I got this email today from the support group for The Cuban Five. This case is very important, so I urge you to please send Obama a message, and please spread this around everywhere you can!

By ANDY WORTHINGTON - Counterpunch

Of the 255 prisoners currently held at Guantánamo, around 50 have been “approved for transfer”...but they remain in Guantánamo, mostly imprisoned in conditions that would task the resilience of the most hardened convicted criminals on the US mainland...

By ANDY WORTHINGTON - October 27, 2008

Those who have been pressing for...[Omar Khadr's] release will now be hoping that the Canadian government...will finally discover its spine, and will take advantage of the change of administration to demand his return to Canada, or that the new US government will refuse to proceed with the case...[E]ven John McCain...has already explained that he would repatriate Khadr if asked to do so by the Canadian government.

Cuba says it is sitting on more than 20 billion barrels of offshore oil in the Gulf of Mexico. That's more than double what the U.S. figures Cuba has, and would represent more oil than the U.S. has in reserve, according to the BBC. If true—and if the reserves can be recovered—that would turn Cuba from a big oil importer into one of the world's 20 biggest exporters.

By ANDY WORTHINGTON - Counterpunch

As the US courts put pressure on the government to justify the long detention of prisoners at Guantánamo without charge or trial (following the Supreme Court’s ruling, in June, that they have constitutional habeas corpus rights, and that the government must justify their imprisonment), two of Guantánamo’s oldest prisoners have been quietly repatriated: 51-year old Sudanese prisoner Mustafa Ibrahim al-Hassan, and Mammar Ameur, a 50-year old refugee from Algeria.

By Robert Fisk - September 28, 2008

Sami al-Haj walks with pain on his steel crutch; almost six years in the nightmare of Guantanamo have taken their toll on the Al Jazeera journalist and, now in the safety of a hotel in the small Norwegian town of Lillehammer, he is a figure of both dignity and shame. The Americans told him they were sorry when they eventually freed him this year - after the beatings he says he suffered, and the force-feeding, the humiliations and interrogations by British, American and Canadian intelligence officers...

Guantanamo Captive 900, a 17 year old orphaned boy who doesn't know his date of birth, was taken prisoner by the United States almost six years ago, in October of 2002. Although human rights activists have long suspected that about two dozen children and teenagers have been disappeared into Bush's Carribean Gulag, only in recent months the name and location of Mohammed Jawad have been revealed.

From an earlier post by Valtin:

Jawad, who was arrested as a teenager in Afghanistan in December 2002, is the first child soldier to be tried as a "war criminal" in modern times. In U.S. custody, he has suffered beatings, threats, physical isolation, sleep deprivation, been subjected to 24-hour bright lights, and more. His attorneys have called for letters to be written to the Convening Authority at Guanatanamo, asking them to withdraw and dismiss the charges against Jawad.

Fwd -

Wednesday, July 30, 2008
5:00pm
Vancouver Art Gallery

Tell Stephen Harper:
Bring Omar Khadr Back to Canada!

The Guardian/UK | by Peter Walker

Interrogators at Guantánamo Bay were told to destroy their notes to stop them potentially being used to highlight the mistreatment of detainees, according to a US military lawyer.

By Lee Berthiaume

Canada will be setting itself up for "failure" if its strategy for re-engaging Latin American and Caribbean nations takes a page from the United States and follows in the superpower's footsteps, Cuba's first deputy foreign minister warned last week.

ººº With respect to the situation in Cuba these past few weeks, the Cuban Libertarian Movement – MLC (affinity group of Cuban anarchists in exile) speaks up to answer the unknowns and the challenges facing Cuban society. Ours is the voice of uncompromising commitment to freedom, equality and solidarity that has always been the sound of the Cuban anarchists.

The passing of an era in Cuba and Washington reacting.

My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath. That’s all I can offer.

To my dearest compatriots, who have recently honored me so much by electing me a member of the Parliament where so many agreements should be adopted of utmost importance to the destiny of our Revolution, I am saying that I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief.

HAVANA (AP) - Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who became an outspoken critic
of Washington's Cuba policy, has died in a Havana hospital following ulcer
surgery, state media reported Wednesday. He was 72.

Geneva, Nov 14 (Prensa Latina) The World Radiocommunication Conference recognized Wednesday that US transmissions against Cuba are illegal, thus causing irritation among US representatives at the forum.