Seated at rows of long tables were scores of loan processing agents for 19 lenders who hold 85 percent of the home mortgages in the south Florida market.

Over seven hours, the homeowners pleaded for loan modifications or other help under a variety of programs aimed at stabilizing the U.S. housing market and keeping struggling people in their homes.

Nearly one million U.S. homeowners have won permanent reductions in their mortgage payments since President Barack Obama’s administration launched a foreclosure prevention program in 2009, the U.S. Treasury said earlier this month.

That was far short of the administration’s initial projections that the Home Affordable Mortgage Program or HAMP would help up to four million homeowners stay in their homes.

The program, recently extended through 2013, provides incentives for lenders who work with borrowers to lower monthly payments and interest rates, and allow homeowners to sell the homes for less than they are worth or give back the deeds in lieu of foreclosure.

It also provides temporary mortgage assistance to the unemployed and helps owners move into cheaper rental units when their only choice is to give up homes they can no longer afford.

Some of those at the Miami event had lost their jobs or seen their income plunge during the economic downturn. Others fell behind on payments due to illness and medical bills, or refinanced their homes to take out equity during the peak of the housing bubble, only to see values come crashing down when the bubble burst.

“Everybody has a different story about why they’re struggling with their mortgage,” said Andrea Risotto, a spokeswoman with the Treasury Department’s Homeownership Preservation Office, one of the sponsors.

It was the 64th “Free Help for Homeowners” event put on by the Obama administration and the 11th in Florida, where nearly 12 percent of mortgaged homes are in foreclosure, the highest rate in the nation.

More than 17 percent of Florida mortgage-holders are 90 days late in their payments, also the highest in the nation, according to a CoreLogic report earlier this month.

Across the United States, 3.4 percent of homes are in foreclosure and 7.3 percent of mortgage holders are three months or more behind in their payments.

SLOW RECOVERY

All those numbers have been shrinking as the housing market slowly rebounds. The crowds at mortgage-mending events like the one in Miami have also shrunk since peaking in 2009. Then 2,800 homeowners turned up at one in Atlanta, said Brad Dwin, a spokesman for another of the event’s sponsors, the Hope Now Alliance.

Risotto estimated that one-fourth of those in attendance would qualify for loan modifications, and the rest would at least have clarity about their status and their next step.

That clarity was too much for one middle-aged woman who emerged from the meeting and collapsed in tears. She was led out, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief and holding tight to a sheaf of paperwork.

Robin and Michael Johnson left with smiles and smaller monthly payments on the house they bought for $36,000 in 1982. They said they would have had it paid off this year except the couple “fell for a refinancing” during the boom years and ended up with a $180,000 debt. They fell behind in the payments when Michael Johnson lost his job two years ago.

“I am so, so thankful, very relieved,” said his wife, Robin.

CUT DOWN TO SIZE

Elena Hernandez and Ana Balmaseda are eight months behind on the mortgage for the four-bedroom home they bought in 2006 for $450,000. They recently saw a similar home in the neighborhood sell for $280,000.

They are insurance agents whose income dropped when the economy crashed. They submitted their information to a lender on Wednesday and were told they would find out within 30 days whether they qualify for a modification, but were skeptical.

“Nobody qualifies for those programs unless you’re living under a bridge already,” Hernandez said.

A man who gave his name only as Fred said he was leaving with a clear plan for whittling down his $309,000 mortgage.

“They were able to tell me what to do,” said the broadcast engineer who has owned his home for 14 years but has struggled since losing his $150,000 a-year-job. “This has to be cut down to size.”

Fred, 57, said he has two work contracts pending and hoped to resume bringing in money soon to help support the household that grew to 10 people when his daughter divorced and moved home with her four children.

“Thank God my wife is still working. She’s been supporting all of us,” he said.

Beverly, 48, left resigned to losing the home she and her husband bought seven years ago for $350,000. They had top-notch credit, refinanced during the boom, “which just made things worse,” then lost their jobs in the health insurance industry, she said.

The couple kept making payments for a year an a half, until they exhausted their savings, she said. They now owe $465,000, aren’t eligible for a loan modification and plan to stay in the home “until they tell us we are out. I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said.

Irmine and Therman Butts left with the good news that they qualify for a payment reduction that should be final within 30 days. He is a chef who works two jobs and she is a teacher whose income dropped by $20,000 when she was ordered into bed rest during a difficult pregnancy. That cost her a spot as director of an after-school program.

The couple borrowed from their retirement funds and charged up their credit cards. “We’re barely making it now,” said Irmine Butts, now the mother of a healthy 3-year-old daughter.

