MOZART THERAPY FOR BEREAVED ELEPHANT
AFP June 30, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060630/od_afp/croatiaanimaloffbeat
ZAGREB - Suma, a 45-year-old elephant and long-time resident of the Zagreb Zoo, was bereaved and inconsolable after her pachyderm partner of tens years died of cancer.
Until she heard Mozart.
"Suma became very depressed after her roomie Patna died in early May," head of Zagreb Zoo Mladen Anic told AFP on Thursday.
"She was refusing to eat, became uncommunicative, showed all the signs of a serious depression."
Then, by sheer accident, Suma's keepers discovered that the healing power of Mozart extends to the animal kingdom too.
Earlier this month, the zoo the zoo organized a concert of classical music just opposite Suma's dwelling, Anic explained.
At the sight of five musicians preparing themselves to start a concert, Suma became very nervous and aggressive, peppering the intruders with little stones that she blew out of her trunk.
"But as soon as the concert started what we saw was really fascinating. Suma leaned against the fence, closed her eyes and listened without moving the entire concert," he said. Besides Mozart, she took in pieces by Vivaldi and Schubert too.
When zoo authorities realized that classical music seemed to help Suma cope with her grief, they bought a stereo and installed it so she could get a daily dose of music therapy.
The elephant especially adores Mozart, Anic said, but is also partial to the strains of Vivaldi and Bach.
"We are so glad that we can provide -- at what is a rather advanced age for elephants -- things that Suma really enjoys," Anic said.
Activist Fatally Shot In NW
Man Who Took On Bigwigs Had Filed To Run for Mayor
By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 9, 2006; Page C01
A community activist who made a habit of confronting the powerful and had filed papers to run for D.C. mayor was fatally shot early yesterday in a park a block away from the city's thriving new convention center.
Chris Crowder, 44, was shot multiple times and found by police next to the wheelchair he had used since 1990, when he was shot and paralyzed from the waist down on a playground in the same neighborhood.
The earlier shooting -- a case of mistaken identity, Crowder had said -- came near the end of the crack epidemic, in a year when the District logged 474 homicides and was known as the nation's "murder capital."
Now his Mount Vernon neighborhood is in the midst of a rapid transformation, luring developers of pricey condominiums and suburbanites itching to be close to downtown. But homicides, sexual assaults, robberies and assaults with a deadly weapon have increased this year in the police district that includes Mount Vernon, according to police statistics.
Crowder was found at 3:43 a.m. in a park near Sixth and N streets NW, a place where his mother said he and other men his age often hung out and talked. D.C. police spokesman Joe Gentile said investigators know of no motive or suspects in the shooting and do not know whether it was the result of a dispute, a robbery or a random act of violence. Another man was shot multiple times in the same incident and was in critical condition last night, police said, declining to release his name.
White House kept "major program" secret
Sun Jul 9, 2006 11:07am ET
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[-] Text [+]
By Alan Elsner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration was running several intelligence programs, including one major activity, that it kept secret from Congress until whistle-blowers told the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, the committee's chairman said on Sunday.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said on Fox News Sunday he had written a four-page to President George W. Bush in May warning him that the failure to disclose the intelligence activities to Congress may be a violation of the law.
In doing so, he confirmed a story that first ran in Sunday editions of the New York Times.
"I take it very, very seriously otherwise I would not have written the letter to the president," Hoekstra said.
"This is actually a case where the whistle-blower process was working appropriately and people within the intelligence community brought to my attention some programs that they believed we had not been briefed on. They were right," said Hoekstra, a close ally of Bush.
"We asked by code name about some of these programs. We have now been briefed on those programs but I wanted to reinforce to the president and to the executive branch and the intelligence community how important by law is the requirement that they keep the legislative branch informed of what they are doing," Hoekstra said.
The White House declined to comment directly on the allegations in Hoekstra's letter. "We will continue to work closely with the chairman and other congressional leaders on important national security issues," said Alex Conant, a White House spokesman.
