After more than two decades on air, the Oprah Winfrey Show is to close in 2011, said the production company behind the programme.

Winfrey (photo, from bbc.co.uk) is one of the most influential women in the US. She has hosted the show since 1986.

Although a spokesman for the star’s Harpo production company would not say why she had made the decision, he added that she would discuss it on Friday’s show.

Billionaire Winfrey is expected to focus instead on the launch of her own TV channel.

With an average of seven million viewers, the Oprah Winfrey Show is a media institution in the US.

The show’s open atmosphere and frank conversation redefined the talk show genre and made Winfrey the wealthiest black woman in the world, said the BBC’s Richard Lister in Washington.

Even though Oprah is still the highest-rated talk show on US television, audiences are half what they were a decade ago.

Her influence is such that authors appearing on the show often become bestsellers overnight. Besides, Winfrey’s support for US President Barack Obama was seen as crucial to his presidential election campaign.

Winfrey’s empire also includes magazines, a radio show and from next year, a television network, OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, which is scheduled for launch in 2001.

Therefore, it would seem likely her place in American culture will continue.

The Obama administration will miss the January 2010 deadline set for closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba (photo, from aljazeera.net), admitted the US president.

On Wednesday, Obama said that a new deadline would not be set for the facility, where more than 200 detainees are still being held. Yet the US president said that he does expect Guantanamo to be shut down at some point in the new year.

“Guantanamo – we had a specific deadline that was missed,” he told US-based NBC television from Beijing, which he is visiting as part of an Asian tour.

During his first week in office, in January 2009, Obama had vowed that he would close Guantanamo within a year of taking office, arguing that the prison does not adhere to US standards on human and civil rights.

The White House says that it will continue to push for the facility’s closure, and is moving to repatriate some of the detainees who have been cleared for release, while seeking countries willing to provide asylum to others like the Pacific island of Palau did for some Uighurs.

‘Getting it done the right way’

Christopher Anders, the senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said that the organisation was “disappointed” that the deadline would not be met.

“But what is more important than meeting the deadline is getting it done and getting it done the right way,” he told Al Jazeera.

“That means defendants should be charged in a civilian criminal court, as the alleged 9/11 are being charged, and people who are not being charged with crimes should be cleared and resettled or repatriated in places where they are happy they are out of danger of being tortured or abused.

“We should not have more people being sent to military trials and we should not have people continue to be detained indefinitely without charge,” Anders, who served as a human rights observer at the US military commission hearings at Guantanamo Bay, said.

On Wednesday, during a separate interview with CNN, Obama also said US citizens should not be “fearful” about the decision to put five men accused of organising the September 11, 2001 attacks on trial in New York City.

Angry reactions from some victims’ families and Republican politicians followed last week’s announcement that the defendants would be moved from Guantanamo Bay to New York.

John McCain, a Republican senator and Obama’s rival for the presidency, said the decision sent “a mixed message about America’s resolve in the fight against terrorism”.

“We are at war, and we must bring terrorists to justice in a manner consistent with the horrific acts of war they have committed,” he said.

But Obama told CNN: “I think this notion that somehow we have to be fearful, that these terrorists possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking them up and exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake”.

‘Obtain justice’

The decision to bring the men to trial was made by Eric Holder, the US attorney. He said he would not “cower in the face of this enemy”.

“At the end of the day, it was clear to me that the venue in which we are most likely to obtain justice for the American people is in federal court,” he told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington on Wednesday.

“By bringing prosecutions in both our courts and military commissions, by seeking the death penalty, by holding these terrorists responsible for their actions, we are finally taking ultimate steps towards justice,” he said.

Although officials are considering whether some of the detainees can be moved to a prison in rural Illinois, previous attempts to discuss transferring the prisoners to the mainland US have been met with resistance from politicians.

“It’s hard not only because of the politics. People I think understandably are fearful after a lot of years where they were told that Guantanamo was critical to keeping terrorists out,” Obama told another interview with Fox News.

“So, I understood that that had to be processed, but it’s also just technically hard – I just think as usual in Washington things move slower than I anticipated.”

For committing what a judge has said was adultery, a Somali woman has been stoned to death.

