Pressure mounted yesterday within the US and from abroad to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp following the suicides of three "enemy combatant" detainees over the weekend.
A senior senator from US President George W. Bush's Republican party criticized the policy of prolonged detentions of hundreds of terror suspects without trial at the US naval facility on Cuba's southeastern tip.
"Those people have to be tried," Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Sunday.
"There are tribunals established ... Where we have evidence they ought to be tried, and if convicted they ought to be sentenced," said Specter, who said some inmates have been detained based on "the flimsiest sort of hearsay."
Meanwhile, Europeans seized on the suicides of Guantanamo prisoners as more proof the US camp should be closed, and a top US official yesterday disowned a colleague's comment that the deaths were a "good PR move."
Two Saudis and a Yemeni hanged themselves with clothes and bedsheets in their cells on Saturday, the first prisoners to die at Guantanamo since the US began sending suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban captives there in 2002.
"Guantanamo should be closed. This is an occasion to reiterate that statement," EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told reporters on arrival at a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
Germany said the US government had promised to provide it with a full explanation of the suicides.
Last month, the foreign minister of the EU's Austrian Presidency, Ursula Plassnik, said Guantanamo was "an anomaly" and should be shut down as quickly as possible. The European Parliament has cal-led for the camp's closure.
Camp commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris described the suicides over the weekend as acts of asymmetrical warfare.
Colleen Graffy, US deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, said the deaths were "a good PR move."
"It does sound that this is part of a strategy in that they don't value their own life and they certainly don't value ours and they use suicide bombings as a tactic to further their jihadi cause," she said.
Graffy coordinates efforts with special envoy Karen Hughes in a campaign to improve the US image abroad, especially in Islamic countries.
Her comments quickly appeared to be bad PR moves for the US administration.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson, speaking to BBC radio yesterday, distanced himself from them.
"I wouldn't characterize it as a good PR move. What I would say is that we are always concerned when someone takes his own life. Because as Americans, we value life, even the lives of violent terrorists who are captured waging war against our country," he said.
In an editorial headlined "Bad Language," London's right-leaning Times, normally a defender of Britain's alliance with the US, said such rhetoric "plays once again into the hands of America's enemies."
The left-leaning Guardian described Admiral Harris's remarks as "cold and odious."
"The demented logic of Dr Strangelove hung like a ghost" over the US response to the suicides, it said.
Britain has been Washington's closest ally in Afghanistan and Iraq, but British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been cautious in criticizing Guantanamo.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique