NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – Prosecutors presented on Monday a 15-minute video of seven guards struggling to weigh a Canadian prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, trying to convince a U.S. war crimes court that the young man had not been mistreated.

U.S. military prosecutors showed the video as part of their effort to undercut Toronto-born defendant Omar Khadr’s claims that he was abused in U.S. custody after being captured at age 15 on an Afghan battlefield.

Khadr’s U.S. military lawyer said the video, taken by the Guantanamo guard staff, actually bolstered the prisoner’s claims of mistreatment at the hands of American forces.

Khadr’s trial on charges including murder and terrorism conspiracy is due to start on Tuesday at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

But before that, the judge must decide whether Khadr’s confessions to U.S. interrogators were illegally obtained through torture and cruelty. The defense has asked the judge to throw out Khadr’s statements.

Khadr, a 23-year-old who has already spent a third of his life in the Guantanamo detention camp, faces five charges that could put him in prison for life.

The video shows Khadr, then 19, encircled by camouflage-clad guards who tell him that the International Committee of the Red Cross has mandated that he be weighed.

NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – The U.S. Defense Department has relented and said journalists could report the name of a former Army interrogator testifying in a war crimes trial that begins this week for a Canadian held at Guantanamo.

The about-face came three months after the Pentagon banned four journalists from attending tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base because they used Army Sergeant Joshua Claus’ name in reporting from the base in May.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said the military had decided his name could now be used because the interrogator’s own actions — giving media interviews — made it unnecessary to conceal his name during the murder and terrorism conspiracy trial of Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr.

The rules about what is secret in the Guantanamo tribunals often seem capricious and leave journalists scratching their heads as military personnel repeatedly insist that the trials offer “an unprecedented level of transparency.”

In nonsecret court documents publicly released in the Khadr case, someone blacked out the names of several other potential witnesses who have testified publicly and allowed or even solicited media interviews.

In a May order compelling Khadr to undergo mental examination by government doctors, court personnel blacked out the names of two doctors who examined Khadr for the defense.

Both of them, psychologist Kate Porterfield and psychiatrist Stephen Xenakis, a retired Army brigadier general, had been interviewed by journalists and been publicly identified as working with Khadr’s defense team.

NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – The Defense Department has relented and said journalists could report the name of a former Army interrogator testifying in a war crimes trial that begins this week for a Canadian held at Guantanamo.

The about-face came three months after the Pentagon banned four journalists from attending tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base because they used Army Sergeant Joshua Claus’ name in reporting from the base in May.

A Pentagon spokeswoman said the military had decided his name could now be used because the interrogator’s own actions — giving media interviews — made it unnecessary to conceal his name during the murder and terrorism conspiracy trial of Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr.

The rules about what is secret in the Guantanamo tribunals often seem capricious and leave journalists scratching their heads as military personnel repeatedly insist that the trials offer “an unprecedented level of transparency.”

In nonsecret court documents publicly released in the Khadr case, someone blacked out the names of several other potential witnesses who have testified publicly and allowed or even solicited media interviews.

In a May order compelling Khadr to undergo mental examination by government doctors, court personnel blacked out the names of two doctors who examined Khadr for the defense.

Both of them, psychologist Kate Porterfield and psychiatrist Stephen Xenakis, a retired Army brigadier general, had been interviewed by journalists and been publicly identified as working with Khadr’s defense team.

MIAMI (Reuters) – U.S. government scientists on Thursday reduced their forecast for the 2010 Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season, but said they were still predicting a very active year of eight to 12 hurricanes.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it now expects 14 to 20 tropical storms, with eight to 12 of those strengthening into hurricanes.

It forecast that four to six of them would become “major” hurricanes, which are ranked at Category 3 or above on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity and have top winds of more than 110 miles per hour (177 km per hour).

Before the six-month season began on June 1, NOAA had forecast 14 to 23 tropical storms, with eight to 14 developing into hurricanes, and three to seven becoming major hurricanes.

The revision reflected the lower-than-expected number of storms that developed in June and July.

“We’re still predicting a very active hurricane season and it’s very important that people understand that,” said Gerry Bell, the lead hurricane seasonal forecaster with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

The 2O10 season has seen three tropical storms so far, with only one reaching hurricane strength.

MIAMI (Reuters) – A military lawyer has asked the Supreme Court to halt next week’s Guantanamo trial of a young Canadian captured in Afghanistan, pending a ruling on the legality of the war crimes court that could imprison him for life.

Omar Khadr, now 23, was 15 years old when he was captured in a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002. He is scheduled to go to trial at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base on August 10 on charges that include conspiring to commit terrorism and murdering a U.S. soldier with a grenade during the battle.

Khadr’s U.S. military lawyer, Army Lieutenant Colonel Jon Jackson, contends the 2009 law underpinning the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals is unconstitutional because it created a second-class court system that applies only to non-U.S. citizens.

“From the outset, the law of war has applied to Americans and aliens alike, because its rationale has been that reciprocity with regard to the enemy is the best and only legal guarantee that war will not descend to barbarism on either side,” Jackson wrote in court documents filed on Monday.

In March, he filed an emergency motion asking a Washington federal court to halt Khadr’s trial but that court has yet to rule and Jackson asked the Supreme Court to step in.

“The potential harm to petitioner is enormous — subjection to a trial on a potential life sentence that is entirely illegitimate … (he) should not even have been charged, much less tried,” Jackson wrote.

Toronto-born Khadr is the youngest among the 176 men held at Guantanamo, and the last remaining citizen of a Western nation at the detention camp for terrorist suspects. His trial would be the first war crimes tribunal since World War Two to prosecute someone for acts allegedly committed as a juvenile.