On Tuesday, the 20-year-old divorcee was executed. She had previously confessed to having had sex with a 29-year-old unmarried man.

According to Sheikh Ibrahim Abdirahman, the judge for a court created by the rebel group al-Shabab (photo, from aljazeera.net), the woman was killed in front of a crowd of some 200 people near the town of Wajid

Before the stoning took place, the woman, who gave birth to a still born child, was buried up to her waist. For having the affair, her boyfriend was given 100 lashes for having the affair.

The woman’s death is the second recorded stoning for adultery carried out by al-Shabab fighters, who are confronting the government and control large parts of Somalia.

‘Atrocious and un-Islamic’

Al-Shabab are proponents of stoning as a punishment under their interpretation of sharia (Islamic law).

According to Mohamed Abdullahi, an East Africa analyst, Islamic law can only be conducted where there is proper jurisdiction in place, not in a lawless failed state like Somalia today.

“The position of the majority of Somalis is that these courts should not be held at all,” he said.

“What they are doing is atrocious and un-Islamic, as they don’t have at the moment the right investigative judicial setup necessary for such a verdict, in which capital punishment can be brought forward.

“You must have a legal system, a witness system, peace and this is the view of the Somali ulema (legal scholars), the muftis (Islamic law interpreters), that no such verdicts can be conducted in Somalia at the moment.”

Last week, a man was stoned to death for adultery. His pregnant girlfriend is scheduled to be given the same punishment in the next few months, after she gives birth.

A 13-year-old rape victim was stoned to death after being accused of adultery in November 2008, said Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group.

Herman van Rompuy, the Belgian Prime Minister, has been chosen by EU leaders to be the first permanent European Council President. (photo, from bbc.co.uk)

His job was created by the Lisbon Treaty, as well as foreign affairs supremo. The latter has gone to the EU Trade Commissioner, Baroness Catherine Ashton from the UK.

They are both seen as consensual politicians with little foreign policy experience.

According to Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, both candidates had unanimous backing from the 27 EU leaders at the summit in Brussels.

Before the nominations were announced, the UK government said it was no longer pushing for former PM Tony Blair to get the presidency post.

Van Rompuy had both French and German support. The Belgian PM has a reputation as a coalition builder, having taken charge of the linguistically divided Belgian government and steered it out of a crisis.

‘Britains’s voice loud and clear’

The twist in the British position was revealed by a UK government spokesman. After dropping Tony Blair, the UK persuaded the other six leaders in the socialist group to back the Baroness Ashton.

In order to select their firs full-time president and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, EU leaders met in Brussels. The new posts will come into force on 1 December.

Brown praised Mr Van Rompuy as “a consensus builder” who had “brought a period of political stability to his country after months of uncertainty”.

“I am particularly pleased that a Briton secured the other position. It gives Britain a powerful voice within the Council and the [EU] Commission. It will ensure that Britain’s voice is very loud and clear. It will ensure that Britain remains at the heart of Europe,” he said.

He added that Baroness Ashton (photo, from lemonde.fr) “is the first woman to hold such a high position in the EU.”

As the heads of the 27 EU member nations gathered with various candidates to choose from, after-dinner negotiations were expected to continue late into the night.

Mr Blair had been an early favourite for president and was the highest-profile candidate.

As the meeting got under way, another contender, Dutch PM Jan-Peter Balkenende, ruled himself out of the contest.

Pragmatic rather than charismatic

The appointments were negotiated by EU leaders during a working dinner.

The 27 leaders were reported to be striving for a balance in the two posts : filling one with a candidate from one of the bigger EU states, the other from a smaller country.

Still in order to preserve some balance, the presidency was expected to go to a centre-right politician and the post of foreign affairs chief to the centre-left, as it did.

BBC’s Europe editor Gavin Hewitt says that Mr Blair was an early frontrunner for the presidency. However some leaders feared he would overshadow them and so the mood shifted in favour of a lower-profile name instead.

The EU president will chair regular meetings of the European Council at which decisions are taken about the political position of the bloc.

But correspondents say the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, as the post is officially known, could have an even more powerful role.

Baroness Ashton will have a seat as vice-president of the European Commission, a budget worth billions of euros and a new diplomatic service of up to 5,000 people.

