US Told to Give Data on Guantanamo Hunger Strikers

WASHINGTON - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the U.S. government to provide medical records on Guantanamo prisoners who are being force-fed while on a hunger strike and to notify their lawyers about forced feedings. U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler acted after lawyers representing about a dozen men held at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, expressed urgent concern over their deteriorating health amid a hunger strike launched in early August.
Kessler stated in her opinion that the detainees' lawyers had presented "deeply troubling" allegations of forced feedings in which U.S. personnel violently shoved tubes as thick as a finger through the men's noses and into their stomachs without anesthesia or sedatives.
"If the allegations are true -- and they are all explicitly, specifically and vigorously denied by the government -- they describe conduct of which the United States can hardly be proud," the judge wrote.
Julia Tarver, a lawyer for the detainees, had told the court she learned during a visit to the base several weeks ago of force-feedings that caused prisoners to vomit blood. Tarver wrote, "When they vomited up blood, the soldiers mocked and cursed at them, and taunted them with statements like 'look what your religion has brought you.'"
Tarver told the court that prison guards took a feeding tube from one detainee, "and with no sanitization whatsoever, reinserted it into the nose of a different detainee."
The judge noted that the prison's commander stated the facility was operated "in a humane manner," and the head of the hospital there said that only doctors and nurses inserted feeding tubes.

LACK OF LEGAL RIGHTS
Their lawyers say the detainees are staging the hunger strike to protest their conditions and lack of legal rights. The lawyers accused the government of keeping them in the dark about their clients' medical condition.
The Pentagon said 26 of the roughly 505 prisoners currently were on hunger strike, with 23 of them hospitalized.
The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights has estimated that about 210 were participating in the hunger strike. Detainee lawyers accused the government of deliberately under-stating the strike's scope.
The judge ordered the government to provide notice to the prisoners' lawyers within 24 hours of the beginning of force-feeding. Kessler also ordered the government to provide lawyers medical records for their clients spanning the week before a forced feeding, and provide these records at least weekly until force-feeding ends.
The judge denied the lawyers' request for immediate telephone access to their clients.
"The order is being reviewed," said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a Pentagon spokesman on detainee issues. He declined to comment on whether the government would appeal it.
Kessler's order affected a group of prisoners from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan. Lawyers for detainees expressed hope the government would provide the same notification and data to lawyers for other hunger strikers.
The hunger strike is the latest flash point between the government and human rights groups over the camp, which activists call a blight on the U.S. human rights record.
Many Guantanamo prisoners have been there for more than 3-1/2 years, and just four have been charged with crimes. Rights activists have denounced these indefinite detentions and treatment they say amounts to torture. Most detainees were picked up in Afghanistan after a U.S. invasion in 2001 to oust the Taliban government and dislodge al Qaeda bases.


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Wall St Week Ahead: GM, banks' fate to keep investors on edge

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With stocks mired in multi-year lows and the fate of General Motors and banks hanging in the balance, investors are unlikely to curb their flight from risk this week, putting Wall Street on track for another brutal sell-off.
One focal point will be a meeting between the U.S. auto task force and GM (NYSE:GM - News), Chrysler and officials from the United Auto Workers in Detroit this week after auditors raised doubts about GM's ability to survive outside bankruptcy.

Uncertainty over the plan to salvage banks will also hang over the struggling sector until more concrete details from Washington are revealed, leaving investors to fret that companies that were once pillars of the financial system will have to be nationalized.
The weak economy will likely be confirmed by a handful of economic reports, including a government report on February retail sales and a survey of consumer sentiment.
"There are, unfortunately, no guideposts to a lot of the market to allow investors to get a better sense of direction of where the market is going, where corporate America is going," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago.
"Short of that, we're going to likely have to rely on Washington. Unfortunately, it just seems like Washington's relationship with the stock market is strained."

"PAINFUL" MARKET
With the Dow and S&P trading at 12-year lows, and the Nasdaq sliding to six-year lows, market watchers will be looking for signs of whether a bottom has been found, or if indexes still have another leg down to go.
Last week was the fourth week of declines for all three major U.S. stock indexes, as the Dow Jones industrial average (DJI:^DJI - News) dropped 6.2 percent and the Nasdaq composite index (Nasdaq:^IXIC - News) fell 6.1 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 (^SPX - News) slid 7 percent, its worst week since November.
"I've been in the business since 1963 and I've truthfully never seen a market that is so discouraging or painful," said Carl Birkelbach, chief executive officer of Birkelbach Investment Securities in Chicago.
"I've been through a lot, but this is the worst I've seen."

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that about $50 billion of more than $173 billion of U.S. government bailout money poured into American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG - News) has been paid to at least 24 financial institutions around the world.
Already cheap bank stocks continued their tumble last week. The stock price of Dow component Citigroup (NYSE:C - News), once the world's most valuable bank by market capitalization, fell under $1 for the first time, reigniting anxiety over the bank's health and that of the entire banking sector.
Clarity on how toxic assets will be cleared off banks' balance sheets and how those assets will be valued is key to stabilizing the financial sector and seeing markets manage a sustainable recovery, analysts said.
"In order to move forward, we need (Treasury Secretary) Geithner to come out and tell us the answer to the question: 'How do you value the assets?'," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. in San Francisco.
"We may be happy about it, we may not be happy about it, but at least we'll know."
Members of the U.S. autos task force will visit Detroit this week to meet with GM, Chrysler and officials from the United Auto Workers labor union, an official for the Obama administration said on Friday.
GM's failure could trigger round of massive layoffs and hurt companies that supply and manufacture parts, said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank in New York.
In all, GM's bankruptcy could lop off 4 percentage points from the U.S. gross domestic product, of which two-thirds is driven by consumer spending, LaVorgna said.

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Ahead of the Fed's policy-making meeting the following week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is set to address the Council on Foreign Relations on Tuesday. Investors will be watching for any comments on the state of the economy and the outlook for banks.
Economic data on February retail sales on Thursday and a preliminary reading on March consumer sentiment on Friday, coupled with quarterly results from office supplies and electronics retailer Staples Inc (NasdaqGS:SPLS - News) on Wednesday, should give a gauge of consumer spending. January's international trade deficit report is due on Friday.
Economists polled by Reuters forecast that retail sales will slip 0.5 percent in February, after January's unexpected gain of 1 percent. They forecast a preliminary March reading on consumer sentiment of 55.0, down from 56.3 for February, from the Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers. The international trade deficit is forecast to drop to $38.1 billion in January from $39.93 billion in December.
Last week, U.S. retailers posted better-than-expected same-store sales for February, helped by a strong gain at Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT - News), the world's largest retailer and the leading U.S. discount chain. But analysts cautioned that stores will have to show consistent improvement for expectations of weakness to change.


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