They bought their condominium for $180,000 in early 2007, and have seen similar units sell recently for about $35,000, but are optimistic about receiving a loan modification.

“This is like a real cloud and now the sun has come up,” Therman Butts said.

(Reporting By Jane Sutton; editing by Christopher Wilson)

Seated at rows of long tables were scores of loan processing
agents for 19 lenders who hold 85 percent of the home mortgages
in the south Florida market.

Over seven hours, the homeowners pleaded for loan
modifications or other help under a variety of programs aimed at
stabilizing the U.S. housing market and keeping struggling
people in their homes.

Nearly one million U.S. homeowners have won permanent
reductions in their mortgage payments since President Barack
Obama’s administration launched a foreclosure prevention program
in 2009, the U.S. Treasury said earlier this month.

That was far short of the administration’s initial
projections that the Home Affordable Mortgage Program or HAMP
would help up to four million homeowners stay in their homes.

The program, recently extended through 2013, provides
incentives for lenders who work with borrowers to lower monthly
payments and interest rates, and allow homeowners to sell the
homes for less than they are worth or give back the deeds in
lieu of foreclosure.

It also provides temporary mortgage assistance to the
unemployed and helps owners move into cheaper rental units when
their only choice is to give up homes they can no longer afford.

Some of those at the Miami event had lost their jobs or seen
their income plunge during the economic downturn. Others fell
behind on payments due to illness and medical bills, or
refinanced their homes to take out equity during the peak of the
housing bubble, only to see values come crashing down when the
bubble burst.

“Everybody has a different story about why they’re struggling
with their mortgage,” said Andrea Risotto, a spokeswoman with
the Treasury Department’s Homeownership Preservation Office, one
of the sponsors.

It was the 64th “Free Help for Homeowners” event put on by
the Obama administration and the 11th in Florida, where nearly
12 percent of mortgaged homes are in foreclosure, the highest
rate in the nation.

More than 17 percent of Florida mortgage-holders are 90 days
late in their payments, also the highest in the nation,
according to a CoreLogic report earlier this month.

Across the United States, 3.4 percent of homes are in
foreclosure and 7.3 percent of mortgage holders are three months
or more behind in their payments.

SLOW RECOVERY

All those numbers have been shrinking as the housing market
slowly rebounds. The crowds at mortgage-mending events like the
one in Miami have also shrunk since peaking in 2009. Then 2,800
homeowners turned up at one in Atlanta, said Brad Dwin, a
spokesman for another of the event’s sponsors, the Hope Now
Alliance.

Risotto estimated that one-fourth of those in attendance
would qualify for loan modifications, and the rest would at
least have clarity about their status and their next step.

That clarity was too much for one middle-aged woman who
emerged from the meeting and collapsed in tears. She was led
out, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief and holding tight to a
sheaf of paperwork.

Robin and Michael Johnson left with smiles and smaller
monthly payments on the house they bought for $36,000 in 1982.
They said they would have had it paid off this year except the
couple “fell for a refinancing” during the boom years and ended
up with a $180,000 debt. They fell behind in the payments when
Michael Johnson lost his job two years ago.

“I am so, so thankful, very relieved,” said his wife, Robin.

CUT DOWN TO SIZE

Elena Hernandez and Ana Balmaseda are eight months behind on
the mortgage for the four-bedroom home they bought in 2006 for
$450,000. They recently saw a similar home in the neighborhood
sell for $280,000.

They are insurance agents whose income dropped when the
economy crashed. They submitted their information to a lender on
Wednesday and were told they would find out within 30 days
whether they qualify for a modification, but were skeptical.

“Nobody qualifies for those programs unless you’re living
under a bridge already,” Hernandez said.

A man who gave his name only as Fred said he was leaving
with a clear plan for whittling down his $309,000 mortgage.

“They were able to tell me what to do,” said the broadcast
engineer who has owned his home for 14 years but has struggled
since losing his $150,000 a-year-job. “This has to be cut down
to size.”

Fred, 57, said he has two work contracts pending and hoped
to resume bringing in money soon to help support the household
that grew to 10 people when his daughter divorced and moved home
with her four children.

“Thank God my wife is still working. She’s been supporting
all of us,” he said.

Beverly, 48, left resigned to losing the home she and her
husband bought seven years ago for $350,000. They had top-notch
credit, refinanced during the boom, “which just made things
worse,” then lost their jobs in the health insurance industry,
she said.

