The US Navy April 3 reassigned Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, a military lawyer who had been in charge of defending Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr, after Kuebler filed a formal complaint against a military official overseeing the case. Kuebler had worked on the case for two years before he was fired after alleging that the military's chief Guantanamo defense lawyer, Colonel Peter Masciola, had a conflict of interest in overseeing the case. Kuebler said Masciola should be removed from the case because Masciola said Khadr should also face civil liability for the alleged killing of a US soldier, despite his role overseeing Khadr's defense. Khadr is the only Canadian citizen currently being held in Guantanamo, and Canadian officials have said they may investigate the circumstances surrounding Kuebler's removal.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy said April 3 that his country would accept one Guantánamo Bay detainee in a symbolic effort to aid the closure of the detention center. Sarkozy made the announcement ahead of this weekend's North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany. According to reports, the detainee that would be taken in by France could be of Algerian origin. Sarkozy congratulated US President Barack Obama on his January decision to order the closure of Guantánamo during the first meeting between the two heads of state this week.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said April 1 that Venezuela would be willing to accept detainees from the Guantánamo Bay military prison. Chávez made his statements in an interview with Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera while attending the Second Summit of Arab-South American Countries in Qatar. In the interview, Chávez also called for US President Barack Obama to complete the release of all Guantánamo detainees and completely return Guantánamo to Cuba. Given the tense relationship between the US and Venezuela, it is unlikely that detainees will be sent to Venezuela.

Our March issue featured stories on new challenges to the Pentagon's Afghanistan operation, fears of Mexico's imminent destabilization, and NAFTA's hidden military agenda. Our multiple-choice March Exit Poll was: Which will be Obama's biggest foreign policy challenge? We received 17 votes (which we hope does not indicate that we have only 17 readers). The results follow:

Former US State Department lawyer Vijay Padmanabhan criticized the administration of former president George W. Bush for approving extreme interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects, in an interview with the Associated Press March 27. Padmanabhan, who now teaches at Cardozo School of Law in New York, served as the State Department's chief counsel on Guantánamo Bay and Iraq detentions. He said he believes the interrogation tactics used on some detainees constituted torture, and that the Bush administration was wrong to argue that the detainees were not protected by the Geneva Conventions.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called March 29 for the US and Yemen to agree on a repatriation plan that provides "meaningful legal process" for the nearly 100 Yemeni detainees still at Guantánamo Bay. A new HRW report criticized any proposal involving indefinite suspension at a Yemeni facility and expressed fears of detainee mistreatment after repatriation.

Crusading Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón has asked prosecutors to investigate the US lawyers reportedly behind the establishment of the Guantánamo Bay detention center, Spanish media reported Saturday. Garzón's request comes after a criminal complaint was filed last week in the Audiencia Nacional against six lawyers from the administration of former US president George W. Bush, including David Addington, John Yoo, and former attorney general Alberto Gonzales.

A judge in the Southern District of New York March 27 ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to release reports on the destruction of 92 videotapes of terrorism suspect interrogations within the next 30 days or explain why it should not do so. Judge Alvin Hellerstein directed the CIA to disclose the reports along with a list of witnesses as part of the ongoing lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in an effort to access government materials on the interrogations under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).