4 Muslim Uyghurs released from Gitmo
WASHINGTON, June 11 (UPI) -- Four Muslim Uighurs have been released from the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detainment camp after seven years, Radio Free Asia reports.
The four men, part of a larger group of 17 Chinese Muslims detained after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, flew to Bermuda early Thursday, officials said.
The four released men were identified as Abdulla Abduqadir, 30; Helil Mamut, 31; Ablikim Turahun, 38; and Salahidin Ablehet, 32. Location of the other 13 Uighurs was not immediately known.
The report said most of the Uighurs held at the facility for suspected terrorists were cleared more than four years ago of being "enemy combatants."
Healthcare topic of Obama town hall
GREEN BAY, Wis., June 11 (UPI) -- Cutting healthcare cost without cutting quality is the focus of U.S. President Barack Obama's town hall meeting Thursday in Green Bay, Wis.
Administration officials say the home of the storied Green Bay Packers football team also is known for controlling medical spending without sacrificing quality, The Washington Post reported.
If we could make the rest of the nation practice medicine the way that Green Bay does, we would have higher quality and significantly lower costs," said Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget.
s Congress gears up for healthcare reform debate, "the president will be more active in making the public case for the urgent need to reform our healthcare system," White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said.
uring his first town hall on healthcare, Obama likely will hear testimonials about the value of digital records, physician collaboration, preventive care and transparency, the Post said.
n the Green Bay area, investments in primary care and free health assessments are paying off, Bellin Health System Chief Executive Officer George Kerwin said. After years of double-digit insurance premium hikes, Bellin has brought the increases down to less than 3 percent a year.
WHO declares H1N1 a pandemic
GENEVA, Switzerland, June 11 (UPI) -- The H1N1 virus, once called swine flu, reached pandemic status, the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland said Thursday.
More than 27,000 confirmed cases have been confirmed in several continents since it emerged in Mexico in April, The Times of London reported.
The decision to raise its global alert level from Level 5 to Level 6 -- officially marking a pandemic -- came after an emergency meeting of WHO to discuss repercussions of widespread H1N1 outbreaks in the North and South America, Europe and Asia.
WHO said 27,737 cases and 141 deaths have been confirmed in 74 countries worldwide.
A disease is classed as a pandemic when transmission between humans becomes widespread in at least two regions of the world, the Times said.
The last flu pandemic was in 1968, when the so-called "Hong Kong" flu killed about 1 million people worldwide.
Tensions rise in run-up to Iran elections
TEHRAN, June 11 (UPI) -- Accusations flew and tensions grew in the run-up to the presidential election in Iran, as candidates ramped up the rhetoric before the polls open Friday.
In Tehran, thousands of protesters marched on the state television center Wednesday, angered after learning President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had substantially more airtime than his opponents, The Times of London reported Thursday.
Meanwhile, a leader of the hardline Revolutionary Guard said reformists would claim the vote was rigged if their candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's strongest challenger, loses the election.
Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president and powerful cleric, complained in an open letter to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, about corruption allegations Ahmadinejad raised against his family during a televised debate last week. Rafsanjani, who backs Mousavi, warned that a failure to act against the "lies" could spark social unrest.
Before a packed, frenetic crowd of supporters Wednesday, Ahmadinejad criticized Mousavi and his links to Rafsanjani, seen as the embodiment of the corrupt elite, the British newspaper said.
The complaints and protests come on the eve of a potentially historic election in which Mousavi, who has gained momentum recently, could become the first challenger to defeat an incumbent president in the Iranian Republic's 30-year history, the Times said.
Senate GOP irked at Sotomayor timetable
WASHINGTON, June 11 (UPI) -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky ripped plans to begin U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing in about a month.
McConnell called Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy's decision to schedule Sotomayor's confirmation for July 13 "puzzling," CNN reported Thursday.
"It risks resulting in a less informed hearing, and it breaks with years of tradition in which bipartisan agreements were reached and honored over the scheduling of hearings for Supreme Court nominees," McConnell said of the Vermont Democrat's decision.
Leahy's decision was made without consulting the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, GOP officials said.
Sotomayor -- who would be the first Latina and third woman on the high court if confirmed -- provided the Senate a quarter-century's worth of videos in which she appeared to provide a better feel for her views, The New York Times reported.
On empathy, which President Barack Obama said was a quality he sought in a justice, Sotomayor said in 1994 emotions she sometimes feels don't affect her judgment but "it makes it much more important to me to be careful when I exercise my judgment."
Sotomayor, criticized for being short with unprepared or unorganized lawyers, said lawyers must be efficient and direct because district judges such as she was at the time handled as many as 500 cases each year, the Times said.
The landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which desegregated public schools, forced the country to change, she said in 1994.
"We are a country of the kind we've become because a court had the vision to say to our society, 'Change,'" she said. "And we did."
