E.U. to take Gitmo detainees?

Last week’s decision by U.S. President Barack Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year and to repudiate the use of torture were welcome gestures. Yet the orders raise many questions including where will detainees go once Gitmo closes.

The possible destination of Gitmo detainees was one of the topics discussed during a meeting of European Union (E.U.) leaders earlier today. Most of the foreign ministers from the 27-nation bloc agreed that E.U. nations should take in some sixty prisoners originally from countries like China, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia. Yet officials also requested that any detainees taken by the E.U. pose no significant security risk:

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Britain had its plate full in dealing with its own nationals in U.S. custody and ruled out taking ex-prisoners from other nations…

Finland's foreign minister, Alexander Stubb, said Guantanamo inmates would become eligible for resettlement only once they passed through U.S. scrutiny and courts and were granted official status as political refugees.

Malaysian officials reportedly expressed interest over the weekend to house two of its citizens currently being held at Guantanamo.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Fox News, AP, Reuters, New York Times

Daily Headlines: April 3, 2008

* The Chinese crackdown in Tibet has led to calls of boycotting the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer. That controversy brings to mind the uproar over the Tlatleloco massacre which occurred ten days before the start of the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

* Is Venezuela’s government illegally intervening in Peruvian affairs?

* “If you love Wyclef that means you love Haiti,” said musician Wyclef Jean in a series of anti-crime ads.

* Malaysian immigration authorities are embarrassed after it was revealed that a senior officer did not know where Uruguay was located.

Sources- Associated Press, Yahoo! News, Monsters & Critics, Christian Science Monitor, NME.com, New Straits Times

Image- CBC (“University students are held at gunpoint by soldiers inside an apartment building in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, on Oct. 2, 1968. (AP photo)”)