KOROR, Palau – Six former Guantanamo Bay detainees brought to Palau for resettlement have received a warm official welcome, but a plan to deport Bangladeshi workers could halve this Pacific Island nation's already-tiny Muslim community, making integration harder.
The ex-detainees, who are Muslim ethnic Uighurs from a region in China's far west, already face tough challenges to adapt to their new lives in Palau after eight years in the U.S. military camp in Cuba, although they will be provided housing, job training and a full-time interpreter.
President Johnson Toribiong himself welcomed the group when they arrived before dawn Sunday on a secret flight, and he will treat them to a personal tour of the Rock Islands, a diving attraction that is country's top tourist destination, later this week as part of their orientation.
But Toribiong has also announced plans to send home between 200 and 300 Bangladeshi Muslim migrants whose work visas have expired, and last month he banned anyone else from the South Asian country from entering Palau. No timetable has been set for deporting the Bangladeshis.
Palau's Muslim community of about 500 is made up almost completely of Bangladeshi migrant workers. Reducing their number by half could make the Uighurs' transition to island life that much more difficult.
"They need a community of Muslims," Mujahid Hussain, the only Pakistani in Palau, said of the Uighurs.
"They need to sit together and pray together. So if they send home a lot of the Bangladeshis, that's going to be a problem," Hussain, 36, told The Associated Press on Monday.
Announcing the decision to repatriate the Bangladeshis whose visas have expired, Toribiong said last week it has nothing to do with the Uighurs but is a reflection of his administration's commitment to the rule of law.
"We follow the principles of justice and fairness," he said, adding that Bangladeshis with valid work permits have nothing to fear.
The Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) have been kept out of the public eye and away from media since they arrived.
They hail from one of the most landlocked regions on earth and are making the jump from the prison-like conditions of Guantanamo to another alien environment — the leisurely pace of a palm-fringed tropical island.
Muslims here say they will accept the newcomers.
"All the Muslims, they are our brothers," said Mohammed Main Uddin, 26, as he gathered with about 50 others recently for traditional Friday prayers at the small tin-roofed building sitting atop bamboo stilts that serves as one of just two mosques in Palau.
The Uighurs will be welcome as long as they "follow the Muslim rules" on tolerance and peace, said Uddin, a sweet potato farmer who moved to Palau from Bangladesh four years ago.
The Uighurs brought here were among 22 Chinese Muslims picked up by American forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 on suspicion of terrorism. They were taken eventually to Guantanamo, where they were held without trial as "enemy combatants."
The Uighurs were approved for release after a federal court ruled they were not enemy combatants, but they spent months in legal limbo as U.S. officials tried to find somewhere to send them. China calls them terrorists and has demanded they be returned. Uighur activists say they would face persecution and possibly death in China.
After protracted negotiations, the six agreed to accept Palau's offer of resettlement. Seven others are still at Guantanamo. One of them did not receive an invitation to resettle in Palau over concerns about his mental health.
Lawyers for the remaining Uighurs at Guantanamo say that among their clients' concerns about going to Palau is the lack of an existing Uighur population.

Palau is an archipelago of about 200 islands 800 miles (1,290 kilometers) east of the Philippines. It has just 20,000 residents, most of them of Micronesian origin with strong clan and family ties. The country is overwhelmingly Christian, with church pews filled on Sunday mornings. The community is close-knit, and, like other outsiders, the Uighurs are likely to find it hard to fit in.

"Some Palauans want (the Uighurs) to come here and some don't," says Johnson Salii, 41, a taxi driver. "Palauans are good people, so they will make friends with them."

Bangladeshis began arriving in Palau about a dozen years ago seeking steady work and a reprieve from the conflict and poverty plaguing their homeland. They mostly work as farmers, laborers and night watchmen, and they are at the bottom rung of Palauan society.

Most of them make the minimum wage for foreigners of $1.50 an hour — a dollar below the rate for Palauans. Like other immigrants in Palau — Palau hosts as many as 6,000 Filipinos — they don't mix much with the locals.

"The tourists come here for the natural beauty," said Harun Rashid, a 40-year-old gas station attendant who moved to Palau 13 years ago. "We are like tourists also, but we work here."

An influx of Bangladeshi immigrants in 2004 and 2005 more than doubled Palau's Muslim community, before the government moratorium on new arrivals.

"Language barriers and fraud among recruiters have resulted in social tensions and problems for the Palauan government, which does not have formal diplomatic ties with Bangladesh," the U.N. refugee agency said in a 2007 report. It did not elaborate, and there have been no reports of fighting between Palauans and migrants.

The United States is paying Palau a little less than $100,000 for each Uighur to cover housing, educating and food costs, Toribiong said.