The couple kept making payments for a year an a half, until
they exhausted their savings, she said. They now owe $465,000,
aren’t eligible for a loan modification and plan to stay in the
home “until they tell us we are out. I don’t have anywhere else
to go,” she said.

Irmine and Therman Butts left with the good news that they
qualify for a payment reduction that should be final within 30
days. He is a chef who works two jobs and she is a teacher whose
income dropped by $20,000 when she was ordered into bed rest
during a difficult pregnancy. That cost her a spot as director
of an after-school program.

The couple borrowed from their retirement funds and charged
up their credit cards. “We’re barely making it now,” said Irmine
Butts, now the mother of a healthy 3-year-old daughter.

They bought their condominium for $180,000 in early 2007,
and have seen similar units sell recently for about $35,000, but
are optimistic about receiving a loan modification.

“This is like a real cloud and now the sun has come up,”
Therman Butts said.

But a flurry of legal activity in recent days suggests a plea deal could be in the works for the former data programmer from Baltimore who once said his only knowledge of al Qaeda came from watching “too much Fox News.”

If Khan pleads guilty to war crimes charges and agrees to cooperate with prosecutors, he could be a valuable witness in the upcoming prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the September 11 attacks. The charges against Khan allege he took orders directly from Mohammed, often referred to in legal circles simply as “KSM.”

“He certainly was fairly close with KSM and could be helpful in that trial,” said retired Air Force Colonel Moe Davis, a former chief prosecutor in the war crimes tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Khan, who will turn 32 on February 28, has denied involvement in terrorist attacks and suggested at an administrative hearing at Guantanamo in 2007 that his knowledge of al Qaeda was limited to what he learned from watching U.S. television news.

Only thanks to TV did he learn “that to become al Qaeda, a person needs to go to Afghanistan for training and take an oath to Osama bin Laden for the cause,” he told a panel of U.S. military officers. “I’ve never been to Afghanistan or met (bin Laden). To prove it, I can take a lie detector test,” he added.

FINALLY FACING CHARGES

Khan has been in U.S. custody for nearly nine years, first in secret CIA prisons and then at Guantanamo since 2006. His lawyers have pleaded for years for his captors to charge him and put forth evidence against him, or let him go.

U.S. authorities have never given a reason for the delay. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have maintained the United States has the right to hold Guantanamo prisoners indefinitely without trial.

But on Monday, Khan was handed a list of sworn charges. On Tuesday, prosecutors sent them to the retired admiral at the Pentagon overseeing the Guantanamo tribunals. On Wednesday, the admiral approved the charges and referred them for trial without making any changes, an unusually rapid turnaround that suggests a deal has been made.

Officials on Friday set his arraignment for February 29.

Khan’s lawyers, who were at his side when the charges were handed to him in Guantanamo, issued a statement saying they would represent him through the process and that he was “doing well considering these challenging circumstances.” They declined further comment.

A Pentagon spokesman, Army Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale, said, “As to whether or not there’s some sort of plea deal, he certainly has the right to make one.”

Khan faces five war crimes charges that could keep him locked up for life – conspiring with al Qaeda, murder and attempted murder, providing material support for terrorism, and spying on U.S. and Pakistani targets.

He is accused of making a martyrdom video and strapping on a bomb vest in an attempt to blow up himself and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at a mosque in Karachi in 2002.

He is also accused of delivering $50,000 of al Qaeda cash to the group that drove a deadly truck bomb into the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003. Eight people were killed in the blast and scores were wounded.

Both acts were tests assigned to him by Mohammed in order to prove Khan’s commitment to martyrdom and his potential as an al Qaeda operative, according to a 2008 prisoner assessment prepared for the commander of the Guantanamo detention operation.

‘PSEUDO-ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT’

The charges say the assassination plot was foiled when Musharraf failed to show up at the mosque. But the Guantanamo assessment called the incident a “pseudo-suicide assassination attempt,” and indicated Musharraf was never actually expected there.

Khan is a Pakistani citizen who moved to the Baltimore area with his family in 1996 at age 16, obtained legal residency and graduated from high school three years later. He worked at his family’s gas station, then for the state of Maryland and an electronic data company and taught database programming at a local Islamic center.

According to the Guantanamo assessment, Khan met Mohammed after going to Pakistan in 2002 to attend family weddings and look for a bride of his own. The introduction was made by Khan’s uncle and cousin who were described in the Guantanamo documents as al Qaeda operatives.

Khan began to study jihad and was allegedly selected by Mohammed to carry out attacks in the United States because he spoke English “like an American” and was familiar with U.S. society, according to the documents, which were made public by WikiLeaks.