Critics have charged that the Bush administration has a penchant for secrecy and has pushed its legal powers to the limit and possibly beyond in pursuing its "war on terror." But Hoekstra's complaint was particularly significant since it came from a strong supporter of the administration's tactics. Continued...
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-07-09T175221Z_01_N09148126_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-INTELLIGENCE.xml
You Can't Beat The Real Thing
By KATHLEEN KINGSBURY
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
Posted Sunday, Jul. 9, 2006
The bizarre plot could have proved ruinous for Coca-Cola: thieves tried to sell some of its secrets to PepsiCo. But after a tip from Pepsi, the FBI last week arrested the culprits. "Competition can be fierce," says Pepsi spokesman Dave DeCecco, "but must also be fair and legal." Here's how the soda sting went down.
Whodunit? Federal prosecutors say they have videotape of a secretary at Coca-Cola, Joya Williams, sneaking classified materials from the company's Atlanta headquarters in her handbag. Co-conspirators Ibrahim Dimson and Edmund Duhaney allegedly helped her try to sell what she had to Pepsi.
What secrets were for sale? The recipes for some Coca-Cola products and details of future promotions (asking price for a selection of this information: $15,000). There was also a sample of a new beverage not yet on the market ($75,000).
How were the thieves caught? A man calling himself Dirk sent Pepsi HQ a letter in May, offering secrets. When Pepsi got the letter, it immediately contacted Coke, which called the FBI. On June 16, an undercover agent met Dirk--actually Dimson--at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. Dimson handed over some documents and the beverage sample. The agent gave Dimson $30,000 in cash, stuffed in a Girl Scout cookie box--a down payment. After the items were authenticated, the agent agreed to meet Dimson last week to buy more secrets for $1.5 million. That's when he and his co-conspirators were arrested.
What about the ultimate Coca-Cola secret: Does its recipe really contain cocaine? That burning question can't be answered definitively, and the recipe for Classic Coke wasn't stolen. Coke officials deny the drug was ever an ingredient. But experts, including a former U.S. drug czar, have long said the coca plant--cocaine's source--once flavored Coke, which might explain why it was sold early on as a "brain tonic." Maybe the thieves should have had a drink. --
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1211565,00.html
Congress faces long list of unfinished tasks
Sun Jul 9, 2006 11:06am ET
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[-] Text [+]
By Donna Smith
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers returning from a weeklong break on Monday will take up a long list of unfinished -- and possibly insurmountable -- tasks that could help decide whether voters will re-elect them in November.
Action or inaction on a series of contentious issues including immigration, pensions, energy and federal spending will determine whether this Congress sheds the impression that it has made few legislative achievements.
"I'm not sure what this Congress has accomplished," said Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader who is now with FreedomWorks, which advocates lower taxes and less government.
The business of passing legislation may not get any easier as both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives stake out positions they hope will help them win control of Congress in the November midterm elections.
"Historically this is certainly not a Congress that will be remembered," said Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "There is just not much there."
One of the toughest issues is immigration reform, a top domestic priority for President George W. Bush. Passions run high on the issue and it is unclear whether the Senate and the House will bridge the gap between vastly different bills.
The House passed a Republican-written tough border security and enforcement bill that further criminalizes illegal presence in the country. That bill drew protests from Hispanic groups. The Senate passed a bipartisan bill that combines border security and enforcement with a path to citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.
Bush, mindful of the growing political clout of the Hispanic community, wants a bill along the lines of the Senate approach. But deep divisions among lawmakers stalled other Bush proposals including a plan to revamp the nation's Social Security retirement system. Continued...
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-07-09T150524Z_01_N07232565_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-UNFINISHED.xml&archived=False
Limo driver gets big tip: a kidney
Sun Jul 9, 2006 7:38am ET
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[-] Text [+]
CHICAGO (Reuters) - As tips go, Chicago limousine driver Abdul Faraj got a priceless one this week when one of his regular customers offered up a kidney, media reports said.
