Miami Herald – The Obama administration’s bid for $50 million to move prisoners from the Guantánamo Bay detention facility was left out of the Democratic-authored emergency war spending bill unveiled Monday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates had sought the funds in case the U.S. wanted to build or retrofit an alternative facility for the detainees in the United States. He called the funds ”a hedge” in case the government wanted to start construction.

However, when Democrats in the House of Representatives released their spending package Monday for funding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and related expenses, the $50 million for Guantánamo was missing.

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Reuters- Former Samsung Group chief Lee Kun-hee, one of South Korea‘s most powerful businessmen, was handed a 3-year suspended jail sentence on Wednesday for tax evasion, but was cleared of other charges.

The court also fined Lee 110 billion won ($109 million), more than double the amount of taxes he evaded, but cleared him of charges of breach of trust and illegal issuance of bonds aimed at transferring wealth to his children.

His jail sentence was suspended for five years.

Analysts and experts had expected Lee to escape prolonged jail time because judges have often been lenient to South Korean corporate leaders convicted of white collar crimes on the basis that putting them behind bars could hurt business.

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Tags: abbey, breach-of-trust, businessman, economic-troubles, heroic-status, intense-pressure, investment-arm, investment-group, iraq, pipe-dream, rfp, rout, samsung-group