GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba: As the U.S. renews its effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, it will soon begin reconsidering the fate of prisoners such as Mohammed al-Shimrani.

The 38-year-old Saudi is in a special category among the 166 prisoners at Guantanamo — one of nearly 50 men who a government task force decided were too dangerous to release but who can’t be prosecuted, in some cases, because proceedings could reveal sensitive information. While the rest of the prisoners have been cleared for eventual release, transfer or prosecution, al-Shimrani and the others can only guess at their fate.

“The allegations against my client are no more serious than many, many Saudis who have been sent home,” New York-based attorney Martha Rayner said of al-Shimrani. “It just baffles me.”

The Pentagon says the men in the indefinite detention category are held under international laws of war until the “end of hostilities,” whenever that may be. As a group, they are one of the chief hurdles to President Barack Obama’s attempts to close the detention center on the U.S. base in Cuba.

For the most part, they have been accused of being al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, couriers and recruiters. After more than a decade, their lawyers say it’s time to let them go.

Their lawyers recently began receiving notifications that intelligence officials from “various U.S. government agencies” would begin reviewing the detention of their clients to determine whether it was still necessary to hold them. A Defense Department spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Joseph Todd Breasseale, said the date for the first hearing hasn’t been set.

Details of how the panels will be conducted, whether, for example, lawyers for the men will be allowed to be present or can only appear by videoconference, have not been disclosed.

Rayner, a professor at Fordham University School of Law in New York, said she is hopeful because her client has family to receive him back in Saudi Arabia, and a government capable of providing any security assurances the U.S. might need.

“I am going into this with an open mind,” she said.

Many who have long pushed for the closure of the prison say the U.S. needs to act fast because the legal premise for their indefinite detention will evaporate when the U.S. pulls its troops out of Afghanistan in 2014, effectively ending the war that prompted the opening of Guantanamo in January 2002.

“Our credibility is strained to begin with, but whatever is left is going to be sorely harmed if we continue to detain people after the rationale has expired,” said Morris “Moe” Davis, a retired Air Force colonel who served two years as the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo military commissions.

The men in the indefinite detention category include three Saudis, al-Shimrani among them, who were held back as dozens of fellow citizens were sent to a rehabilitation program in their country. It also includes two Kuwaitis, Faez al-Kandari and Fawzi al-Odah, who have been accused of being part of the terrorist group and are being held even though Kuwait has built a rehabilitation center for them that sits idle. Also on the list are several Afghans, who officials have said are possible candidates for a prisoner swap with the Taliban involving an American POW, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of Idaho.

Al-Shimrani worked as a teacher in Saudi Arabia and was accused of training with al-Qaida and fighting against the Northern Alliance and possibly being a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. Rayner argues there is no longer any legal or security justification for holding him.

Most of the government’s court filings on him are sealed. In general, however, the reason the government often opted not to prosecute men on the indefinite list was because their capture involved aid from foreign governments that did not want their assistance disclosed or because U.S. authorities used technological capabilities they did not want to publicize, said Davis, the former chief prosecutor. “It wasn’t that there wasn’t good evidence; it was an inability to use that evidence,” he said.

Air Force Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, a military lawyer for al-Kandari, who is accused of producing al-Qaida propaganda, insists there is a lack of evidence. “If the government could successfully prosecute these guys they would,” he said. “But they can’t and they won’t.”

The U.S. began using Guantanamo to hold “enemy combatants” in the chaotic early days of the war in Afghanistan. Al-Shimrani, captured in Pakistan after fleeing Afghanistan, was among the first arrivals, a core group who it was thought would yield valuable intelligence about al-Qaida. He was eventually interrogated at least 88 times, according to court documents. The prison, meanwhile, grew to a peak of about 680, with Afghans and Saudis the two largest groups by nationality.

KATHMANDU: Narvada Devi, a Nepali poetess residing in the United States for a long time has published her first poem anthology- Chattan (Rock).

Bairagi Kainla, Chancellor of Nepal Academy inaugurated the anthology amid a special program in Kathmandu on Saturday.

Kainla appreciated the contribution of Nepali expats to Nepali literature and Nepali economy. Elaborating on the issues covered by the anthology, Kainla said that poems reflected the current socio-economic situation and added that the poems have called to fight back against odds like a rock.

Speaking on the occasion, Utendra Dahal said that the poems reflected day to day life events of common people and added that the stylistics matched the content and theme of the poems.

Journalist Harihar commented that the anthology will be great inspiration for all women and appreciated the efforts of Narvda Devi for putting her views and feelings in those poems.

