The Guantanamo Bay prison on the island of Cuba has been centre-stage this week in the US, with President Barack Obama and former Vice-President Dick Cheney appearing in what NPR describes as “dramatic, back-to-back televised speeches” on the future of Guantanamo and the release earlier in 2009 of classified documents on the use of torture.
Obama announced in January he wanted to close the prison facility on the island of Cuba, but Senate Democrats voted Tuesday 19 May to withold funding for the closure, asking the White House to provide a more detailed plan. Republicans have criticized Obama’s announcement to close the prison by January 2010, saying they want to know what will be done with the remaining 240 inmates at the facility. Twelve US states to date have passed laws banning inmates on their soil. CNN, Reuters and a series of commentaries on Obama’s plan for closing the prison, from the New York Times
In another development, Ahmed Ghailani, a Tanzanian held at Guantanamo since 2004 in connection with the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, will be tried in a US federal court in New York. He becomes the first detainee from the prison camp to be accorded a civilian trial. BBC, The Standard (Kenya)
Kenya’s women have withheld sex with their men for seven days to pressure them to make their fractious government work. Taking a leaf from ancient Greece’s Aristophanes, the boycott appears to have worked but now the feminist organization that organized it is being sued for damages. One man said he suffered from anguish, lack of sleep, backaches, and stress. CNN
Geneva, Switzerland (Tribune de Geneve, Fre) – Bank accounts have been blocked in Geneva by the Swiss government in relation to the “Anglo Leasing” scandal in Kenya, which may go back more than 10 years, that involved money-laundering related to purchases of helicopters and officials’ cars, NZZ in Zurich reports. The Tribune picks up the story.
