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February 26, 2004

PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 5:33 am
by admin
February 26, 2004

The Pentagon announces that the first charges are to be filed against two of the six hundred detainees of the detention camp, but human rights groups have had their request to observe the military tribunals turned down. The defendants are named as Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, both alleged to be Al-Qaeda members and charged with "conspiracy to commit war crimes". (BBC) The Pentagon also confirms that even if cleared by the tribunals, the defendants may still not be released.

Pakistani leaders pressure Muslim militants in Kashmir to declare a ceasefire with India. Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee tries to gain Muslim votes for his Bharatiya Janata Party with the prospect of peace with Pakistan.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System, CalPERS, a major shareholder in The Walt Disney Company, indicated that it will withhold its votes from Disney chief executive Michael Eisner at next week's shareholders' meeting, a new sign of a growing rebellion against Eisner's leadership,

Libya's Foreign Minister, Abdulrahman Shalgam, issues a statement reaffirming its acceptance of culpability for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, after the Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem, in an interview for the BBC, claimed Libya had "bought peace" with the $2.7bn compensation payments, but had not accepted guilt.

Maysun Al-Atawana, director of family and children affairs in the Palestinian Authority's social affairs ministry, claims that Israeli shelling of heavily populated suburbs was targeting children. She noted that 35.5% of casualties among the Palestinians wounded since start of the Aqsa intifada in late September 2000 were children including 1.4% less than five years old.