel over whether to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, underscore the uphill battle President Barack Obama faces in fulfilling a 5-year-old promise to shutter the facility. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
By The Huffington Post News Editors
Kristen Stewart may not be quick to flash a smile, but she seems just fine with flashing a whole lotta leg.
KStew was spotted on set of her new movie “Camp X-Ray” in Los Angeles, Calif., earlier today. She enjoyed the 75 degrees weather in her usual tomboy garb: short crimson shorts, a T-shirt that allowed for a sliver of her midriff to peek through, Converse sneakers and a backwards cap.
In the movie, Stewart plays a young woman who enlists in the military and winds up stationed at Guantanamo Bay. Once there, she starts to form a bond with one of the captives.
Read More…
More on Celebrity Skin
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
A Moroccan man serving a 15-year prison sentence in Germany for helping three of the suicide pilots in the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. is seeking a new trial.
A spokesman for federal prosecutors Marcus Koehler said Friday the Hamburg court that convicted Mounir el-Motassadeq has forwarded the Moroccan’s application for the case to be reopened. Prosecutors will examine it and respond to the court, which will decide whether the case should be retried.
The spokesman didn’t comment on the contents of the application. German news agency dpa reported that el-Motassadeq’s lawyer, Udo Jacob, is citing a purported new statement by alleged 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh, who is at Guantanamo Bay.
Germany’s highest court refused in 2007 to consider an appeal from el-Motassadeq.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The U.S. military says the number of prisoners on the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay has dropped to 75, down from a peak of 106 last week.
From the U.S. base in Cuba, Army Lt. Col. Sam House said Thursday that a total of 67 of those 75 prisoners on hunger strike ate a meal over the last day.
House says they were still listed as hunger strikers because the military requires a minimum of three days of sustained eating and a minimal caloric intake before they can be removed from the tally. He says they also “must want to be removed from the list.”
A total of 46 prisoners are on the “enteral feed list,” meaning they can be strapped down and fed through a nasal tube.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
A federal judge has turned down a bid by three Guantanamo Bay detainees on a hunger strike to stop the government from force-feeding them.
By Kevin Spak
Sufiyan Barhoumi is desperate to plead guilty to war crimes—but prosecutors won’t even charge him with anything unless he does them a favor first. Such is the twisted logic that prevails at Guantanamo Bay, where being convicted is the best route home, the Wall Street Journal reports. Barhoumi was… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
President Barack Obama’s renewed push to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects has given a glimmer of hope to foreign governments that he will fulfill that promise and triggered diplomatic maneuvering from U.S. allies eager to bring home long-held detainees.
Kuwait has hired lobbyists to help bring its two remaining prisoners home. British Prime Minister David Cameron personally pressed Obama at the Group of 8 summit last month to release the United Kingdom’s final detainee. And the fate of Afghans being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba has been at the forefront of peace talks between the U.S., Taliban and Afghanistan.
The indefinite captivity has created tension with some important U.S. allies, particularly in the Arab world, the native home of many of the 166 remaining detainees. Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen are among those countries that have pressed the U.S. to turn over their nationals.
The Obama administration is in the midst of determining which detainees present the lowest risk for terrorist activity if released — considering both their personal histories and security in the countries to which they will be returned.
More than 100 of the detainees have participated in a hunger strike to protest their indefinite confinement, with several dozen having been force fed through a nasal tube to keep them from starving, although the military reported Friday that most have resumed eating.
David Cynamon, an American lawyer based in the Middle East who is working with Kuwait on getting their detainees back, said in recent months they are finally having meaningful negotiations after years of “radio silence.”
“You would think with a close ally like Kuwait they would at least get a hearing, but they kept getting the brush off,” Cynamon said.
Cynamon said that’s even though the Kuwaiti government built a rehabilitation center for former Guantanamo detainees at the request of Bush administration officials, after another former detainee carried out a suicide bombing that killed at least seven people in Iraq. The center, a section of the Kuwaiti central prison designed for medical and psychological treatment and religious counseling to ensure the detainees will peacefully reintegrate into society, has not been used.
Kuwait hired The Potomac Square Group, a Washington lobbying firm, to help spur talks for the transfer of Faiz al-Kandari and Fawzi al-Odah.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
A Canadian man who spent 10 years at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay plans to appeal his U.S. terrorism convictions.
