The week at a glance...United States

United States

Washington, D.C.

Guantánamo quandary: President Obama has renewed his vow to close the controversial prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, amid a growing crisis at the detention camp. More than 100 of the prison’s 166 inmates are currently taking part in a mass hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention at the facility, and last weekend the government was forced to send “medical reinforcements” of nearly 40 Navy nurses, corpsmen, and specialists to the prison. Speaking at a White House press conference this week, Obama—whose previous efforts to close Guantánamo have been blocked by Congress—said he was not surprised there were problems at the camp. “It’s not sustainable,” he said. “The notion that we’re going to keep 100 individuals in no-man’s-land in perpetuity” makes no sense, he added. Most of the inmates are terrorism suspects who are being held without charge. Eighty-six of them have been cleared for transfer to their home nations, but Obama suspended most repatriations in 2010 after the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner. The U.N. has attacked their continued detention as a clear violation of law, and this week a U.N. spokesman added that the Obama administration’s practice of force-feeding the prisoners is also likely a human-rights violation. Obama rejected that claim, saying that military officials were trying to “manage the situation” the best they could. “I don’t want these individuals to die,” he said.

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