Google appears to have eliminated the foreign country news page links from the bottom of the Google News page. World War 4 Report depends on these links intimately for our work. How are we supposed to access those pages now? How are we supposed to do a search for Mexican, Colombian, Pakistani, etc. news sources? Who's brilliant idea was this? Why can't anyone just leave well enough alone? Haven't they ever heard "If ain't broke, don't fix it"? Or is it some conspiracy to limit bloggers and researchers to the dumbed-down American media?

Accused al-Qaeda operative and former "enemy combatant" Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri pleaded guilty April 30 to charges of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization after reaching a plea agreement federal prosecutors that may send him to prison for 15 years. Prosecutors said that al-Marri, a "sleeper operative" for al-Qaeda who arrived in the country on September 10, 2001, will admit to conspiring with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to plan attacks on the US.

Lawyers for two Guantánamo Bay detainees captured as juveniles called for their release April 29—the same day the UN Security Council held an open meeting on children in armed conflict. Lawyers for Canadian Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr, who was 14 or 15 when he allegedly killed a US soldier with a grenade in Afghanistan, and Mohammed Jawad, who was 16 or 17 when he allegedly injured soldiers with a grenade, argued that their clients' detention violates the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, to which the US is a signatory.

Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón announced April 29 he has decided to initiate an investigation into torture allegations at Guantánamo Bay made by four former prisoners held at the facility. Garzón said he based his decision on statements from Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Lahcen Ikassrien, Jamiel Abdul Latiff Al Banna, and Omar Deghayes, who claim they were subject to various forms of physical and mental abuse during their imprisonment.

President Barack Obama reaffirmed April 29 his position that the controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding amounts to torture and defended his decision to ban use of the technique. Speaking at a press conference marking his first 100 days in office, Obama again said that the US has "rejected the false choice between our security and our ideals by closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay and banning torture without exception," affirming a statement from his inaugural address.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit rejected April 24 a lawsuit by four UK citizens and former Guantánamo Bay detainees against former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other military officials. The opinion affirmed a district court decision dismissing illegal detention and mistreatment charges under the Alien Tort Statute, the Geneva Conventions, and the Fifth and Eighth Amendments of the US Constitution against Rumsfeld and other military officials—but reversed the lower court's decision to reject a motion for dismissal of two additional charges against the defendants.

A US district court judge in Washington DC April 22 adopted a new standard for authorizing and reviewing the detention of terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay proffered by the Department of Justice last month. The DoJ submitted a memorandum in March asking the court to use a new standard for adjudicating habeas corpus petitions filed by Guantánamo detainees.

President Barack Obama said April 21 that he would not rule out the possibility of prosecuting lawyers responsible for authoring memos released last week outlining CIA interrogation policies. Obama had previously said that he would not pursue prosecutions of CIA interrogators, a pledge which drew sharp international criticism.