Toribiong has stressed the Uighurs' resettlement is temporary, saying it could last "a few months or a few years."

Though they won't get Palauan passports, Toribiong says, the Uighurs will be free to leave Palau — if they can find a country that will take them.

WASHINGTON – Eleven of the nation's largest business groups are beginning a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign that says the health overhaul legislation in the House would raise taxes and worsen the economy without curbing medical expenses.
"Over $500 billion in crushing tax increases. But nothing to control rising health care costs," says the ad, which is to begin running Monday evening on national cable TV and in 19 states. It calls the legislation "a bill America can't afford to pay."
The commercial is the latest example of stepped-up opposition by large segments of the business community as the House and Senate prepare to vote on Democratic bills revamping the nation's health care system.
Calling themselves Employers for a Healthy Economy, the coalition of sponsoring groups ranges from the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small businesses, to organizations representing large corporations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The House plans to vote on the Democratic-written legislation this week. Senate Democratic leaders have not written a final version of their legislation.

MARRAKECH, Morocco – Trying to mute Arab criticism that the Obama administration had retreated from its tough stance on Israeli settlements, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday softened her praise for Israel's offer to restrain new housing in Palestinian areas.
While Israel was moving in the right direction in its offer to restrict but not stop the settlements, Clinton said, its offer "falls far short" of U.S. expectations.
Clinton said her earlier praise of Israel's offer, during a stop in Jerusalem, had been intended as "positive reinforcement." But her comment drew widespread criticism from Persian Gulf ministers who interpreted it as a U.S drawback on settlements, which have been the main obstacle to a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
In a sign of U.S. eagerness to calm Arab concerns, Clinton is extending her trip by one day to fly to Cairo to meet with President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday, her staff announced. She had been scheduled to return to Washington on Tuesday.
Clinton's comments in Jerusalem on Saturday appeared to reflect a realization within the Obama administration that Netanyahu's government will not accept a full-on settlement freeze and that a partial halt may be the best lesser option. Her appeal on Saturday seemed designed to make the Israeli position more palatable to the Palestinians and Arab states.
Clinton had traveled to the region only reluctantly, concerned her visit might be seen as a failure, according to several U.S. officials. She agreed to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders after pressure from the White House, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration thinking.
During a photo-taking session Monday with her Moroccan counterpart, Clinton was asked by a reporter about the Arab reaction, and she responded by reading from a written statement that appeared designed to counter the skepticism about the Obama administration's views on settlements.
"Successive American administrations of both parties have opposed Israel's settlement policy," she said. "That is absolutely a fact, and the Obama administration's position on settlements is clear, unequivocal and it has not changed. As the president has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements."
Clinton's tweaking of her earlier remarks appeared to satisfy at least some of the Morocco meeting attendees. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said Monday that "we have heard her say something completely different from that statement in line with previous statements, so we are happy that such a position was highlighted and brought back to the right line and right now we will see how things will go."
Malki added that "we completely appreciate the sincere efforts made by President Barack Obama and his team to take this issue as a top priority and to try to deal with it from day one."
In her recalibrated comments Monday, Clinton also called on the Israelis to do more to improve "movement and access" for Palestinians and on Israeli security arrangements.
She added, however, that Israel deserved praise for moving in the right direction.
"This offer falls far short of what we would characterize as our position or what our preference would be," she added. "But if it is acted upon, it will be an unprecedented restriction on settlements and would have a significant and meaningful effect on restraining their growth."
In her statement to reporters, Clinton also stressed that the Palestinian authorities deserved credit for what she called "unprecedented" steps to improve security in the West Bank and praised the Palestinians for progress in training their security forces.
On Monday evening, Clinton met with representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council, plus officials from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Morocco. Clinton also flew Monday to the south-central city of Ouarzazate for an audience with King Mohammed VI, then returned to Marrakech for talks with foreign ministers of several Persian Gulf nations.
Clinton was expected to meet separately with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who has rejected U.S. appeals for improved Arab relations with Israel as a way to help restart Middle East peace talks.
After taking office in January, Obama buoyed Palestinian hopes for progress toward establishing a Palestinian state with his outreach to the Muslim world and an initially tough stance urging a full freeze to all settlement construction.
But after making little headway with the Israelis in recent months, Clinton urged Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in a face-to-face meeting in Abu Dhabi on Saturday to renew talks, which broke down late last year, without conditions. Abbas said no, insisting that Israel first halt all settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — lands the Palestinians claim for a future state.

Then, at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Saturday in Jerusalem, Clinton praised Netanyahu's offer to curb some settlement construction, saying it was an unprecedented gesture.

That statement provoked a chiding by Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib. Jordan and Egypt also issued statements Sunday critical of the latest U.S. approach.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.