Khan seemed to realize the bomb-vest incident was only a test because he did not see any explosives inside the vest or extra security at the mosque, the assessment said.

The charges allege that Mohammed asked Khan to return to the United States and blow up underground gasoline tanks. But Khan was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and turned over to U.S. custody.

He is not mentioned in the pending charges against Mohammed and four co-defendants. The charges note that Khan did not meet Mohammed until at least four months after the September 2001 plane hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

But the charges suggest that Khan had enough knowledge about Mohammed to testify about his activities.

“He could say, ‘This guy was an al Qaeda leader, he was a criminal mastermind and I took instructions from him on this and that.’ … That would be a way he could be a valuable witness in that case even if he didn’t have the knowledge of the 9/11 attacks,” said an attorney familiar with the case but did not want his name used.

Khan’s fluent English would also make him at good witness in the Guantanamo tribunals, which have been bogged down by the need for interpreters.

BIGGER FISH

Khan’s case and others pending in the Guantanamo tribunals suggest prosecutors there are pursuing a strategy often used in criminal gang and mob prosecutions.

“You kind of start at the bottom and make deals and work your way up to the top,” said Davis, who quit the Guantanamo prosecution in 2007 in a dispute over political interference. “If that’s what they’re planning, it would make eminent sense to start chipping away at the smaller fish.”

Khan could also be a useful witness against Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesian prisoner at Guantanamo who is known as Hambali and accused of arranging financing for the Jakarta Marriott bombing. Hambali has been designated by the Obama administration as eligible for trial in the Guantanamo tribunals, but has never been charged.

The charges allege that Khan also spent time with Mohammed’s nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, who is charged in the September 11 plot and accused of involvement in the money transfer for the Jakarta Marriott bombing.

Khan, Mohammed, Aziz Ali and Hambali are all being held at Guantanamo at a super-secret camp for “high-value” detainees, segregated from the general prisoner population.

Guantanamo prosecutors swore charges in May 2011 against Mohammed, Aziz Ali and three other captives accused in the September 11 attacks. The Pentagon official overseeing the trials is reviewing those charges to determine whether they should carry the death penalty and is expected to refer them for trial soon.

(Reporting By Jane Sutton; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Retired Vice Admiral Bruce MacDonald referred the charges for trial, meaning defendant Majid Khan will be arraigned within 30 days in a court at Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Khan, a 31-year-old Pakistani whose family moved to the Baltimore area when he was a teen, could face life in prison if convicted of conspiring with al Qaeda, murder and attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, providing material support for terrorism and spying on U.S. and Pakistani targets.

The charges allege that Khan strapped on an explosives vest and waited in a mosque in Karachi, Pakistan, where he planned to blow up himself and Musharraf in a 2002 assassination plot that failed when the Pakistani president failed to show up.

Khan is also accused of plotting to blow up underground gasoline tanks in the United States, and delivering $50,000 in al Qaeda funds that financed the bombing of a JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2003. The explosion killed 11 people.

MacDonald’s review was unusually fast. He signed off on the charges just a day after prosecutors submitted them to him.

Khan has been in U.S. custody for nearly nine years, first in secret CIA prisons and later at Guantanamo, where he has been held since 2006 in a special prison for captives considered “high value.”

(Editing by Todd Eastham)

An amended lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the state circuit court in Miami against Carnival Corp, which is incorporated in Panama and headquartered in Miami, and several of its subsidiaries, including Florida-based Costa Cruise Lines and Costa Crociere, which is based in Italy and operated the ill-fated ship.

Thirty-three more surviving passengers were added to the six in the original lawsuit filed in January, bringing the total number of plaintiffs to 39.

Carnival declined to comment, saying it does not typically comment on litigation matters.

The lawsuit alleges that the company acted with gross negligence and careless disregard during the cruise that ended on January 13 when the Costa Concordia hit a reef and capsized off the coast of Italy. The ship carried 4,200 passengers and crew; 17 are known dead and 15 are missing.

The suit alleges that the crew failed to conduct safety drills, that the ship was off course when it hit the reef, that the captain waited too long before giving the order to evacuate, that the crew performed badly during the evacuation and that the cruise line inflicted emotional distress and failed to provide prompt and adequate aid to survivors.

“Plaintiffs found themselves in a listing, capsizing, sinking vessel without communication, direction or help from the captain and misdirection from the crew from approximately 9:45 p.m. to approximately 11 p.m. and were left to fend for themselves,” the lawsuit said.