Van Rompuy has been described as a pragmatic rather than a charismatic figure. When he was budget minister in Belgium’s Christian Democrat-led government, he took a tough stance on balancing the economic books, which drastically reduced the country’s public debt.

Though Mr Blair had not put himself forward for the role, he had not ruled himself out either.

Currently working as Middle East envoy for the US, UN, EU and Russia, he was earlier described by Mr Brown as an “excellent candidate”.

The UK’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband had been tipped as a possible contender for the job of EU foreign affairs chief, but said he was not available.

Poll officials scrapped the planned second round of the Afghan presidential election, and declared Hamid Karzai (right on the photo, from aljazeera.net) the elected president.

The day before the Independent Election Commission announcement, Karzai’s sole challenger pulled out of the race.

After demanding key poll officials to quit, Abdullah Abdullah said he did not think it would be a free and fair vote.

Last August, the first round of the vote was marred by mass electoral fraud.

“We declare Hamid Karzai, which [sic] got the majority of votes in the first round and is the only candidate for the second round of the election in Afghanistan in 2009… is the elected president of Afghanistan,” said a spokesman for the Independent Election Commission in a news conference.

He added that the second round was being scrapped in order to save money and to prevent further setbacks that could damage Afghanistan politically and economically.

As he gained more votes in the first round on 20 August, president Karzai had been the favourite to win the run-off.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Kabul earlier on Monday, where he met with Karzai and Abdullah. Ban Ki-moon said Afghanistan’s troubled election had been among “the most difficult the United Nations has ever supported”.

The Pacific island of Palau has welcomed six Chinese Uighur prisoners from the US detention centre at Guantanmo Bay, officials say. (photo, from bbc.co.uk)

They have “arrived to freedom”, said lawyers for three of them early on Sunday.

In June, Palau agreed to take up to a dozen Uighurs. Captured during the US-led war in Afghanistan, they are no longer classified as “enemy combatants”.

China wants them to be returned there, but the US says that due to the risk of mistreatment, it cannot repatriate them.

Beijing has frequently cracked down on Uighur dissidents, accusing them of seeking an independent homeland in the western province of Xinjiang.

Nine other Uighur detainees were resettled, five in Albania in 2006 and four in Bermuda last June.

Temporary home

Three of the six Uighurs released from Guantanamo on Saturday are represented by a law firm that confirmed that they had arrived safely at their new home in the main town of Koror.

“These men want nothing more than to live peaceful, productive lives in a free, democratic nation safe from oppression by the Chinese,” Eric Tirschwell of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel told the Associated Press.

“Thanks to Palau, which has graciously offered them a temporary home, they now have that chance,” he added.

The men have already begun learning English and look forward to become productive members of the community, said Mr Tirschwell.

The men will live in a three-storey building which is a five-minute walk from Koror’s only mosque, one of two on the island.

The President of Palau, Johnson Toribiong, told the BBC that the Uighurs would be given a temporary home for as long as two years.

“Initially, they will be attending a crash course in the English language and of our culture and history for a couple of months. We’ll interview them to find out about their skills, and then try to place them where they’ll be gainfully employed,” he said.

The Muslim population of Palau is mostly composed of migrant workers from Bangladesh. Many of them face being deported due to lapsed work permits.

The island has offered to take six of the seven other Uighurs still being held at Guantanamo. One did not receive an invitation because of concerns about his mental health.

US Supreme Court

Last year, the American defence department decided that the Uighur detainees were not enemy combatants. However they were refused the right to settle in the US.

Palau is a former US trust territory. It’s an archipelago of eight main islands plus more than 250 islets that is best known for diving and tourism and is located some 800km (500 miles) east of the Philippines.

In 1994, Palau became independent but retained close ties with Washington by signing a Compact of Free Association with the US. The tiny nation relies heavily on the US for aid and defence, and does not have diplomatic relations with China.

Before the latest departures from Guantanamo, the US Supreme Court, rejected the government’s position, saying it would hear an appeal by the Uighurs, who have argued that they should be released onto US soil.

Currently, there are 215 detainees remaining at the prison camp. President Barack Obama has pledged to close it by 22 January.

Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s prime minister and leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has announced its decision to boycott the country’s unity cabinet. (photo, from aljazeera.net)

Although Robert Mugabe, the country’s president, has criticised the party of his estranges coalition partner, he said on Saturday that he remains committed to working with Tsvangirai’s MDC despite the boycott.

However the president called on the MDC to honour the power-sharing agreement it entered with Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party last year in a bid to end political violence.

Earlier this month, Tsvangirai announced the boycott, accusing Mugabe of refusing to fully implement the power-sharing agreement.

At the funeral of one of his party’s senate members, Mugabe said the MDC has “one leg in, and one leg out” of the government.

“The requirement is that we indeed continue step-by-step to move together and whatever are the difficulties, become our difficulties together,” he said.

“For one party … to decide ‘We shall not be fully in the process’ … then you begin to wonder whether you went into the agreement with persons who actually appreciated what going into an agreement means.”

‘Dishonest’

State media also reported on Saturday that Mugabe called the MDC leader “dishonest”.

“They can never be true and genuine partners and they have proved to be dishonest,” he said.

“We, however, want to assure you that we will not allow the situation to continue like that.”

In the same time as Mugabe’s comments, negotiators from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) proposed an emergency summit to resolve the crisis.

Sadc is a 15-member bloc that has been involved in a search for a solution to Zimbabwe’s governance problems.

Over the past two days, ministers from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia, support staff from the Sadc secretariat and representatives of Thabo Mbeki, a Sadc mediator and former South African president, have been meeting Zimbabwean officials.

Even though it was not immediately clear how the negotiations progressed, analysts said there were slim chances of a breakthrough because the Zanu-PF and the MDC remain at loggerheads over some aspects of their power-sharing pact.

The MDC says Zanu-PF has blocked the swearing-in of some of its officials.

The power-sharing deal between Zanu-PF and MDC was signed in September last year, following a crisis after disputed elections and political violence.

“I will not participate in the election,” Dr Abdullah told supporters. (photo, from aljazeera.net)

Hamid Karzai’s rival announced his withdrawal from the second round of the Afghan presidential election, arguing that his demands for ensuring a fraud-free election had not been met.

Karzai had rejected Dr Abdullah’s demand that election officials who presided over the first round should be dismissed.

Although the withdrawal was “very unfortunate”, according to Waheed Omar, the president Karzai’s spokesman, the election should go ahead as planned.

“The process has to complete itself, the people of Afghanistan have to be given the right to vote.”

A pull-out would not invalidate the vote’s legitimacy, said the US earlier.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in the United Arab Emirates: “We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination of reasons, one of the candidates decides not to go forward.”

But according to BBC’s Andrew North, in Kabul, Abdullah Abdullah’s withdrawal means this is uncharted territory, and it is unclear what will happen next.

When asked by reporters if he was calling for his supporters to boycott the vote planned for next Saturday, Dr Abdullah said: “I have not made that call”.

BBC’s correspondent says that there has been much speculation that there could be some kind of deal which would possibly see the emergence of a national unity government.

Even though it’s far from a done deal, talks are being held behind the scenes towards such a formation.

Yet Dr Abdullah said his decision had not been made “in exchange for anything from anybody, but only and purely in the interests of the people of Afghanistan and to give the people of Afghanistan a chance to move on.”

Allegations of fraud

The international community is very reluctant for the run-off to take place, wishing for the legal institutions of Afghanistan to come up with measures to bring the electoral process to an end.

A statement from the Afghan Election Commission is also expected.

August’s first round of voting was marred by widespread allegations of fraud after hundreds of thousands of votes were discounted.

Karzai’s share of the vote dropped to 49,67%, less than the crucial 50% plus one vote threshold needed to avoid second round, after an investigation by the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC).

In the end, Dr Abdullah was adjudged to have won about 31% of valid votes cast.

On Sunday, when he gave his decision to pull out of the race to be Afghan leader, emotion was clearly visible in Dr Abdullah’s face.

He announced his decision to his supporters at a meeting in a big tent in Kabul, where Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban government was agreed eight years ago.

Dr Abdullah is a Tajik-Pashtun former eye surgeon. He served as foreign minister in the short-lived government headed by the Northern Alliance, and continued as “foreign minister in exile” throughout the years of Taliban rule, which ended in 2001.

