Guantanamo Naval Base

A 31-year-old Yemeni was found dead in his cell at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in an apparent suicide, U.S. military officials said Tuesday. Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih would be the fifth prisoner to take his life at the detention center since the Pentagon began holding terrorism suspects there more than seven years ago. The death late Monday spurred fresh criticism of the U.S. detention policy and demands that President Obama make good on his vow to close Guantanamo by January.

U.S. officials have persuaded the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau to accept some of the Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, representing a major step in the Obama administration's plan to close the prison. In a statement released to the Associated Press today, Palau President Johnson Toribiong said his government had "agreed to accommodate the United States of America's request to temporarily resettle in Palau up to 17 ethnic Uighur detainees . . . subject to periodic review."

At Chopsticks, a restaurant one block from the beach on the island of Bermuda, waitress Kelly Simmons said diners were talking about one thing on Thursday. Uighurs. And, Simmons said, the customers were not happy. "They're saying, 'The government doesn't help us, but they're helping these strangers.' " Simmons, 20, said she wished Bermuda residents had been given a say in their government's decision to accept four Chinese Muslim detainees from the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

If you won't take them, why should we? That question has ricocheted across Europe as the Obama administration tries to fulfill its promise to shut down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Though Europeans laud that goal, many countries in the region remain skeptical about taking in former inmates, especially as the United States appears increasingly unwilling to allow any within its borders. That unwillingness is apparent as the U.S.

Sipping guava juice under cover from a steamy tropical downpour, Tommy Remengesau Jr. says he's always considered his Pacific island home a refuge from the troubles of the outside world. "While the rest of the planet was in conflict, waging its wars, we remained a little piece of paradise," the former Palauan president said as his pet fruit bat swayed upside down in a nearby cage. "Now, the world's headaches have come home to roost in Palau."

Portugal will accept two or three prisoners for resettlement from the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, state news agency Lusa quoted Foreign Minister Luis Amado as saying Saturday. In December, Portugal became the first country to press publicly for a coordinated European Union resettlement plan for Guantanamo prisoners. The EU announced Monday that member nations were ready to help Washington and take detainees on a case-by-case basis. Amado met with Daniel Fried, U.S.

Stymied by Congress so far, the White House is considering issuing an executive order to indefinitely imprison a small number of Guantanamo detainees considered too dangerous to prosecute or release, two administration officials said Friday. No final decisions have been made. One of the officials said the order, if issued, would not take effect until after the Oct. 1 start of the 2010 fiscal year.

Obama administration officials said Monday they would not meet self-imposed deadlines for deciding what to do with scores of detainees too dangerous to release from the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The delays, involving those who cannot be tried, raise questions about whether the White House can close the prison by January, as President Obama pledged when he took office.

Avoiding a showdown with a federal judge, the Obama administration agreed Wednesday to release from Guantanamo Bay an Afghan prisoner who was captured as a teenager and held nearly seven years for allegedly throwing a grenade at U.S. soldiers. The government said it would "promptly release" Mohammed Jawad, now 23, and send him to Afghanistan -- but only after it sent a required notification to Congress explaining whether his release would pose a risk to national security.

The Obama administration could transfer Guantanamo inmates to be tried and detained at a hybrid military-civilian prison in the United States as part of a proposal being examined by U.S. security agencies, officials said Sunday. The proposal for creating a combined detention and trial facility for Guantanamo inmates in an existing U.S. maximum-security prison is likely to be controversial.