Faraj and Minnesota businessman Dave Baker underwent transplant surgeries at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
"He gave me part of his body. He saved my life," Faraj, a diabetes sufferer whose kidneys were failing despite a three-times-a-week dialysis regime, told area television stations.
Baker has used Faraj, a native of Lebanon, as his driver on trips to Chicago for several years. Making small talk months ago, Baker learned of Faraj's poor health and struggle to find a kidney donor with a matching blood type.
"At that time, he tells me, 'What's your blood type?' I tell him O-positive," Faraj said. "He said, 'I'm 0-positive. I'll give you one.'"
Baker is out of the hospital and expected to fully recover within weeks.
"This was an opportunity to stop, slow down, take a look around and try to help someone," Baker told local television.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-07-09T113815Z_01_N08257972_RTRUKOC_0_US-TRANSPLANT.xml
Jailed Mafia boss to have in-vitro baby
Fri Jul 7, 2006 11:40am ET
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[-] Text [+]
ROME (Reuters) - An Italian judge has ruled that a Mafia boss serving a life sentence for murder should be allowed to father a baby through artificial insemination -- and the public health service should pay for it.
In a case that is certain to stir controversy, the judge accepted the request by Salvino Madonia, who was convicted for the high-profile 1991 murder of a businessman who had refused to pay an extortion fee to the Mafia.
Madonia, 50, is detained in a high-security prison and is not allowed to meet his family, including his 32-year old wife Mariangela, in private.
"The judge decided to overcome this problem and guarantee his right to fatherhood," Madonia's lawyer Giovanni Anania was quoted as saying in Corriere della Sera daily.
Madonia will not be allowed to leave the prison for the procedure, meaning that an official from the local health service would have to go to collect his semen in jail.
It is not the first time an Italian judge has allowed Mafia detainees to have babies through artificial insemination but Madonia's case has still raised eyebrows in Roman Catholic Italy, which has one of the strictest laws on fertility treatments.
Corriere said prison officials at the Justice Ministry were opposed to the idea and that Justice Minister Clemente Mastella would likely have to rule on the case.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-07-07T154005Z_01_L07899226_RTRUKOC_0_US-MAFIA-BABY.xml&archived=False
Bush says Supreme Court approved Guantanamo detentions by silence
James M Yoch Jr at 9:44 AM ET
[JURIST] President Bush suggested Friday in a Chicago news conference [transcript] that the US Supreme Court [JURIST news archive] had approved the decision to establish a military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] by its silence on the issue. Bush also seemed to characterize the Court's ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [JURIST report] as a setting of boundaries for future military commissions, instead of an outright rejection of the option.
Bush asserted that he would work with Congress and the Court to determine guidelines for military tribunals, saying:
I am willing to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said that in this particular case when it comes to dealing with illegal combatants, who were picked up off a battlefield and put in Guantanamo for the sake of our security, that we should work with the United States Congress to develop a way forward. They didn't [say] we couldn't have done -- made that decision, see. They were silent on whether or not Guantanamo -- whether or not we should have used Guantanamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantanamo, the decision I made. What they did say was, in terms of going forward, what should the court system look like? How can we use a military commission or tribunal?...
And we'll work with the United States Congress....I have been waiting for this decision in order to figure out how to go forward....I stand by the decision I made in removing these people from the battlefield....Some need to be tried, and the fundamental question is, how do we try them? And so, in working with the Supreme -- in listening to the Supreme Court, we'll work with Congress to achieve that objective...
But the idea of making the decision about creating Guantanamo in the first place was upheld by the courts. Or let's say, the courts were silent on it.
The Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan [text, PDF] that President Bush lacked the constitutional authority to establish military tribunals to try enemy combatants and that the structures and procedures of the tribunals violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice [text] and the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials]. The New York Times has more.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/07/bush-says-supreme-court-approved.php
AFP June 30, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060630/od_afp/croatiaanimaloffbeat
ZAGREB - Suma, a 45-year-old elephant and long-time resident of the Zagreb Zoo, was bereaved and inconsolable after her pachyderm partner of tens years died of cancer.
