Afghans have deep self-respect and are the last people to put up with humiliation. Is it any surprise that relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have touched an all-time low and the two countries are now at war? asks M R Narayan Swamy.
'The unexpected turn of events and assertion of sovereignty by the Taliban has baffled the Pakistan security establishment.'
The Guantanamo Bay facility, which has so far been used to hold terrorists, will now also house illegal immigrants with criminal records.
The US president announced the move during his first State of the Union address, reversing his predecessor Barack Obama's decision to close the controversial site "as soon as practicable".
The military trainers who came to Guantanamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of "coercive management techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint," and "exposure," the New York Times said. All these methods were once described by the Americans as torture.
The closing down of the Guantanamo detention centre was in US' security interest, the Obama administration maintained on Wednesday, amid a clamour among lawmakers for a review of the decision and for stopping of the transfer of detainees to Yemen.
Human rights organisations have been alleging that the Guantanamo Bay military prison, set up by Bush Administration in 2002, was being used to detain and question terror suspects with harsh interrogation measures. The prison camp currently holds about 245 inmates. The executive orders in this regard were signed by Obama at a White House ceremony during his meeting with the retired military officials on Thursday.
Showing up for a hearing at the United States military court in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is an ordeal for the detainees and a logistical burden for the American military, which has to transport the terror suspects from the detention facility to 'Camp Justice' inside the US Naval base in Cuba.
United States President Barack Obama is still committed to closing down the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention centre, a promise he had made during his presidential campaign, his spokesman said on Tuesday after his government's U-turn over trial of the 9/11 accused."We remain committed to closing Guantanamo because it's in our national security interest," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters during an off-camera briefing.
United States President Barack Obama has appointed Cliff Sloan, a high-powered lawyer with extensive experience in all three branches of the government, as his special envoy for the closure of the much-criticised terrorist detention centre at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
The US has released a London-based Saudi national, the last British resident to be incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, after nearly 14 years in detention at the infamous military prison in Cuba without being tried for any terror-related offence.
"The Guantanamo issue is a sensitive issue for people. I very much would like to end Guantanamo. I very much would like to get people to a court," he told German TV station ARD.
United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday lifted the freeze on military trials for Guantanamo Bay terror suspects by signing an executive order that will create a formal system of indefinite detention of such prisoners. Within hours of his taking over as the President, Obama announced a freeze on Guantanamo Bay trials along with a vow to shut down the infamous camp within a year.
The lawyer of Julian Assange, the founder of whistleblower website Wikileaks, has said that the journalist faces the threat of the death penalty or detention at Guantanamo Bay if he is extradited to Sweden on accusations of rape and sexual assault. "Indeed, if Assange were rendered to the USA, without assurances that the death penalty would not be carried out, there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty," his lawyer said.
A Human Rights Watch report says the US abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan has given other nations an excuse to torture terror suspects.\n\n
The Guantanamo detention centre has a major medical facility and a large airstrip both of which could be used in the coming days, State Department spokesman P J Crowley said. The major hospitals in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince have been damaged and the airport is being run by the US army on an emergency basis.
David Hicks, an Australian citizen, had allegedly fired hundreds of bullets on Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir in the year 2000.
United States President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced the nomination of popular Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth, 44, as his defence secretary.
President Barack Obama may not be able to fulfill his promise of closing down infamous Guantanamo Bay by the end of his term because of political opposition and "inertia" on part of the administration, a media report said on Saturday. The initial date for shutting down the detention facility was 2010 but there has been considerable resistance to the proposal that the prisoners be shifted to a prison in Illinois, according to the New York Times.
"We are exploring all alternatives as to how best to do the main objective, which is to protect America. What we don't want to do is to let out somebody that comes back and harms us," Bush said.
United States President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order, within his first week in office, to close down the infamous American detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, a media report said on Tuesday. The order, however, would not immediately close the prison, the Wall Street Journal said, citing two people with knowledge of the plan. It is the first step in what is expected to be a long process of determining what to do with the approximately 250 prisoners.
Philip Alston, a United Nations human rights expert has said that the trial of six 'alien unlawful enemy combatants' at the Guantanamo Bay under the Military Commission Act fails to meet the basic due process standards required for a fair trial under international humanitarian and human rights law.
For Shayana (Shane) Kadidal, a senior managing attorney of the Guantnamo project at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, the recent Supreme Court ruling in favour of the detainees is yet another reminder that the fight for ethical and fair treatment of all prisoners held by the United States has to continue.
The decision is seen as a stinging blow to the US administration
Diego Maradona blasted FIFA's ban on Uruguay striker Luis Suarez as "criminal" and said world soccer's governing body might as well handcuff the striker and lock him up in Guantanamo prison.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to enter a plea deal with the Joe Biden administration that could pave the way for him to avoid imprisonment in the United States, according to recently filed federal court documents, CNN reported.
The motion, made at the instance of Obama and US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, is expected to be considered early on Wednesday local time by the military judge hearing into the case against five men charged in 9/11 terror attacks and against Omar Khadr, a Canadian who is accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan in 2002
The right of the accused, as guaranteed by the Constitution, principles of natural justice cannot be denied to the accused indefinitely, it said.
Specially designated global terrorist Sirajuddin Haqqani, who carries a reward of $10 million US bounty on his head, is the acting interior minister while his uncle -- Khalil Haqqani -- has been named as acting minister for refugees.
'Don't be fooled. There is nothing more moderate about the revived Taliban government'
"We appeal to the officials of past governments to return to their country as we will give them full protection of their lives. We are faced with the huge task of rebuilding and reconstruction of war-ravaged Afghanistan," he said.
"We have not made any decisions with regard to releases," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told media persons when asked about news reports regarding release of Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo as part of the reconciliation process.
At least 35 terrorists incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay were sent to fight against the West after being indoctrinated by "extremist preachers" in mosques, particularly the one at Finsbury Park in Britain, according to documents leaked by WikiLeaks.
Some Indian students, many of the from Andhra Pradesh, have fallen victims of the Guantanamo Bay mindset of the United States authorities which permits them to use demeaning and dehumanising methods against suspects under investigation or detention in order to prevent them from escaping and to locate them by using the Global Positioning System if they manage to escape.
The White House has ruled out sending Ahmed Abu Khatallah, a key suspect in the attacks at the United States consulate in Benghazi in September 2012, to the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center and asserted that he would be tried through the federal court system.
Osama bin Laden's former cook, Ibrahim al Qosi, has pleaded guilty at a trial in Guantanamo Bay to conspiracy and providing support for terrorism, representing the first conviction of the Barack Obama administration at the controversial war crimes court. According to the BBC, the 50-year-old man from Sudan has admitted that he had worked as bin Laden's bodyguard in Afghanistan and helped him avoid capture by US forces. Qosi was detained in Afghanistan in 2001.
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