According to U.S. officials, Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners will be held at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as the Pentagon considers whether to use military tribunals to try them. Although President Bush has authorized military tribunals to try so-called terrorist suspects from other countries, War Secretary Rumsfeld claimed the military has made no plans yet to hold such tribunals at Guantánamo. The United States is currently holding 45 prisoners in and near Afghanistan, interrogating them about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts and trying to determine which ones should be brought to trial. Guantánamo was used by the U.S. military in the early ’90s to house HIV-positive Haitian refugees seeking asylum in the United States. Ultimately, it was closed down on humanitarian grounds.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan is demanding that the United States halt its bombing, possibly within days, since almost all remaining hideouts of Taliban and Osama bin Laden have been destroyed. The demand comes as U.S. warplanes killed as many as 40 civilians yesterday in a village that the U.S. military claimed was home to members of al-Qaeda. The U.S. military is offering allied Afghan troops a wide range of incentives, including cash payments and cold weather clothing, in a new effort to get the local forces to comb through Tora Bora caves for clues to the whereabouts of bin Laden. General Richard Myers, chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that while the search in Tora Bora is currently being carried out by local Afghans and U.S. Special Forces, he has not ruled out the use of hundreds of U.S. Marines to assist in the hunt. Rumsfeld denied reports that the use of local forces in the region was due to U.S. fears the cave complexes were too dangerous for a planned contingent of 500 Marines.

A lawyer for Lori Berenson, American jailed in Peru, said yesterday that his client was mistreated during a prison transfer last week. Lori Berenson’s father said she was sexually abused in the incident. Lawyer José Luis Sandoval said he had filed an abuse of authority and injuries complaint against police officials and the justice minister, the head of Peru’s prison authority, after Berenson’s sudden transfer from a top-security women’s jail in Lima to the northern city of Cajamarca. Her father, Mark Berenson, said the complaint was rooted in physical and sexual abuse that occurred during the surprise move, which officials said was made for security reasons.

Here in New York, time has run out on the CHARAS Community Center on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. After a protracted court battle to keep the center open, police enforced an eviction notice yesterday. Officers blocked off the street, broke down the doors and changed the locks on the building. Seven people were arrested for locking down inside the building and refusing to leave. CHARAS has occupied the site for more than 20 years, renting out space to artists, activist and community groups for below-market rates. Their lease expired in 1999. The landlord bought the building at a city auction in '98 and says he can't afford to keep renting it to CHARAS. He says CHARAS members are essentially squatters. Singer says the building will be renovated for area residents to use. CHARAS supporters feel the center was one of the last bastions of affordable community space in a rapidly gentrifying Lower East Side. They are skeptical and say he hasn’t offered any specifics.

This news from Israel: The Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, whose uncompromising stance towards the Palestinian uprising has earned him a reputation as a hard-liner, yesterday took over the leadership of a divided and weakened Labor Party. Ben-Eliezer is an Iraqi-born former career soldier and key Cabinet ally of Ariel Sharon, the Likud party prime minister. Yossi Beilin, former Labor justice minister and architect of the Oslo Peace Accords, said of Ben-Eliezer, “The man is fighting against the left and is overtaking Sharon from the right.” He hoped his leadership would be temporary. The outcome was, however, positive for the prime minister, who would have faced a likely Labor withdrawal had Ben-Eliezer’s rival, Avraham Burg, the Knesset speaker, won the party election.

As Washington assessed the latest video from Osama bin Laden, Afghan officials claimed yesterday the world’s number one fugitive had fled their country and taken refuge in Pakistan. The claim comes amid signs of mounting trouble for the U.S. hunt for bin Laden. An Afghan Defense Ministry spokesperson in Kabul insisted bin Laden, who has a $25 million price on his head, is now under the protection of supporters of a radical Islamist leader in Pakistan who helped create the Taliban regime. The report was quickly dismissed by the leader in question, Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, head of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party. Donald Rumsfeld also dismissed the claim, the latest in a string of reports on where the elusive leader might be hiding. According to the Afghan Islamic Press, bin Laden stayed in the Tora Bora area of eastern Afghanistan until about a month ago, before fleeing to an unknown destination. A senior Afghanistan intelligence official has said bin Laden was spotted in a remote border village inside Pakistan. Some recent Pakistani press reports, however, have said bin Laden died two weeks ago from a serious lung ailment. And yesterday, the Al Jazeera TV network broadcast the full version of a new half-hour-long Osama bin Laden video. In it, he warns that the U.S. will soon collapse, regardless of his fate. The tape was apparently made between late November and early December.