Omar Khadr‘s lawyer Dennis Edney says the Toronto-born 26-year-old is “looking forward” to the appeal, which is expected to be filed “very soon.”
Khadr, the last Western detainee at Guantanamo, was transferred last September to a maximum security facility in Ontario. The son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to several charges, including killing a U.S. solider in Afghanistan when he was 15. He was eligible to return to Canada from Guantanamo Bay last October under terms of a plea deal.
Edney said Saturday that the defense team will first file an appeal with a U.S. military commission.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
By Peter Brown
Prior to being elected President, Barack Obama came across as a real outsider hoping to bring change to a failing system personified in one man: then-President of the United States George W. Bush. Indeed, much of the criticism leveled against Bush was valid. He and the Congress had started long and costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at a time when America could ill afford to be spending such amounts, given the precarious state of its public finances. Bush had made compromises with treasured civil liberties by passing the invasive Patriot Act and indefinitely detaining suspects at Guantanamo Bay. Some of these suspects at Guantanamo Bay had been tortured by the American authorities. George W. Bush had been a combination of the worst traits of Republicans and Democrats; he had combined the aggressive militarism and nationalism of Republicans, hated by many people worldwide, with the free spending ways of the liberal Democrats, leading to the worst public finances this nation had ever seen (that is, before Barack Obama’s presidency). He gave Obama a mess that unfortunately has been further complicated by Obama instead of cleaned up. Indeed, while many admired George W. Bush’s personal decency, as far as policy was concerned, many began to see Bush’s policies for what they were: disasters.
Many of these things should be no mystery to anyone after Obama rightfully criticized Bush over and over again in the 2008 campaign. It has been noted by some writers that Obama’s policies have been very oddly a continuation of much of what Bush’s policies were while he was in office. Of course, there have been differences as one would hope to see between a “conservative” Republican and a far-left Democrat, but the similarities have been uncanny. Obama has continued Bush’s interventionist ways and has compiled a record of spending that matches his largess.
That is why it was no surprise to see Barack Obama get up and roundly praise the man whom he had routinely condemned to get elected. To see him chum around with the former Presidents both left and right showed what a sham his criticisms of Bush had been. Bush was transformed from the almost devilish figure he had been to Obama in his early days to a man of “compassion and generosity,” a real example (in Obama’s eyes) of what a leader should be. It is clear that Barack Obama has joined the “world’s most exclusive club” and has forgotten the very reasons why he wanted to be elected in the first place. It was also no surprise to see George W. Bush praised by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in addition to Obama. Maybe this “conservative” President, this “Reaganite,” is a little more to the left than we had assumed. Maybe our current President is a little more of an insider and a statist than he appeared to be in order to get elected to the world’s most powerful office. Food for thought, at least.
F. Peter Brown is an Associate Editor
A hunger strike among prisoners at Guantanamo Bay keeps growing.
Lt. Col. Samuel House said Saturday that 100 of 166 prisoners at the U.S. base in Cuba have now joined the strike.
He says 19 are receiving liquid nutrients through a nasal tube to prevent dangerous weight loss. House says five of those are at a hospital under observation but that they do not have any life-threatening conditions.
Lawyers for the detainees say the military is undercounting the number of hunger strikers.
Prisoners began the hunger strike in February to protest conditions and indefinite confinement.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Days after a violent clash between guards and prisoners, the U.S. military says a hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay is on the rise.
A military spokesman says 52 prisoners have been classified as hunger strikers as of Wednesday. That’s up from 45 a day earlier. Navy Capt. Robert Durand says 15 prisoners are being force-fed to prevent dangerous weight loss and three have been hospitalized.
Prisoners have been on strike since early February to protest conditions and their indefinite confinement at the U.S. base in Cuba. The U.S. holds 166 men at the prison, most without charge.
Guards raided a section of the prison Saturday to move prisoners from a communal holding area into single cells after the men covered security cameras. The military feared some might commit suicide.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/p5VQj1TnrKQ/
The top medical official at the Guantanamo Bay prison says five detainees were injured in the weekend clash with guards.
Navy Capt. Richard Stoltz says none of the injuries were major. Stoltz says one prisoner was struck with rubber pellets from what the military calls a “less-than-lethal” round. Another cut his head in what officials said was a self-inflicted wound. Three others were scraped when guards herded them out of a communal section and into single cells.