WASHINGTON: The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has admitted to having amassed data on MIT linguistics professor and government critic Noam Chomsky during the 1970s, Foreign Policy magazine’s The Cable blog said on Tuesday.

For years, the CIA responded to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests about Chomsky by claiming it had no records relevant to the query, The Cable noted.

Attorney Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, decided to direct an FOIA request to the FBI, which produced a memo from the CIA asking the bureau for any information on a planned trip to North Vietnam by anti-war activists.

Dated June 8, 1970, the CIA document said the journey to Hanoi had the “endorsement of Noam Chomsky”.

An expert on information gathering consulted by The Cable said the memo confirms the CIA kept a file on Chomsky and that the agency likely destroyed the dossier, possibly breaking the law in the process.

Chomsky, the 84-year-old father of modern linguistics, was voted the “world’s top public intellectual” in a 2005 poll.

An American Christian missionary imprisoned in North Korea is in deteriorating health and has been moved from a prison work camp to a hospital within the past two weeks, his sister said at a vigil for her brother on Saturday.

Kenneth Bae was sentenced in May to 15 years of hard labour after North Korea’s Supreme Court convicted him of state subversion. The court said Bae, 45, had used his tourism business to form groups to overthrow the government.

Bae was detained in November as he led a tour group through the northern region of the country. His sentencing came amid acrimonious relations between Pyongyang and Washington over the reclusive state’s nuclear program.

Bae’s sister Terri Chung said that her brother had until recently been held at a prison for foreigners and put to work ploughing and planting fields.

However, he is suffering from a range of health problems including an enlarged heart and chronic diabetes as well as back and leg pain, necessitating his transfer to a state hospital, she said.

Chung said she learned of her brother’s transfer from the Swedish ambassador to North Korea, who visited Bae on Friday. The ambassador, who has met with Bae a handful of times since his detention, has been his only foreign visitor, Chung said.

Chung’s comments came at a prayer vigil for Bae at a Seattle Church on Saturday evening attended by more than 100 friends, family and supporters. Chung also read from a letter sent by Bae to his supporters written on June 13, in which he encouraged them to push his case with American officials.

“The only way I can be free to return home is by obtaining amnesty,” Bae wrote. “In order for that to happen it will take more active efforts from the US government side.”

Two American journalists arrested in 2009 by North Korea and held until former president Bill Clinton travelled there to negotiate their release were organising a satellite vigil in New York, one of the journalists, Euna Lee said.

North Korea has in the past used the release of high-profile American prisoners as a means of garnering a form of prestige or acceptance by portraying visiting dignitaries as paying homage to the country and its leader.

That pattern has complicated the response of US lawmakers and the State Department, which has called for Bae’s immediate release on “humanitarian grounds”, but resisted sending high-profile envoys to negotiate, as it has done in the past.

An internet petition started by Bae’s son urging US President Barack Obama to secure a “Special Amnesty” for Bae has garnered nearly 8,000 signatures.

There have been other calls for his release, such as a Twitter message from former basketball player Dennis Rodman, who visited North Korea in February, but Chung said US officials have assured her they are pursuing quieter clemency efforts.

Reports last month that former US President Jimmy Carter was set to visit North Korea to negotiate for Bae were ultimately denied as false.

Bae, a naturalised US citizen born in South Korea who moved to the United States with his family in 1985, has spent much of the last seven years in China, where he started a business leading tour groups into the northern region of North Korea, Chung said.

AMES, Iowa (AP) — Sen. Ted Cruz on Saturday continued his call for cutting off funding for President Barack Obama’s health care law and told conservative Christians that congressional lawmakers can’t be counted on to do it.

The Texas Republican, a tea-party favorite and a possible presidential candidate in 2016, drew a standing ovation at the Family Leadership Summit with his denouncement of the health care initiative labeled “Obamacare” by its critics.

“That reaction right there shows how we win this fight,” Cruz said. “If I was sitting in the Senate cloakroom, the reaction would be fundamentally different. If we have to depend on Washington, it will never be done.”

As he has in remarks to other conservatives, Cruz asserted that a grassroots effort would be needed. “The only way we win this fight is if the American people rise up and hold our elected officials accountable,” he said.

Cruz has been part of a push by some conservative lawmakers to close the government temporarily this fall — by refusing to fund federal operations beyond Sept. 30 — if that’s the only way to cut off money for Obama’s health care law. Other Republicans have dismissed the tactic as counterproductive and even dangerous for Republicans seeking re-election next year.
Last Tuesday the party’s most recent presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, told donors that “there are better ways to remove Obamacare” and predicted that a shutdown effort would result in the health care law being funded anyway, Republicans suffering at the polls and Americans being unhappy.

