Pentagon says number of Gitmo hunger strikers down, but criticism continues News
Pentagon says number of Gitmo hunger strikers down, but criticism continues

[JURIST] The number of hunger strike participants at the Guantanamo [JURIST news archive] detention facility has decreased from 84 to 40 since a late-December spike [JURIST report] US military authorities announced [statement, PDF] Friday. Thirty-two of the remaining 40 hunger strikers are currently being force-fed through tubes, a procedure declared humane [American Forces Press report] by medical officials at the facility but disputed by lawyers for the detainees. Meanwhile international criticism of Guantanamo persists, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel [BBC profile] stating in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine published Saturday that Washington should close the prison and find alternative methods for dealing with the current inmates. Merkel's statements reflect strong German skepticism [DS report] about the US "war on terror" which she has vowed to express next week during her first visit to the US since becoming chancellor. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.