Daily Headlines: October 28, 2010

Note: Blogging will be very light today. Therefore we present an expanded edition of today’s “Daily Headlines”.

* Guatemala: Vice President Rafael Espada claimed that about 1500 Guatemalans, not roughly 700 as initially claimed by the U.S., were victims of secret medical experiments on venereal diseases.

* Argentina: “Viva Nestor” and “Cristina you are not alone” were just some of the notes left on the gates of the Casa Rosada presidential palace by Argentines mourning the death of ex-president Nestor Kirchner.

* Mexico: Current president Felipe Calderon and his predecessor Vicente Fox find themselves on opposite sides of the California Proposition 19 debate.

* Cuba: Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr may’ve pled guilty and avoided trial yet his sentencing hearing has become a contentious affair.

* Haiti: The country’s cholera outbreak has killed at least 300 people and has spread to areas closer to the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

* Colombia: Major regional air carrier Lan Airlines will expand after buying Colombia’s Aires for over $32 million.

Image – CNN (Secret experiments on syphilis and gonorrhea were conducted on hundreds of Guatemalans in the 1940s. They were similar to another infamous example of U.S.-conducted experimentation: the Tuskegee experiment pictured above.)
Online Sources- Christian Science Monitor, CBC, The Latin Americanist, Reuters, Xinhua,
The Tico Times, Bloomberg,

Daily Headlines: August 11, 2010

* Cuba: Jury selection began yesterday in the military trial of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr of Canada.

* Latin America: Mexico's top tribunal ruled that same-sex marriages in Mexico City must be recognized nationwide while Costa Rica's Constitutional Court blocked holding a referendum on gay civil unions.

* Dominican Republic: Over 30,000 truck drivers staged a 24-hour strike in order to protest the proposed increase to the fuel tax.

* Haiti: Former U.S. President George W. Bush traveled to Haiti and touted a $500,000 grant for thousands of mango farmers.

Image – CBC (“This courtroom sketch shows Canadian Omar Khadr sitting through jury selection at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Tuesday. The sketch was reviewed by the U.S. military”).
Online Sources- Al Jazeera English, ABC News, BusinessWeek, BBC News, MSNBC

E.U. okays, Canada rejects Gitmo detainees

One of the most controversial parts of U.S. President Barack Obama’s plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison is where to transfer detainees. There’s a lively debate domestically regarding possibly sending detainees to U.S. supermax jails. Other countries have been mixed as to whether or not to accept prisoners from Guantanamo.

Yesterday, Canada’s government opposed transferring any Guantanamo detainees including seventeen Chinese Muslims the White House asked Canada to take in. "There really is no rationale for accepting them into the country" said Kory Teneycke- spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper- who also admitted that Ottawa had previously rejected similar requests by the Bush administration.

Teneycke also mentioned that Canadian-born inmate Omar Khadr will not be taken by his home country. “He is facing serious charges and is in the middle of a judicial process to determine his guilt or innocence…We will wait for that process to run its course.”

In the meantime, European Union (EU) states agreed on several conditions where individual countries can take in detainees. "It is materialized by a system of information-sharing, politically confirmed at the highest level” added EU Counterterrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove on the guidelines agreed upon during a meeting of the bloc’s interior ministers.

Despite the agreement, some EU countries like Germany are reluctant to house detainees:

“What we want to know, besides much more information about their past, is why the former inmates will not settle in the U.S. and why they cannot return home,” said (German interior minister Uwe) Schünemann. Until then, he said, Germany will not be prepared to accept any former detainees.

Image- AP (“In this photo, reviewed by the U.S. military, a guard stand outside the gate of Camp Iguana detention facility, which houses the Chinese Uighur Guantanamo detainees, who are cleared for release but with no country to go to, at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba, Monday, June 1, 2009. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, Pool)”)
Online Sources- Guardian UK, Reuters, New York Times, AHN, UPI, The Latin Americanist, MSNBC

Daily Headlines: June 2, 2009

* Mexico: The country’s recession-laden economy got more bad news – remittances plummeted by a record 19% in April.