It alleges that the cruise company committed fraud in claiming that it complied with safety regulations, and that the online version of the agreement passengers had to accept in order to buy tickets did not include complete details.

Among those details were a requirement that claims against the company had to be pursued in Genoa, Italy, where Costa Crociere is based.

“The nature of the conduct, being so outrageous and reckless, and the failure to provide for safety features, actually negates the contract … it makes the ticket null and void,” said Marc Jay Bern, a senior partner in one of the law firms that filed the suit, Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik and Associates.

The suit said the captain’s abandonment of the ship before all the passengers were evacuated was “so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency.”

It asks for more than $78 million in compensatory damages and at least $450 million in punitive damages, plus interest and attorney costs.

DEADLINE EXTENDED

Costa, which blamed the captain for the accident, has offered passengers compensation of $14,500 plus a refund and costs of travel home.

It had originally given passengers until Tuesday to accept the offer, but extended the deadline to March 31 to allow them to review the proposal with less urgency. Costa said the offer was available only to passengers who had returned home.

“The families of deceased and missing victims and guests who were injured will be covered under a separate proposal based on their individual circumstances,” the cruise line said.

The plaintiffs in the Miami lawsuit are from the United States, Italy, Venezuela, China, Canada, Germany, Korea and Kazakhstan. The lawsuit said the Florida court is the appropriate jurisdiction because the defendants engaged in business in the state.

“Only one cruise ship has gone down in over 100 years, the Titanic. Now the Costa Concordia will live in infamy with it,” Bern said.

The original lawsuit asked for $10 million in compensatory damages and at least $450 million in punitive damages.

The case number is 12-3496CA 40, Geoffrey Scimone et al vs. Carnival Corp et al.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

The charges against defendant Majid Khan allege that in 2002, he donned an explosives vest and sat in a mosque in Karachi, Pakistan, where Musharraf was expected. He planned to blow himself up and kill Musharraf but the plot was foiled when the president failed to show up, the charges said.

Prosecutors allege Khan also conspired with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the September 11 attacks, to blow up underground gasoline storage tanks in the United States – attacks that apparently were not carried out.

And Khan is accused of conspiring with al Qaeda operatives in Indonesia to bomb bars, cafes and nightclubs frequented by Westerners.

The charges, filed at the Pentagon, allege Khan delivered money used to fund a 2003 attack in which a suicide bomber drove a truck full of explosives into the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta. The explosion killed 11 people and injured scores.

Khan was charged with conspiring with al Qaeda, murder and attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, providing material support for terrorism and spying on U.S. and Pakistani targets. He would face a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.

Khan, a Pakistani emigre with legal U.S. residence, was raised and educated in the Baltimore area.

He was captured in Pakistan in March 2003 and held in secret CIA custody for three years before being transferred in 2006 to the detention center at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba. He is currently held in a top-security prison at the base for “high-value” prisoners.

Prosecutors submitted the charges to a retired Navy admiral overseeing the Guantanamo trials, who must approve them before a tribunal is convened to hear the case.

(Reporting By Jane Sutton)

An amended lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the state circuit court in Miami against Carnival Corp, which is incorporated in Panama and headquartered in Miami, and several of its subsidiaries, including Florida-based Costa Cruise Lines and Costa Crociere, which is based in Italy and operated the ill-fated ship.

Thirty-three more surviving passengers were added to the six in the original lawsuit filed in January, bringing the total number of plaintiffs to 39.

Carnival declined to comment, saying it does not typically comment on litigation matters.

The lawsuit alleges that the company acted with gross negligence and careless disregard during the cruise that ended on January 13 when the Costa Concordia hit a reef and capsized off the coast of Italy. The ship carried 4,200 passengers and crew, and 32 were killed.

The suit alleges that the crew failed to conduct safety drills, that the ship was off course when it hit the reef, that the captain waited too long before giving the order to evacuate, that the crew performed badly during the evacuation and that the cruise line inflicted emotional distress and failed to provide prompt and adequate aid to survivors.

“Plaintiffs found themselves in a listing, capsizing, sinking vessel without communication, direction or help from the captain and misdirection from the crew from approximately 9:45 p.m. to approximately 11 p.m. and were left to fend for themselves,” the lawsuit said.

It alleges that the cruise company committed fraud in claiming that it complied with safety regulations, and that the online version of the agreement passengers had to accept in order to buy tickets did not include complete details.

Among those details were a requirement that claims against the company had to be pursued in Genoa, Italy, where Costa Crociere is based.