Officials say two guards were struck in the head by prisoners but both have since returned to work.
Guantanamo Bay officials met with journalists Tuesday to give a detailed account of the incident. They said the raid was necessary because prisoners covered up security cameras during an ongoing hunger strike.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/splrKk5ym40/
A federal judge Monday denied an emergency motion for relief filed by a Guantanamo Bay prisoner on a hunger strike, despite pleas from the man’s lawyer who says his client is dying.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/SE3_5matCgE/
Members of a disbanded Islamic extremist militia are denying claims that the commander of the group has been shot. The group is suspected of involvement in an attack in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans last September.
Former militiamen of Ansar al-Shariah, dissolved after protests against them last year, told The Associated Press Monday that Sufyan bin Qumu, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, had not been attacked by unknown assailants, as a security official claimed.
They say another member was shot That’s in line with reports by local media in Derna, where the attack took place late Sunday.
The former militiamen, who spoke anonymously due to the sensitivity of the subject, denied the group had any involvement in the Benghazi attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/foelRYDqgbI/
A security official says the leader of an Islamic extremist militia in Libya suspected of involvement in an attack in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador has been shot.
Sufyan bin Qumu, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, was shot Sunday in the area of al-Thruwn in the eastern city of Darna, a stronghold of Islamic extremists.
The security official says he was taken to a nearby hospital and is in the intensive care unit. He spoke anonymously in line with regulations.
Residents of eastern Libya, where the September attack against the U.S. consulate took place, have been standing up to Ansar al-Shariah. Protesters stormed the group’s compound in Benghazi days after the attack.
No suspects have been named in the attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/aY9PV42tMvI/
By Ruth Brown Over two months into their hunger strike , detainees at Guantanamo Bay today clashed with US forces who moved them from communal cell blocks to maximum security single cells. “Some detainees resisted with improvised weapons, and in response, four less-than-lethal rounds were fired,” the prison camp said in a statement. “There…
From: http://www.newser.com/story/166183/gitmo-hunger-strikers-forced-into-single-cells.html
The U.S. military says guards have clashed with prisoners amid a hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, leading officers to move detainees from communal to single cells at Camp 6.
The military accuses detainees of covering surveillance cameras, windows and partitions, preventing guards from observing them during a hunger strike that has dragged on for more than two months. Lawyers have alleged that most of the 166 prisoners are participating.
The U.S. military said in a statement Saturday that detainees used improvised weapons to resist the transfer, leading guards to fire four less-than-lethal rounds. Officials said no guards or detainees were seriously injured.
The military also said that medical personnel have evaluated each detainee.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/QEtgPPo0tHI/
Russia has banned 18 Americans from entering the country in response to Washington imposing sanctions on 18 Russians for alleged human rights violations.
The list released Saturday by the Foreign Ministry includes John Yoo, a former U.S. Justice Department official who wrote legal memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques; David Addington, the chief of staff for former Vice President Dick Cheney; and two former commanders of the Guantanamo Bay detention center: retired Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller and Ad. Jeffrey Harbeson.
The move comes a day after the United States announced its sanctions under the Magnitsky Law, named for Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested in 2008 for tax evasion after accusing Russian police officials of stealing $230 million in tax rebates. He died in prison the next year, allegedly after being beaten and denied medical treatment.
The Magnitsky law infuriated Russian authorities and the parliament quickly passed a retaliatory measure than banned Americans from adopting Russian children.
The U.S. list includes Artem Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov, two Russian Interior Ministry officers who put Magnitsky behind bars after he accused them of stealing $230 million from the state. Two tax officials the lawyer accused of approving the fraudulent tax refunds, and several other Interior Ministry officials accused of persecuting Magnitsky were also on the list. Absent were senior officials from Russia‘s President Vladimir Putin’s entourage whom some human rights advocates had hoped to see sanctioned.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement Saturday that the U.S. sanctions struck “a strong blow to bilateral relations and joint trust.”
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said it had no immediate comment.
Also on Russia‘s list are 14 Americans whom Russia says violated the rights of Russians abroad. It does not give specifics of the alleged violations, but includes several current or former federal prosecutors in the case of Viktor Bout, the Russian arms merchant sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in prison for selling weapons to a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/CfPEbTEV0YQ/
