January 2009

Seventeen ethnic Uighurs, in their seventh year of indefinite military detention in the US Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, remain there nearly four months after a federal judge ruled that their continued detention was unlawful and ordered their release into the USA.

Al Jazeera Beijing correspondent Melissa Chan looks at what changes - or otherwise - Barack Obama will bring to US-China relations.

International human rights groups have expressed mixed reactions to the European Union's lukewarm pledge to accept some detainees from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay once the facility closes.

Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) capital of Urumqi have detained two young Uyghur men for distributing leaflets on a university campus calling on students to organize a public demonstration.