“The nature of the conduct, being so outrageous and reckless, and the failure to provide for safety features, actually negates the contract … it makes the ticket null and void,” said Marc Jay Bern, a senior partner in one of the law firms that filed the suit, Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik and Associates.

The suit said the captain’s abandonment of the ship before all the passengers were evacuated was “so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency.”

It asks for more than $78 million in compensatory damages and at least $450 million in punitive damages, plus interest and attorney costs.

DEADLINE EXTENDED

Costa, which blamed the captain for the accident, has offered passengers compensation of $14,500 plus a refund and costs of travel home.

It had originally given passengers until Tuesday to accept the offer, but extended the deadline to March 31 to allow them to review the proposal with less urgency. Costa said the offer was available only to passengers who had returned home.

“The families of deceased and missing victims and guests who were injured will be covered under a separate proposal based on their individual circumstances,” the cruise line said.

The plaintiffs in the Miami lawsuit are from the United States, Italy, Venezuela, China, Canada, Germany, Korea and Kazakhstan. The lawsuit said the Florida court is the appropriate jurisdiction because the defendants engaged in business in the state.

“Only one cruise ship has gone down in over 100 years, the Titanic. Now the Costa Concordia will live in infamy with it,” Bern said.

The original lawsuit asked for $10 million in compensatory damages and at least $450 million in punitive damages.

The case number is 12-3496CA 40, Geoffrey Scimone et al vs. Carnival Corp et al.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

The ruling by the judge, Army Colonel Jame Pohl, aims to settle a dispute between U.S. military jailers at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba and the U.S. military and civilian lawyers defending Guantanamo prisoners on terrorism charges.

The ruling puts the mail screeners, who are mostly Pentagon contractors, under Pohl’s authority and requires them to obtain his permission before disclosing any information gleaned from confidential legal mail.

Violators could face contempt of court charges, which carry a penalty of up to 30 days in jail and a fine up to $1,000, according to the manual governing the tribunals, which are formally known as military commissions.

“At least now, if this works the way the judge contemplated, they’re answerable to him,” said Rick Kammen, one of the defense lawyers involved in the case.

Pohl signed his ruling on Friday. It is not classified as secret but has not been publicly released because it is still under Pentagon review, and Kammen described its contents to Reuters.

For now, the ruling applies only in the case of Saudi captive Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who could be executed if he is convicted of directing a deadly suicide bomb attack on a U.S. warship off Yemen in 2000. He is currently the only captive facing charges in the Guantanamo tribunals.

But the ruling could have broader implications because Pohl is the chief judge for the tribunals, and charges are expected to be referred for trial soon in the case of five Guantanamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks.

VIOLATION OF RIGHTS

A lawyer for one of those prisoners has sued the prison camp commander in U.S. District Court in Washington, claiming the mail-screening rules are unconstitutional and violate his right to communicate privately with his client.

Generally under U.S. law, conversations between defendants and their lawyers are confidential and cannot be used as evidence.

Defense lawyers in the Guantanamo tribunals have argued that submitting case-related documents for screening would force them to illegally disclose trial strategy, violating the defendant’s right to a fair trial. They said it was also an ethical violation that could put their own law licenses in jeopardy.

At a pretrial hearing last month in the Guantanamo court, Pohl took the unusual step of ordering the detention camp commander, Rear Admiral David Woods, into court to testify about the newly stringent mail screening rules he imposed in December.

Woods said it was necessary for a “privilege team” made up of lawyers, translators and former intelligence officers, to review the legal mail to ensure it did not contain contraband or information that could compromise security.

A prosecutor said in court that a copy of the al Qaeda-linked magazine “Inspire” had been mailed to the camp, suggesting that was the reason for the new rules. She did not elaborate and neither Pentagon nor prison camp officials would give any details about who sent it or whether it was actually delivered to a prisoner.

Nashiri’s lawyers said they had not mailed the magazine. Asked if they were satisfied with Pohl’s ruling, Kamen said, “We choose to be hopeful.”

(Reporting By Jane Sutton; Editing by Philip Barbara)

The number of Republicans who voted on Tuesday – 1.7 million – was down 14 percent from 2008, in a worry for the party in a swing state that will be crucial for the November election battle with President Barack Obama.

The drop in Republican turnout came despite an increase of 25,000 registered Republicans in Florida from four years ago.

“They are voting with their feet and simply not showing up,” said Christopher Mann, a political science professor at the University of Miami.

Romney won 46 percent of the vote to closest rival Newt Gingrich’s 32 percent in Tuesday’s primary election.

