Nation in brief: Bin Laden driver charged by U.S.
The United States filed charges of conspiracy and providing support for terrorism Thursday against a Guantanamo detainee who worked as a driver for Osama bin Laden.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan is the third Guantanamo detainee to be charged under a new set of rules signed last year by President Bush after the Supreme Court rejected the previous system.
Hamdan, who is from Yemen, has been detained at Guantanamo since May 2002. It was his legal challenge that forced the Bush administration and Congress to draft new rules for the military trials, known as commissions, for the men held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in eastern Cuba.
He is expected to be arraigned in early June, when he can enter a plea to the charges.
WASHINGTON
New trade policy guidelines reached
Congressional Democratic leaders announced Thursday that they had forged new trade policy guidelines with the administration that will elevate labor and environmental rights to key components in future free trade agreements.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, flanked by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, said the agreement signaled “a giant step forward” in advancing U.S. economic interests without sacrificing American workers and the environment.
The new policy will apply immediately to pending free trade agreements with Peru and Panama. It will also become a part of trade accords with South Korea and Colombia, although lawmakers said other issues, such as violence in Colombia, must be dealt with before Congress can consider those agreements.
In a statement, President Bush said the agreement “provides a clear path for advancing” all four trade deals. He pledged, however, to continue working with lawmakers and the governments of each country to secure passage of each agreement.
SAN MARCOS, Texas
University shelves ‘body farm’ plans
Texas State University’s plan to build the nation’s largest “body farm” of cadavers is on hold over concerns that buzzards could endanger nearby planes.
The university has scrapped its proposed site and began scouting a new location for what would be only the third body farm in the nation. The farms are used by scientists who bury cadavers to study human decomposition to help police better determine time and manner of death at crime scenes.
Texas State had hoped to begin burying bodies later this year on a 17-acre site on Texas Highway 21 near the San Marcos Municipal Airport. But after meeting with the airport’s commission Tuesday, the university dropped the plan out of concern that buzzards would pose a risk to pilots.