Asked about the Romney remarks, Cruz said: “There are lots of folks that can share their views. In my view, No. 1, there’s bipartisan agreement Obamacare isn’t working. No. 2, this is the single best opportunity to defund it.”

Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who sought the Republican nomination in 2012 and might again in 2016, told the group that the party must do a better job reaching out to working-class voters. The winner of the Iowa caucuses in 2012 said that by focusing on business owners in that election, the GOP failed to connect with “job holders” and “marginalized” a group of voters.

“We need to reject this idea that if we build the economy, all boats will rise. We need to talk about people who have holes in their boats, because we all do,” Santorum said.

Reality TV star and real estate mogul Donald Trump, who flirted with a presidential run in 2012, said the GOP was struggling and would need a strong candidate in 2016, “someone who is really smart and really good.”

In a travel warning, the state department said the presence of several foreign and indigenous terrorist groups posed a potential danger to US citizens throughout Pakistan.

The personnel drawdown at the Lahore consulate was a precautionary measure and wasn’t related to the recent closures of numerous US diplomatic missions in the Muslim world, two US officials said. The consulate in Lahore was scheduled to be closed for the Eid holiday from Thursday through on Sunday and no reopening had been scheduled, one of the officials said.

The officials were not authorized to discuss the order by name and requested anonymity.

Earlier this week, 19 US diplomatic outposts in 16 countries in the Middle East and Africa were closed to the public through Saturday and nonessential personnel were evacuated from the US embassy in Yemen after US intelligence officials said they had intercepted a recent message from al-Qaida’s top leader about plans for a major terror attack.

None of the consulates in Pakistan or the US embassy in Islamabad were affected by the earlier closures.

The New York-based human rights watchdog highlighted the cases of Rafael Matos Montes de Oca, Emilio Planas Robert and brothers Alexeis, Diango and Vianco Vargas Martin. It said they have been held for months in eastern provincial lockups.

“These five cases are only the tip of the iceberg for Cuba’s repression of free speech,” Amnesty special adviser Javier Zuniga said in a statement.

Cuban officials, who did not respond to a request for comment Sunday, deny holding any political prisoners. The government and its supporters call dissidents “counterrevolutionaries” and “mercenaries” who take foreign money to try to undermine the island’s Communist system.

Cuba has cleared its jails of internationally recognized prisoners of conscience in recent years. In April 2011, the last of 75 dissidents and activists sentenced to long prison terms after a 2003 crackdown walked free under a deal brokered by the Roman Catholic Church. Many went into exile with their families.

At the time, Amnesty said it no longer recognized any prisoners of conscience in Cuba. On several occasions since then it designated islanders as political prisoners and they were released days, weeks or months later.

Most recently, Amnesty said, independent journalist Calixto Martinez was named a prisoner of conscience in January and freed in April after nearly seven months without formal charge.

The five named Sunday are the only ones Amnesty currently recognizes as prisoners of conscience in Cuba.

Amnesty said Matos Montes de Oca and Planas Robert were convicted of “dangerousness” or “special proclivity to commit crimes,” a statute that can be broadly interpreted.

It said they were arrested in late September after anti-government posters were put up in the eastern city of Guantanamo. Both belong to a dissident group called the Patriotic Union of Cuba.

The Vargas Martin brothers are the sons of a member of the Ladies in White opposition group. Alexeis was arrested Nov. 27 in Santiago as he tried to return to his home, which had been surrounded by pro-government counter-protesters, Amnesty said.

The group said his 17-year-old twin brothers were arrested Dec. 2 as they protested his detention outside a police station. Police have accused the three of using violence or intimidation against authorities, but no formal charges have been filed.

Zuniga gave Cuba credit for scrapping a long-standing exit visa requirement earlier this year that had made it difficult for islanders to travel abroad and was frequently denied to dissidents, but he said repression of free speech remains.

“Much more needs to be done to guarantee civil and political liberties in the country,” he said.

A spokesman for the nongovernmental Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which tracks arrests of dissidents, said it was monitoring the five men and considers their punishments out of line with the alleged violations.

“We have them on our list,” Juan Goberna said. “We are asking for their freedom and we have been following their cases.”

Activists say that rather than hold government opponents for long terms, authorities have increasingly adopted the tactic of arresting dissidents briefly to harass them and prevent them from carrying out protests.

Hundreds of catch-and-release detentions occur each month, Goberna’s group says.

The victim died at a hospital a few hours after the crash at the Venice Beach boardwalk, Los Angeles police Lt. Andy Neiman said.