MIAMI (Reuters) – U.S. authorities charged 94 doctors, nurses and clinic owners with scheming to defraud the taxpayer-funded Medicare program out of $251 million, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Friday.

He said 36 defendants had been arrested so far in five cities in “the largest federal healthcare fraud take-down in our nation’s history.”

The suspects submitted false claims for equipment and services that were not medically necessary and in many cases not actually provided, Holder said. The claims were filed through the Medicare program that provides healthcare to elderly and disabled Americans.

“These criminals have siphoned resources from the most vulnerable among us,” Holder said, referring to suspects in Miami, Detroit, New York, Houston, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

“With today’s arrests, we’re putting would-be criminals on notice: Healthcare fraud is no longer a safe bet. It’s no longer easy money,” Holder told a news conference in Miami.

The sweeping healthcare overhaul that President Barack Obama and his fellow the Democrats pushed through Congress in March relies partly on cutting waste and fraud to help offset the expansion of government-subsidized healthcare for more than 30 million uninsured Americans.

Fraud bleeds $60 billion a year from the Medicare program and South Florida is regarded as the national epicenter, accounting for a third of U.S. healthcare fraud prosecutions. That is partly because of the region’s large population of elderly people and of non-English speakers, prosecutors have said.

NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – A Canadian captive at the Guantanamo prison said on Monday he has rejected a plea deal that would have freed him in five years if he admitted to killing a U.S. soldier in battle.

Omar Khadr, now 23, was captured in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002 and has spent more than a third of his life locked up at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba. He is to go on trial on Aug. 10 on charges of murdering a soldier with a grenade.

In a hearing at the U.S. war crimes court at the base, he told a military judge that accepting the plea deal would result in him being sentenced to 30 years in prison, with all but five years suspended, in return for a false admission of guilt.

It was designed “to make the U.S. government look good in the public’s eye and other political reasons,” Khadr said.

“I will not take any plea offer because it will give an excuse to the government for torturing me and abusing me as a child.”

Khadr’s lawyers say he was tortured and coerced into making incriminating statements during interrogations at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo.

In an April hearing, a U.S. military interrogator admitted making up tales of gang-rape and murder to frighten Khadr. Other members of the U.S. military said he was interrogated while sedated and recovering from gunshot wounds, and that he had been hooded and chained to a wall.

NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – A Canadian captive at the Guantanamo prison said on Monday he rejected a plea deal that would have freed him in five years if he admitted to killing a U.S. soldier in battle.

Omar Khadr, now 23, was captured in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002 and has spent more than a third of his life at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo in eastern Cuba. He is to go on trial on Aug. 10 on charges of murdering a soldier with a grenade.

In a pre-trial hearing at the U.S. war crimes court at the base, he told a military judge that the deal would have seem him sentenced to 30 years in prison, with all but five years suspended, in return for an admission of guilt.

Khadr said it was designed “to make the U.S. government look good in the public’s eye and other political reasons.”

“I am not willing to let the U.S. government use me to fulfill its goals,” Khadr said.

“I will not take any plea offer because it will give an excuse to the government for torturing me and abusing me as a child.”

Khadr’s lawyers contend that he was tortured and coerced into giving incriminating statements during interrogations at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo.

MIAMI (Reuters) – A Sudanese prisoner accused of guarding Osama bin Laden and helping him escape U.S. forces in Afghanistan pleaded guilty at Guantanamo on Wednesday, giving the Obama administration its first conviction in the controversial war crimes court.

Ibrahim al Qosi pleaded guilty to conspiring with al Qaeda and providing material support for terrorism, Guantanamo court spokesman Joe DellaVedova said.

Qosi, who ran the kitchen at bin Laden’s Star of Jihad compound in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, has been held at Guantanamo for more than eight years.

His sentence could range from no additional time to life imprisonment, DellaVedova said by phone from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Aug. 9.

Qosi is only the fourth captive convicted in the controversial military tribunals since the Guantanamo detention camp was opened to hold terrorism suspects in January 2002.

President Barack Obama’s pledge to shut down the detention camp has been stymied by Congress, and it still holds 181 prisoners. Most are being held as terrorist suspects, though some have been cleared by the U.S. courts and are awaiting resettlement.

Qosi, 50, was charged by the U.S. military of acting as bin Laden’s driver and bodyguard and helping the al Qaeda leader escape to the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. He was also accused of being part of an al Qaeda mortar crew.

TORONTO/MIAMI (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron were expected to discuss London-based BP Plc(BP: Quote, Profile, Research) and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on Saturday as stormy weather raised fears that clean-up operations could be disrupted.

The oil spill, the worst in U.S. history, is overshadowing the first meeting between Obama and Cameron since the prime minister took office last month, which will take place on the sidelines of the G8/G20 summit in Canada.

The British energy giant’s share price is trading at 14-year lows after falling sharply again on Friday, when Cameron offered his strongest comments yet on the issue.

“It is … in all our long-term interests that there is some clarity, some finality, to all of this, so that we don’t at the same time see the destruction of a company that is important for all our interests,” Cameron told Canadian broadcaster CBC.

“This is a vital company for all of our interests. … BP itself wants to cap the well and clean up the spill and compensate those who have had damages,” Cameron said.

Obama has been highly critical of BP while his own poll ratings have fallen, in part because of perceptions that his handling of the crisis has been too slow.

British business and shareholder groups have meanwhile clamored for Cameron to defend the company.