But Florida Republicans were hardly swept off their feet by the former Massachusetts governor. In exit polls, four in 10 said they were not enthusiastic about their choice of candidates, according to exit polls.

Voters may have been turned off by the barrage of nasty ads unleashed by the candidates and the Political Action Committees supporting them, said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon polling.

The lack of excitement might not translate into indifference in the November general election, when Republican voters get to pick between their party’s nominee and the Democratic president.

“Right now the Republicans are like diners sitting in an Italian restaurant and they are choosing between two pasta dishes. Come the fall they will be choosing between Italian and sushi … things that are radically different,” said Mann.

If Florida voters are not ecstatic about the Republican candidates, they are also less enthralled with Obama than they were when he won the battleground state in 2008 with a slim margin of less than 3 percentage points.

Obama’s Florida approval rating edged down to 43.6 percent in a Gallup survey released on Tuesday and as an incumbent he can’t run on hope – or change – this time.

“He actually has to run with a record to defend rather than just attack (former President George W.) Bush and attack Republicans,” Coker said.

ECONOMY SLOWLY TURNS

As in the rest of the country, the November election outcome in Florida hinges on the economy.

Two-thirds of Florida Republican primary voters said the economy was far and away the most important issue and there have been signs of improvement. Fifty-eight percent of Tuesday’s voters said their family financial situation was holding steady, while 29 percent said they were falling behind economically.

Consumer confidence among Floridians surged in January to its highest level in nearly four years. Optimism has risen steadily in recent months, both in Floridians’ outlook for their personal finances and their expectations for the national economy, according to University of Florida economists.

Florida’s unemployment rate, while still high, is dropping. It was 9.9 percent in December, compared with 8.5 percent nationwide. But it has dropped by more than 2 percentage points during the last year and Florida has added jobs for 15 consecutive months, after losing them for three years.

Florida was one of the states hardest hit by the worst housing slump since World War Two. Real estate analysts say the picture is starting to look a little less glum but is still far from sunny.

Home sales volumes are rising, especially in South Florida’s condo market, buoyed by foreign buyers with cash, but a huge backlog of foreclosured homes is headed to market at bargain prices, keeping prices down.

Forty-four percent of Florida’s mortgaged homes are worth less than what the owners owe, double the rate nationwide, though the number has been shrinking, according to November data from CoreLogic.

And a quarter of Floridians own their homes free and clear of any mortgage, including a majority of the over-65 population who are most likely to vote, according to AARP.

But homes overall are still worth half of their value at the peak of the housing boom in November 2006, so even the mortgage-free are feeling the pain.

“It’s not just underwater mortgages and foreclosers, it’s property values. All of those things have to come back in Florida for people to really feel secure,” Coker said. “I just don’t see it going to flip that quickly.”

THE FEEL-GOOD FACTOR

With the election just 10 months away, there’s little chance of dramatic gains in the housing market or the job situation, especially with all the soldiers and sailors headed home from war to look for work in military-heavy Florida, he said.

The consensus is that a better economy would help Obama while a stagnant or worsening one would favor the Republican nominee. But the question may be how much better things have to get, and perception may matter more than statistics, said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

“If people think things are getting better based on what they see with their own eyes, that’s more likely to change their votes for the president than if the Labor Department says unemployment numbers are down,” Brown said. “What has a bigger impact is how voters feel.”

Pundits draw similarities to President Ronald Reagan’s re-election in 1984. His Republican Party took a beating at the polls in 1982 because the economy was terrible and the unemployment rate topped 10 percent.

It had dropped to a still-high 7.4 percent by the 1984 general election – but that was enough to persuade voters things were moving in the right direction, Brown said.

“It was clear things were improving. People could see it and feel it all around them. And Reagan won by the largest landslide in American history,” he said.

The recent recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of economic shrinkage, lasted 18 months and ended in June 2009. Yet four out of five voters still think the nation is in recession Brown said. “If it feels like a recession to them, it won’t matter what the statistics say,” he said.

Obama echoed that sentiment on Wednesday when he asked Congress to approve a $5 billion to $10 billion effort to help U.S. homeowners refinance as part of a wider package of proposals to shore up the depressed housing market.

“What’s at stake is something more than just statistics,” Obama said. “It’s personal.”

Obama has sought to contrast his efforts to help U.S. homeowners refinance to the position held by Romney, who has said U.S. foreclosures should be allowed to run their course.