Until she heard Mozart.
"Suma became very depressed after her roomie Patna died in early May," head of Zagreb Zoo Mladen Anic told AFP on Thursday.
"She was refusing to eat, became uncommunicative, showed all the signs of a serious depression."
Then, by sheer accident, Suma's keepers discovered that the healing power of Mozart extends to the animal kingdom too.
Earlier this month, the zoo the zoo organized a concert of classical music just opposite Suma's dwelling, Anic explained.
At the sight of five musicians preparing themselves to start a concert, Suma became very nervous and aggressive, peppering the intruders with little stones that she blew out of her trunk.
"But as soon as the concert started what we saw was really fascinating. Suma leaned against the fence, closed her eyes and listened without moving the entire concert," he said. Besides Mozart, she took in pieces by Vivaldi and Schubert too.
When zoo authorities realized that classical music seemed to help Suma cope with her grief, they bought a stereo and installed it so she could get a daily dose of music therapy.
The elephant especially adores Mozart, Anic said, but is also partial to the strains of Vivaldi and Bach.
"We are so glad that we can provide -- at what is a rather advanced age for elephants -- things that Suma really enjoys," Anic said.
Activist Fatally Shot In NW
Man Who Took On Bigwigs Had Filed To Run for Mayor
By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 9, 2006; Page C01
A community activist who made a habit of confronting the powerful and had filed papers to run for D.C. mayor was fatally shot early yesterday in a park a block away from the city's thriving new convention center.
Chris Crowder, 44, was shot multiple times and found by police next to the wheelchair he had used since 1990, when he was shot and paralyzed from the waist down on a playground in the same neighborhood.
The earlier shooting -- a case of mistaken identity, Crowder had said -- came near the end of the crack epidemic, in a year when the District logged 474 homicides and was known as the nation's "murder capital."
Now his Mount Vernon neighborhood is in the midst of a rapid transformation, luring developers of pricey condominiums and suburbanites itching to be close to downtown. But homicides, sexual assaults, robberies and assaults with a deadly weapon have increased this year in the police district that includes Mount Vernon, according to police statistics.
Crowder was found at 3:43 a.m. in a park near Sixth and N streets NW, a place where his mother said he and other men his age often hung out and talked. D.C. police spokesman Joe Gentile said investigators know of no motive or suspects in the shooting and do not know whether it was the result of a dispute, a robbery or a random act of violence. Another man was shot multiple times in the same incident and was in critical condition last night, police said, declining to release his name.
White House kept "major program" secret
Sun Jul 9, 2006 11:07am ET
Email This Article | Print This Article | Reprints
[-] Text [+]
By Alan Elsner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration was running several intelligence programs, including one major activity, that it kept secret from Congress until whistle-blowers told the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, the committee's chairman said on Sunday.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said on Fox News Sunday he had written a four-page to President George W. Bush in May warning him that the failure to disclose the intelligence activities to Congress may be a violation of the law.
In doing so, he confirmed a story that first ran in Sunday editions of the New York Times.
"I take it very, very seriously otherwise I would not have written the letter to the president," Hoekstra said.
"This is actually a case where the whistle-blower process was working appropriately and people within the intelligence community brought to my attention some programs that they believed we had not been briefed on. They were right," said Hoekstra, a close ally of Bush.
"We asked by code name about some of these programs. We have now been briefed on those programs but I wanted to reinforce to the president and to the executive branch and the intelligence community how important by law is the requirement that they keep the legislative branch informed of what they are doing," Hoekstra said.
The White House declined to comment directly on the allegations in Hoekstra's letter. "We will continue to work closely with the chairman and other congressional leaders on important national security issues," said Alex Conant, a White House spokesman.
