LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
"It is the moment of reconciliation."
Ousted President Manuel Zelaya
on his sudden return to Honduras Article, this page
U.S. obtains delay in trial of 9/11 five
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A military judge agreed Monday to another delay in the war-crimes trial of five Guantanamo prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attacks, giving U.S. officials more time to decide how to try them.
Army Col. Stephen Henley agreed to the U.S.
government's request for a 60-day continuance, a delay intended to give President Barack Obama's administration enough time to decide whether it should move the case, along with those of other prisoners held at Guantanamo, to a civilian court or a revamped war-crimes tribunal.
Henley had scheduled a hearing at the U.S. base in Cuba to allow Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two other defendants - all three of whom are serving as their own lawyers - to voice any objections to the Obama's administration's third continuance in their case.
But Mohammed, the selfproclaimed mastermind of the attacks, and the other defendants sent a note to the judge saying they did not oppose the delay, and Henley granted a written order without a hearing.
The chief prosecutor, Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, said a decision on where to try Mohammed and four others charged in the Sept. 11 attacks will be made by Nov. 16.
Defendant slams French president
PARIS - Former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin lashed out at French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday at the start of a slander trial involving purported dirty tricks by top politicians and businessmen.
Sarkozy claims that Villepin was behind a smear campaign aimed at thwarting Sarkozy's bid for the 2007 presidential election.
Villepin is accused of complicity in slander and complicity in forgery.
The complex affair dates back to 2004, when both Sarkozy and Villepin were leading conservative hopefuls to succeed then-President Jacques Chirac.
The case began with a mysterious list claiming to show clients who held secret accounts with Luxembourg clearinghouse Clearstream, including Sarkozy and other leading French political and business figures. The accounts were purportedly created to hold bribes from a 1991 sale of warships to Taiwan, among other shady income.
Villepin was given the list, and he asked a retired general to investigate it. It turned out to be a hoax but was by then already circulating among political and legal circles.
The 225-page indictment says Villepin should have alerted judicial authorities to the scam earlier.
Bhutan quake kills 11, hurts 15
GAUHATI, India - A 6.3-magnitude earthquake shook the remote mountain nation of Bhutan on Monday, killing at least 11 people, damaging an ancient monastery and forcing hundreds to flee, officials said. At least 15 people were also injured.
The afternoon earthquake was initially reported in Gauhati, the capital of India's northeastern Assam state, but it was centered in a little-populated eastern region of the tiny nation of Bhutan.
"We're trying to piece together information to assess the damage," Ugyen Tenzing, the country's director of disaster management said from Thimphu, Bhutan's capital.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 09/22/2009