Prisoner Releases

Five percent of Guantanamo Bay detainees have participated in terrorist activities since their release from the U.S. military prison, the Pentagon said Tuesday. An additional 9% are thought to have joined -- or rejoined -- the fight against the United States and its allies, according to Defense Department data released amid a political fight over where to send the detainees if the prison closes in January as planned. Constitutional scholars have long cast doubt on the Pentagon's detainee data.

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.

The statement posted on the lauraandeuna.com website said it all: "Our girls are coming home . . . we are counting the seconds to hold Laura and Euna in our arms." In some circles the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee revolved around complex questions of nuclear security and global politics.

The diplomatic mission to rescue two American TV journalists jailed in North Korea lasted less than two days. But in the brief time that it took former President Clinton to fly to the North Korean capital and back this week, it redefined -- and in some cases, reinvigorated -- several relationships at the heart of American politics. It once again led to him overshadowing his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, even as she is on her own diplomatic trip to Africa.

A federal judge who last week overturned the murder conviction of Bruce Lisker said Monday that she intends to release him on bail while government lawyers decide what they will do with the case. At the federal courthouse in Riverside, U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips said she would grant bail after court staff had interviewed Lisker's friends and supporters to determine the proper bail amount and other conditions of his release. That means Lisker, 44, could walk out of prison as soon as this week after more than 26 years behind bars.

Mexico's Supreme Court ordered the release of 20 men convicted in the 1997 massacre of 45 Indian villagers in Chiapas state and new trials for six more, ruling Wednesday that prosecutors used illegal evidence. Paramilitary fighters with alleged ties to government figures attacked a prayer meeting of Roman Catholic activists who sympathized with rebels demanding more rights for Indians. Over several hours on Dec. 22, 1997, the assailants killed 45 people. The court cited irregularities such as the fact that suspects, largely speakers of the Tzotzil Indian language, were not provided with interpreters.

A Cal State Northridge graduate student who was briefly imprisoned in Iran while working on her master's thesis on women's rights and then prohibited from leaving the country for nine months returned this week to Los Angeles, school officials said Thursday. Esha Momeni, 29, arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday and was greeted by friends and family. "It is wonderful news," Cal State Northridge President Jolene Koester said in a prepared statement. "All of us in the CSU Northridge community have been looking forward to this day. I have met briefly with Esha, and she appears to be in fine spirits."