Critics have charged that the Bush administration has a penchant for secrecy and has pushed its legal powers to the limit and possibly beyond in pursuing its "war on terror." But Hoekstra's complaint was particularly significant since it came from a strong supporter of the administration's tactics. Continued...
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-07-09T175221Z_01_N09148126_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-INTELLIGENCE.xml
You Can't Beat The Real Thing
By KATHLEEN KINGSBURY
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
Posted Sunday, Jul. 9, 2006
The bizarre plot could have proved ruinous for Coca-Cola: thieves tried to sell some of its secrets to PepsiCo. But after a tip from Pepsi, the FBI last week arrested the culprits. "Competition can be fierce," says Pepsi spokesman Dave DeCecco, "but must also be fair and legal." Here's how the soda sting went down.
Whodunit? Federal prosecutors say they have videotape of a secretary at Coca-Cola, Joya Williams, sneaking classified materials from the company's Atlanta headquarters in her handbag. Co-conspirators Ibrahim Dimson and Edmund Duhaney allegedly helped her try to sell what she had to Pepsi.
What secrets were for sale? The recipes for some Coca-Cola products and details of future promotions (asking price for a selection of this information: $15,000). There was also a sample of a new beverage not yet on the market ($75,000).
How were the thieves caught? A man calling himself Dirk sent Pepsi HQ a letter in May, offering secrets. When Pepsi got the letter, it immediately contacted Coke, which called the FBI. On June 16, an undercover agent met Dirk--actually Dimson--at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. Dimson handed over some documents and the beverage sample. The agent gave Dimson $30,000 in cash, stuffed in a Girl Scout cookie box--a down payment. After the items were authenticated, the agent agreed to meet Dimson last week to buy more secrets for $1.5 million. That's when he and his co-conspirators were arrested.
What about the ultimate Coca-Cola secret: Does its recipe really contain cocaine? That burning question can't be answered definitively, and the recipe for Classic Coke wasn't stolen. Coke officials deny the drug was ever an ingredient. But experts, including a former U.S. drug czar, have long said the coca plant--cocaine's source--once flavored Coke, which might explain why it was sold early on as a "brain tonic." Maybe the thieves should have had a drink. --
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1211565,00.html
Congress faces long list of unfinished tasks
Sun Jul 9, 2006 11:06am ET
Email This Article | Print This Article | Reprints
[-] Text [+]
By Donna Smith
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers returning from a weeklong break on Monday will take up a long list of unfinished -- and possibly insurmountable -- tasks that could help decide whether voters will re-elect them in November.
Action or inaction on a series of contentious issues including immigration, pensions, energy and federal spending will determine whether this Congress sheds the impression that it has made few legislative achievements.
"I'm not sure what this Congress has accomplished," said Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader who is now with FreedomWorks, which advocates lower taxes and less government.
The business of passing legislation may not get any easier as both Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives stake out positions they hope will help them win control of Congress in the November midterm elections.
"Historically this is certainly not a Congress that will be remembered," said Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "There is just not much there."
One of the toughest issues is immigration reform, a top domestic priority for President George W. Bush. Passions run high on the issue and it is unclear whether the Senate and the House will bridge the gap between vastly different bills.
The House passed a Republican-written tough border security and enforcement bill that further criminalizes illegal presence in the country. That bill drew protests from Hispanic groups. The Senate passed a bipartisan bill that combines border security and enforcement with a path to citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.
Bush, mindful of the growing political clout of the Hispanic community, wants a bill along the lines of the Senate approach. But deep divisions among lawmakers stalled other Bush proposals including a plan to revamp the nation's Social Security retirement system. Continued...
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-07-09T150524Z_01_N07232565_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-UNFINISHED.xml&archived=False
Limo driver gets big tip: a kidney
Sun Jul 9, 2006 7:38am ET
Email This Article | Print This Article | Reprints
[-] Text [+]
CHICAGO (Reuters) - As tips go, Chicago limousine driver Abdul Faraj got a priceless one this week when one of his regular customers offered up a kidney, media reports said.