(Additional reporting by David Adams and Terry Wade; editing by Todd Eastham)

“We need to figure out what we can do to inflict maximum pain, maximum punishment, to bleed Repsol of whatever resources they may have if there’s a potential for a spill that would affect the U.S. coast,” Representative David Rivera, a Florida Republican, told a congressional subcommittee that oversees the U.S. Coast Guard.

The House of Representatives subcommittee met at a Florida hotel with a panoramic view of the waves breaking over an Atlantic beach dotted with sunbathers, to conduct a hearing on the potential impact on Florida’s 800-mile (1,290-km) coastline from the first major oil exploration in Cuban waters.

Repsol is working on the project in partnership with Norway’s Statoil and ONGC Videsh, a unit of India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. The oil rig leased for the project, the Scarabeo 9, arrived off Cuban waters earlier this month and is expected to begin drilling any day now.

The rig is 60 miles from the Cuban coast and 80 miles from Florida, in a spot where the Gulfstream and other powerful ocean currents could rush any spilled oil to Florida beaches within five to 10 days.

“The significance of these strong currents is that they can move oil very quickly, potentially up to 70 to 80 nautical miles in a 24-hour period,” said oceanographer Debbie Payton, who heads the emergency response division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

A spill would have catastrophic effects on Florida tourism, which accounts for a third of the state’s economy, and on its fisheries, panelists said. Such an accident would devastate the state much as BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 devastated other coastal areas.

Those powerful currents would make it harder to contain and burn or scoop up any oil on the water’s surface, but they would make oil dispersants more effective by mixing them up with the water, panelists said. Booms and the anchors needed to hold them in place would likely do more harm to Florida’s fragile coral reefs than the oil itself, they said.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with Cuba, which is considers a state sponsor of terrorism, and no oversight over companies that operate in its waters.

Repsol has said it will voluntarily adhere to U.S. safety and environmental regulations and international industry standards. It allowed U.S. authorities to inspect the rig off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago last month, including an examination of its construction, drilling equipment, blow-out preventer and other safety systems.

Based on the inspection and on information Repsol provided, the inspectors concluded that “the well could be safely capped using existing methods,” said Lars Herbst, Gulf of Mexico regional director for the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE.

BSEE has no authority to endorse or certify the rig but it “found the vessel and the drilling safety equipment including the (blow-out preventer) to be entirely consistent with existing international and U.S. standards by which Repsol has pledged to abide,” Herbst said.

UNSAFE WELDING

He said the inspectors found unsafe welding and incomplete wiring of safety systems, which Repsol pledged to repair. Asked if the agency could certify the rig had it been in U.S. waters, Herbst said it could not without confirming those repairs had been made.

Rear Admiral William Baumgartner, commander of the Coast Guard district that includes Florida, said there was a low probability of a spill, “but if it does happen, especially a complete well blowout, there would be high consequences.”

“There are multiple safety provisions in any drilling operation. I’m not promoting, you know, business in helping Cuba develop oil, but this is a brand-new oil drilling rig, Norwegian designed, much of it is very much state-of-the art as I understand, so it should be capable,” he told Reuters after the hearing.

The Norwegian-designed, Chinese-made rig is owned by an Italian company and flagged in the Bahamas, Baumgartner said.

Repsol and its partners are subcontractors, Herbst said, and the United States would have no way to hold them responsible for any oil spill damage, Herbst said.

“The Cuban government must have the full responsibility for any oil spill,” Herbst said. “In this case it is Cuba that’s doing the contracting and we have no control over that.”

Rivera, a Cuban American from Miami, has sponsored a bill that would make foreign oil companies responsible for clean-up costs if a spill from their operations reaches U.S. shores.

He urged the panel to look into whether a Repsol subsidiary that operates off the U.S. continental shelf could be made to pay or stripped of its license if there was a spill from the Cuban well. Herbst said afterward that it could not.

The United States has maintained an economic embargo against Cuba for five decades in order to put pressure on its communist government. But the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments have already issued licenses to U.S. companies that would work under Coast Guard direction to contain and clean up any spill in Cuban waters, Baumgartner said.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican from Florida, said the United States should impose sanctions against nations that help Cuba develop its oilfields.

She and other Republicans on the panel suggested that by failing to halt the project, the Obama administration was helping make oil tycoons of Cuban President Raul Castro and his brother, former President Fidel Castro.

Subcommittee Chairman John Mica said he was “a little bit shocked” that President Barack Obama had rejected the Keystone XL pipeline project from Canada while “doing everything we can to help the Cuban regime and we’re going to get stuck with both the damage and also the clean-up cost.”

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)