10A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY OF DARYL KANSAN
THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2009
NATIONAL
Holder asks allies to help take on Gitmo detainees
ASSOCIATED PRESS
U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder speaks on cooperation in the fields of counter-terrorism and fighting transnational organized crime at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany, on Wednesday.
BY DEVLIN BARRETT
Associated Press
BERLIN — The United States and its allies must make sacrifices to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday in a high-profile appeal for Europe's help.
Holder spoke to the American Academy of Berlin, not long after telling reporters that the United States had approved the release of about 30 Guantanamo detainees.
"We must all make sacrifices and we must all be willing to make unpopular choices." Holder said in prepared remarks.
"The United States is ready to do its part, and we hope that Europe will join us — not out of a sense of responsibility, but from a commitment to work with one of its oldest allies to confront one of the world's most pressing challenges," he said.
There are currently 241 inmates at the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Holder spent the past several days privately asking European leaders in London, Prague, and Berlin for help relocating detainees the United States wants to set free.
Before the speech, Holder met with reporters, saying the United States has made decisions on a group of about 30 detainees, but has not yet decided where it wants to send them.
He said the United States is weeks away from asking certain countries to take detainees.
The previous Bush administration had approved about 60 detainees for release, and Holder aides would not say if the 30 he was referring to were part of that group.
Additionally, about 20 detainees have been ordered released by the courts, though those cases remain unresolved.
President Barack Obama has ordered the controversial detention site shuttered in the next nine
months and assigned Holder to oversee that effort.
Holder said he has been telling European officials over the past week that "the problem that it created is best solved by a unified response."
Germany, are divided on the issue.
Yet when it comes to the prospect of having former international terror suspects living free, the Obama administration is trying to overcome the not-in-my-backyard sentiment that exists on both sides of the Atlantic.
Closing Guantanamo is good for all nations, he argued, because anger over the prison has become a powerful global recruiting tool for terrorists.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy already has made what was billed as a symbolic gesture of agreeing to take one Guantanamo detainee.
Several European nations, including Portugal and Lithuania, have said they will consider taking such detainees. Others, like
In speaking to reporters Wednesday, Holder also said it is possible the United States could cooperate with a foreign court's investigation of Bush administration officials.
Holder spoke before the announcement that a Spanish magistrate had opened an investigation of Bush officials on harsh interrogation methods. Holder didn't rule out cooperating in such a probe.
"Obviously, we would look at any request that would come from a court in any country and see how and whether we should comply with it." Holder said.
Toddler dies from swine flu
HEALTH
Donna S. Barsky prepares prescription medication used to treat flu viruses Wednesday at Texas Star Pharmacy in Plano, Texas.
Associated Press
BY JUAN A. LOZANO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON — A Mexico City toddler who traveled to Texas with family to visit relatives is the first confirmed death in the U.S. from swine flu.
The boy, who was nearly 2 years old, arrived in the border city of Brownville with "underlying health issues" on April 4 and developed flu symptoms four days later, the Texas Department of State Health Services said. He was taken to a Brownville hospital April 13 and transferred to the following day to a hospital in Houston, where he died Monday night.
Texas Health Services Commissioner David Lakey said it is "highly likely" the child contracted the illness in Mexico, though that hasn't been confirmed. The boy is one of 16 confirmed swine flu cases in Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry has issued a disaster declaration and schools have shut down across the state out of fear of the virus.
Officials did not specify what underlying health issues the boy had before arriving in the U.S.
The cause of the boy's death was pneumonia caused by the flu virus, Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos said. Texas Children's Hospital, where the boy died, said in a statement he was suffering from "acute respira tory illness."
State health officials declined to identify the boy or his family, citing privacy concerns, medical confidentiality and "the absence of an obvious health threat from the boy to the public at large."
State health officials said the boy would not have been infectious when he flew from Mexico City to Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville. None of his close contacts have developed symptoms.
President Barack Obama said he wanted to extend his "thoughts and prayers" to the child's family. Health officials in Brownsville are trying to trace his family's trip to find out how long they were in the area, who they visited and how
many people were in the group, Cascos said.
The boy's family members "are healthy and well," Houston's health director, Dr. David Persse, said at a Wednesday news conference.
The toddler was about 2 years old. Houston officials said he was 23 months old, but state officials said he was 22 months old and could not immediately explain the discrepancy.
The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the death earlier Wednesday.
The news came as two young brothers in Massachusetts became the first to test positive in the state for swine flu, health officials confirmed Wednesday.
The boys, ages 8 and 10, who
became sick after a vacation to Mexico, are from Lowell — about 35 miles northwest of Boston. Neither child attended school after returning home from the trip.
Nevada confirmed its first case Wednesday — a 2-year-old girl from the Reno area who was not hospitalized and is recovering.
Children, especially those younger than age 5, are particularly vulnerable to flu and its complications, and every year children die from seasonal flu.
According to the CDC, more than 20,000 children younger than age 5 are hospitalized every year because of seasonal flu. In the 2007-08 flu season, the CDC received reports that 86 children nationwide died from flu complications.
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INTERNATIONAL Castro says Obama must fix U.S.-Cuba relationship
HAVANA — Raul Castro dismissed President Barack Obama's policy changes toward Cuba as "achieving only the minimum," and said Wednesday that it is up to the United States — not his country — to do more to improve relations.
The U.S. State Department shot back that the onus is on Cuba to show it is serious about meaningful negotiations.
The Obama administration has allowed unlimited travel and money transfers for Americans with family in this country and eased restrictions on telecommunications between the U.S. and Cuba. But top U.S. officials have also insisted they would like to see some Cuban reforms before truly exploring normalizing diplomatic relations that Washington broke off in January 1961.
Cuba's president took a hard line toward any notion that Cuba would embrace even tiny political reforms to appease Washington, telling an international gathering of government ministers, "it is not Cuba who has to make gestures."
Raul Castro previously said he is willing to discuss such sticky subjects as human rights, freedom of the press and political prisoners in Cuba during possible negotiations with the United States. Obama reacted favorably to such sentiments, but Raul's allying brother Fidel appears less comfortable with them and even accused the U.S. president of "misinterpreting" his brother's words.
Raul's comments Wednesday on unilateral concessions to meet U.S. expectations echoed the words of Fidel, who has written in public essays that Obama's policy changes did not go far enough because Washington's 47-year-old trade embargo is still in place.
The younger Castro said that the U.S. steps were, "fine, positive but only achieve the minimum. The embargo remains intact."
"There is not political or moral pretext that justifies this policy," Raul Castro said of the embargo. "Cuba has not imposed any such sanction against the United States or its citizens."
Associated Press