At about the same time a person was taken into custody for questioning and a car was impounded in neighboring Santa Monica, and detectives were determining if both were the ones they’d been seeking, Neiman said.

Neiman would give no details on the identity of the victim or the person of interest.

The sandy-haired man drove the powerful midsized Dodge Avenger into vendors and tourists as they walked along the paved pedestrian walkway of the storied boardwalk. Police and witnesses said bloodied victims and knocked over mannequins and lawn chairs were left in the wake.

Witnesses told firefighters it appeared the man was in control of his car as he ran people down, but police said they did not know his motives.

“If this was an intentional act that certainly raises the stakes quite a bit,” Neiman said.

Ten of the 12 victims were taken to hospitals, city Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said. Of the 11 survivors, one was in critical condition and two in serious condition, Humphrey said.

Alex Hagan, 22, who was working the front desk at the Cadillac Hotel, said the man was sitting in his parked car on the street right next to the boardwalk and his hotel when he suddenly started the engine and accelerated, swerving past yellow poles meant to keep cars off the pedestrian walkway.

“I heard a big ‘boom, boom,’ like the sound of someone going up and down the curb, it was super loud,” Hagan told The Associated Press.”

WASHINGTON: Top U.S. officials met Saturday to review the threat of a terrorist attack that led to the weekend closure of 21 U.S. embassies and consulates in the Muslim world and a global travel warning to Americans. President Barack Obama was briefed following the session, the White House said.

Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, led the meeting and then joined Lisa Monaco, Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, in briefing the president, the White House said in a statement.

“The president has received frequent briefings over the last week on all aspects of the potential threat and our preparedness measures,” according to the statement.

Among those at the meeting Saturday afternoon were the secretaries of state, defense and homeland security and the directors of the FBI, CIA and the National Security Agency, according to the White House. Also attending was Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In an interview Friday with ABC News, Dempsey said officials had determined there was “a significant threat stream” and that the threat was more specific than previous ones. The “intent is to attack Western, not just U.S. interests,” he said.

The global travel warning was the first such alert since an announcement before the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The warning comes less than a year since the deadly September attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and with the Obama administration and Congress determined to prevent any similar breach of an American embassy or consulate.

The State Department’s warning urged U.S. travelers to take extra precautions overseas. It cited potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists, and noted that previous attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats.

Travelers were advised to sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit.

The statement said that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests. The alert expires on Aug. 31.

The State Department said the potential for terrorism was particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack occurring on or coming from the Arabian Peninsula. The diplomatic facilities affected stretch from Mauritania in northwest Africa to Afghanistan.

U.S. officials pointed specifically to Yemen, the home of al-Qaida’s most dangerous affiliate and the network blamed for several notable plots against the United States, from the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit to the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.

“Current information suggests that al-Qaida and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August,” a department statement said.

Yemen’s president, Abdo Rabby Mansour Hadi, met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, where both leaders cited strong counterterrorism cooperation. This past week, Yemen’s military reported a U.S. drone strike killed six alleged al-Qaida militants in the group’s southern strongholds.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said the embassy threat was linked to al-Qaida and concerned the Middle East and Central Asia.

“In this instance, we can take a step to better protect our personnel and, out of an abundance of caution, we should,” Royce said. He declined to say if the National Security Agency’s much-debated surveillance program helped reveal the threat.

The alert was the first of its kind since an announcement preceding the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This one comes with the scars still fresh from last year’s deadly Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and with the Obama administration and Congress determined to prevent any similar breach of an American Embassy or consulate.

“There is a significant threat stream and we’re reacting to it,” said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He told ABC News in an interview to be aired Sunday that the threat was “more specific” than previous ones and the “intent is to attack Western, not just U.S. interests.”

The State Department warning urged American travelers to take extra precautions overseas, citing potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists and noting that previous terrorist attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats. It suggested travelers sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit.

The statement said that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests. The alert expires on Aug. 31.

The State Department said the potential for terrorism was particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack occurring on or coming from the Arabian Peninsula.

U.S. officials pointed specifically to Yemen, the home of al-Qaida’s most dangerous offshoot and the network blamed for several notable terrorist plots on the United States, from the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit to the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.

“Current information suggests that al-Qaida and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August,” a department statement said.

The alert was posted a day after the U.S. announced it would shut many diplomatic facilities Sunday. Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the department acted out of an “abundance of caution” and that some missions may stay closed for longer than a day. Sunday is a business day in Muslim countries, and the diplomatic offices affected stretch from Mauritania in northwest Africa to Afghanistan.

“I don’t know if I can say there was a specific threat,” said Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat, who was briefed on the State Department’s decision. “There is concern over the potentiality of violence.”