Caribbean briefs
July 01, 2007
# Supreme Court will review detainees' case
WASHINGTON (AP):
The United States Supreme Court agreed to review whether Guantánamo Bay detainees can use federal courts to challenge their confinement, reversing an April decision not to hear arguments on the issue.
The unusual turnabout was announced without comment from justices who had twice before issued rulings critical of the way the Bush administration washandling detainees. Arguments are expected in the fall.
Meanwhile on Friday, Democrats in the House of Representatives said they want to cut U.S. President George W. Bush's budget for the prison in half, beating the administration to the punch in shutting down the facility for terror detainees.
There was no indication why the justices changed course from three months ago, but lawyers for the prisoners pointed to intervening events as having changed the complexion of the long-running controversy.
A week ago, lawyers for the detainees filed a statement with the Supreme Court from a military officer who alleged U.S. military panels that classified detainees as enemy combatants for the past four years relied on vague and incomplete intelligence.
# 1960 CIA plot reflects current policy - Cuba
HAVANA (AP):
Communist Cuba's parliament said Friday that a 47-year-old plot to assassinate Fidel Castro still reflects the reality of U.S. policy toward the island.
CIA documents made public this week described the agency's recruitment of a former FBI agent in August 1960 to use mobsters and poison pills to kill Castro.
"What the CIA recognises is not old history. It is present-day reality and the facts show it," stated a resolution approved unanimously by Cuba's National Assembly.
Acting President Raul Castro, seated next to the empty chair of his recuperating older brother Fidel, presided as the legislature passed a declaration that "the CIA documents reveal part of the efforts to kill comrade Fidel Castro and bring death and pain to our people."
"The conduct of the Bush government clearly shows its intention to keep employing the worst possible tactics against Cuba."
Revelations about the CIA plot were among hundreds of pages of CIA internal reports, known as "the family jewels," released this week. The documents show that in August 1960, the CIA recruited an ex-FBI agent to approach mobster Johnny Roselli to take part in a plot against Castro, who took power in January 1959.
The agency gave him six poison pills, which they tried unsuccessfully to have other people put in Castro's food. The plot was scrapped after the failed CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961, and U.S. authorities retrieved the poison pills.
# Court declines appeal on unicameral law
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP):
Puerto Rico's Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a voter-endorsed plan for a new unicameral legislature that was blocked by the island's House of Representatives.
"Any other decision on our part would be opposite to the democratic system of government and to the Constitution that we are sworn to defend," Chief Justice Federico Hernández Denton wrote in Friday's 23-page decision.
In a July 2005 referendum, voters in the U.S. Caribbean territory overwhelmingly approved the concept of reorganising the legislative branch under a single house, saying it would streamline government and reduce political infighting.
Opponents said it would create a system that would be less open and democratic, with fewer checks and balances. The 27-member Senate had approved a bill allowing for another referendum on the issue. But in January, the larger House voted not to take up the measure, effectively killing it.
Senate President Kenneth McClintock said the court's decision affirmed that the 2005 referendum had created "exaggerated expectations" among voters that a one-house legislature would be established....
Author: Gleaner Reporter
Source: Jamaica Gleaner