Faraj and Minnesota businessman Dave Baker underwent transplant surgeries at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
"He gave me part of his body. He saved my life," Faraj, a diabetes sufferer whose kidneys were failing despite a three-times-a-week dialysis regime, told area television stations.
Baker has used Faraj, a native of Lebanon, as his driver on trips to Chicago for several years. Making small talk months ago, Baker learned of Faraj's poor health and struggle to find a kidney donor with a matching blood type.
"At that time, he tells me, 'What's your blood type?' I tell him O-positive," Faraj said. "He said, 'I'm 0-positive. I'll give you one.'"
Baker is out of the hospital and expected to fully recover within weeks.
"This was an opportunity to stop, slow down, take a look around and try to help someone," Baker told local television.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-07-09T113815Z_01_N08257972_RTRUKOC_0_US-TRANSPLANT.xml
Jailed Mafia boss to have in-vitro baby
Fri Jul 7, 2006 11:40am ET
Email This Article | Print This Article | Reprints
[-] Text [+]
ROME (Reuters) - An Italian judge has ruled that a Mafia boss serving a life sentence for murder should be allowed to father a baby through artificial insemination -- and the public health service should pay for it.
In a case that is certain to stir controversy, the judge accepted the request by Salvino Madonia, who was convicted for the high-profile 1991 murder of a businessman who had refused to pay an extortion fee to the Mafia.
Madonia, 50, is detained in a high-security prison and is not allowed to meet his family, including his 32-year old wife Mariangela, in private.
"The judge decided to overcome this problem and guarantee his right to fatherhood," Madonia's lawyer Giovanni Anania was quoted as saying in Corriere della Sera daily.
Madonia will not be allowed to leave the prison for the procedure, meaning that an official from the local health service would have to go to collect his semen in jail.
It is not the first time an Italian judge has allowed Mafia detainees to have babies through artificial insemination but Madonia's case has still raised eyebrows in Roman Catholic Italy, which has one of the strictest laws on fertility treatments.
Corriere said prison officials at the Justice Ministry were opposed to the idea and that Justice Minister Clemente Mastella would likely have to rule on the case.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-07-07T154005Z_01_L07899226_RTRUKOC_0_US-MAFIA-BABY.xml&archived=False
Bush says Supreme Court approved Guantanamo detentions by silence
James M Yoch Jr at 9:44 AM ET
[JURIST] President Bush suggested Friday in a Chicago news conference [transcript] that the US Supreme Court [JURIST news archive] had approved the decision to establish a military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] by its silence on the issue. Bush also seemed to characterize the Court's ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [JURIST report] as a setting of boundaries for future military commissions, instead of an outright rejection of the option.
Bush asserted that he would work with Congress and the Court to determine guidelines for military tribunals, saying:
I am willing to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said that in this particular case when it comes to dealing with illegal combatants, who were picked up off a battlefield and put in Guantanamo for the sake of our security, that we should work with the United States Congress to develop a way forward. They didn't [say] we couldn't have done -- made that decision, see. They were silent on whether or not Guantanamo -- whether or not we should have used Guantanamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantanamo, the decision I made. What they did say was, in terms of going forward, what should the court system look like? How can we use a military commission or tribunal?...
And we'll work with the United States Congress....I have been waiting for this decision in order to figure out how to go forward....I stand by the decision I made in removing these people from the battlefield....Some need to be tried, and the fundamental question is, how do we try them? And so, in working with the Supreme -- in listening to the Supreme Court, we'll work with Congress to achieve that objective...
But the idea of making the decision about creating Guantanamo in the first place was upheld by the courts. Or let's say, the courts were silent on it.
The Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan [text, PDF] that President Bush lacked the constitutional authority to establish military tribunals to try enemy combatants and that the structures and procedures of the tribunals violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice [text] and the Geneva Conventions [ICRC materials]. The New York Times has more.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/07/bush-says-supreme-court-approved.php
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