After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, he continued in the role in the government formed by president Karzai. He left it five years later.

Although the Pentagon cleared Chinese Muslim in 2004, a number of them are still being held at Guantanamo Bay (photo, from bbc.co.uk).

The US Supreme Court has said it will hear a case about the rights of ethnic Uighurs detained at the prison.

The court’s decision will be about allowing or not federal judges to order the Uighurs’ release into the US when no other country can be found to take them.

In February, an appeal court ruled that federal judges didn’t have that power, arguing that only the executive branch, not the judiciary, could make decisions on immigration.

US President Barack Obama wants to close Guantanamo by early next year.

No going back to China

In the meantime, the Obama administration has been trying to find a place for the remaining Uighur detainees to go.

In 2006, five Uighurs went to Albania.

In June, another four were sent to Bermuda. The Pacific island nation of Palau has said it will take 12 of the remaining 13.

Only one Uighur has not been offered a refuge in another country, his lawyer told the court.

However some of the Uighurs invited to go to Palau have expressed concern about the island being too close to China to be safe, as the country considers them to be separatists.

Expressing fear that they would be tortured or executed, the US has said it will not send the Uighurs back to China, though Beijing demands their handover. China says the detainees are leading an Islamic separatist movement in western China.

The group of 22 Chinese Muslims were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001.

Hamid Karzai did not gain enough valid votes for an outright win, according to a panel probing fraud claims in the Afghan election.

Although preliminary results from August’s first round had placed Karzai comfortably over the 50% plus one vote threshold needed to avoid a run-off, the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) recommended that ballots from 210 polling stations be discounted.

Therefore, Karzai’s vote share has fallen below half and he now faces a run-off against his main rival Abdullah Abdullah.

On Monday, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) published the findings of its long-awaited investigation into poll fraud in Afganistan’s elections.

The panel said it had found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” at the polling stations, which were across the country.

“Diplomatic sources tell me that the figures clearly show Hamid Karzai is well below the crucial 50 per cent margin,” James Bays, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Kabul, reported.

Fazel Sancharaki, Abdullah’s campaign spokesman, welcomed the ECC’s findings, saying: “This is a step forward.”“I understand that key ambassadors are now meeting with the UN to discuss what is the next step, what is the way forward now that Hamid Karzai hasn’t reached the 50 per cent following this procedure by the Electoral Complaints Commission.”

It was not clear how Mr Karzai would respond to the ECC findings, amid reports of a possible legal challenge.

Initial results released last month had given Karzai nearly 55% of votes, with former foreign minister Abdullah (photo, from bbc.co.uk) on 28%, but allegations of massive fraid prompted the complaints commission’s investigation.

‘Reaction reserved’

However, Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Karzai’s campaign, dismissed claims that the ECC report meant a runoff would be necessary.

Many Afghans have expressed frustration with the almost two-month dealy to the announcement of the country’s election results.“I do not know how any diplomatic source can come out with a result out of what has been said today,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We will keep our reaction reserved for when the final, certified results of the elections are annocuned [by the Independent Election Commission] and that will be legally binding for us.”

Though the Independent Election Commission (IEC), the Afghan electoral body which organised the vote, is still to announce the official results, the ECC’s findings are seen as key to the outcome.

The ECC has already been criticised by Karzai’s camp, and some fear that the Karzai-influenced election commission may refuse to call a run-off, because it would delay the formation of a government.

Omar told Al Jazeera that the Karzai camp was not aware of any dispute between the ECC and IEC.

US policy change

Over the weekend, hundreds of Karzai supporters protested in the south. They called for the IEC to release the result quickly and said they will reject a second round.

Gathering in the main street of the southeastern city of Spin Boldak, they shouted : “We want the result!” and “Karzai is our leader!”

This election deadlock has also complicated a major US review of its policy in fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In order to step up its operations in the country, the US is considering a request by General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and Nato ground commander. to commit an extra 40,000 troops.

Yet Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff to the US president, has suggested that the US may not commit more troops to Afghanistan until a “credible and legitimate” government is in place.

The overriding question is not “how many troops you send, but do you have a credible Afghan partner”, said Emanuel, while speaking on CBS talk show Face The Nation.