* Cuba: The trial of Omar Khadr- a Canadian detainee at Guantanamo Bay- hit a major snag after he rejected his appointed attorneys for alleged infighting.

* Venezuela: State Department spokeswoman Sara Mangiaracina claimed that the agency was “concerned” over the “potentially destabilizing” effect that could occur via Venezuela’s arms purchases.

* Chile: Chilean Manuel Pellegrini was named as head coach of Spanish soccer giants Real Madrid.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- MSNBC, UPI, BBC Sport, The Latin Americanist, Bloomberg

Obama suspends Gitmo trials

In one of his moves after taking office U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the suspension of military trials at the Guantanamo Bay base.

The action- deliver last night via Defense Secretary Bob Gates- ordered all military trials to be paused until May 20th. According to documents filed at the prison camp, the directive was made "in the interest of justice and at the direction of the president of the United States."

The move is a strong signal that the Obama administration will close the controversial prison located on the eastern tip of Cuba. Last month, Pentagon officials reportedly drafted a plan to shut down the jail and Obama said in yesterday’s inauguration speech that “we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”

This morning one judge at Gitmo accepted the newly inaugurated president’s request:

A military judge has agreed to President Barack Obama's request to suspend the Guantanamo war crimes trial of Canadian Omar Khadr.

It is the first in a series of delays sought by Obama as his administration reviews the legal system for prosecuting alleged terrorists.

The written order came Wednesday in the Khadr case. He is accused of killing an American soldier with a grenade in Afghanistan in 2002.

Image- BBC News
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, washingtonpost.com, AP, wsj.com, Reuters

Attorneys for Canadian Gitmo detainee want dismissal

The lawyers for a 21-year-old detainee at Guantanamo Bay want his case to be dismissed. Omar Khadr’s defense team accused Pentagon lawyers of “unlawful influence” by impeding evidence in his favor. In another motion, attorneys for the Canadian detainee alleged that a senior military official engaged in “excessive interference” of commission cases.

Last month, a secretly taped video of Khadr’s interrogation by Canadian officials was revealed where he claimed to have been tortured while under custody. Khadr’s lawyers claimed that the video would cause “outrage” among Canadians, and his treatment led to several demonstrations Toronto and Ottawa.

Still, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that Khadr should still go on trial while a recent poll revealed that only 78% of Canadians “did not change their opinions of his case.”

Image- Al Jazeera English

Sources- The Latin Americanist, Globe and Mail, CBC, Canada.com, Guardian UK, National Post

Daily Headlines: July 24, 2008

* Cuba: The video of Omar Khadr’s interrogation at Guantanamo may’ve been controversial but 78% of Canadians said that the video didn’t change their opinions on his case.

* Venezuela: The Chavez administration rejected reports claiming that Russia will be allowed to have military bases in Venezuela.

* Argentina: President Cristina Kirchner is presiding over a Cabinet reshuffle in the wake of last week’s tax plan rejection.

* Haiti: Haitian children remain in high risk of being abused despite improved security according to a U.N. report.

Sources- The Latin Americanist, BBC News, Bloomberg, Xinhua, National Post, UPI

Image- New York Times (“A 2003 video of Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was 16 at the time, during an interrogation at Guantánamo Bay.”)

Today’s Video: Interrogation at Gitmo

The first video of an interrogation of a detainee at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was released earlier today. The secretly filmed tape showed a then sixteen-year-old Omar Khadr being questioned over his alleged killing of a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan in 2002. The video was released by petition of his lawyers in Canada, one of whom said that his countrymen “will be outraged to see the callous and disgraceful treatment of" Khadr.

In the brief clip below, a distraught Khadr complained of being tortured and shows supposed wounds on his body. Agents reply by dismissing his claims (“I'm not a doctor, but I think you're getting good medical care”) and subsequently try to calm him before leaving the interrogation room:

Sources- Reuters UK, CTV.ca, BBC News, AHN