captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: good evening. i'm gwen ifill. pro-qaddafi forces launched air strikes on rebels, and the opposition fighters pushed west toward tripoli. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, we get the latest on the crisis in libya, and we assess what the u.s. and the world are doing now, and what comes next. >> ifill: plus, we examine what the unrest in the middle east is doing to gas prices here at home. >> woodruff: then, we have the first of two reports from guatemala. tonight, ray suarez looks at programs aimed at combating a long history of domestic violence.

>> suarez: as part of a nationwide effort to improve women's health these workshops are pushing back against a rape culture trying to lower the epidemic levels of violence against women and girls. >> ifill: and jeffrey brown talks to scott shane of the new york times about the obama administration's decision to resume military trials at the guantanamo bay prison. that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> breathe in. breathe out. as volatile as markets have been lately, having the security of a strong financial partner certainly lets you breathe easier. for more than 140 years, pacific life has helped millions of americans build a secure financial future. wouldn't it be nice to take a deep breath and relax? your financial professional can tell you about pacific life, the power to help you succeed.

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>> woodruff: libyan warplanes carried out repeated air strikes today, and fears of a rising humanitarian crisis grew. we have two reports from independent television news, starting with bill neely in misrata, a western town surrounded by forces loyal to libyan leader moammar qaddafi. >> reporter: colonel qaddafi's got a grip on western libya, but not here. and the town of misrata rebels fight street battles with his men. it's urban, intense and deadly. the rebels say dozens of have been killed. this one of qaddafi's tanks. his men fought their way in but were beaten back. the rebels celebrating, but they haven't won yet. qaddafi still sits confidently in power. here denouncing european interference in his country. "we should be partners," he says, "in the fight against al

qaeda. they're behind the violence here. they're terrorists fighting my men." not far from his capital, his men are bombarding the town of zawiyah for a fourth straight day using artillery and tanks in the most violent assaults so far. the protestors he's targeting are well armed with tanks they've captured. i asked them, are you from al qaeda, as qaddafi says? >> (laughing) well, i believe the english people don't believe al qaeda is here. it is in afghanistan. >> reporter: there have been dozens of i.v.f. illian casualties doctors accusing qaddafi of war crimes. >> this is the result of a massacre by the qaddafi regime. >> they start shooting at me. >> reporter: doctors say they've been fired on by qaddafi's men with two medical assistants killed. >> why? what did we do. >> reporter: a drive through

zawiyah shows how intensely qaddafi's forces are attacking, how desperate he is to end the resistance here. he says at most 100 people have been killed in the revolution so far. half of them his men. the opposition say in zawiyah and misrata alone more have been killed. >> ifill: and to the battles in the oil port of ras lanouf in the east. that's where opposition fighters regrouped a day after they were driven back by a heavy government counteroffensive. the reporter is lindsey hilsum. >> reporter: they think they've spotted one of the downed fighter jets. the bombs falls a few hundred meters away in the desert. colonel qaddafi's troops are over the horizon. for two days they've been fighting further west in, and the rebels have been pushed back. >> they start to shoot us. shoot us from everywhere. >> reporter: the rebels say

that colonel qaddafi's forces are bombing here at ras lanouf every few hours. that's why they're always ready with their anti-aircraft guns. some of them say they want to push up the road now, get to his hometown as quickly as they can. but others say no. better to consolidate and wait until they have better weapons and more forces. today we saw just how inexperienced many of the fighters are. this 21-year-old told me it was the first time he had ever held a weapon. some are highly educated and idealistic. why have you come here to fight? >> i'm no better than my brothers dying here trying to serve my country. believe me it's not what the country can do for you but what can you do for your country. >> reporter: but the casualties are mounting up. young men that want to fight but don't know how. armed with rocket propelled grenades against tanks and fighter bombers. the hospital at ras lanouf is

struggling to cope. the doctors working round the clock. today families who work in the oil installation were leaving. are you worried about qaddafi's forces coming? >> yes, yes. (gunfire) >> reporter: the rebels still hold ras lanouf, but for how long? >> woodruff: with the threat of a civil war mounting, there was renewed pressure today for the international community to staunch the bloodshed. british and french officials began drafting a u.n. security council resolution that would establish a no-fly zone over libya and task international air forces with preventing libyan jets from attacking rebels. it's a step that some of the rebel forces there have requested. and today foreign ministers from persian gulf nations said a no-fly zone should be imposed. but the obama administration and its military advisors have

so far resisted that request. and in treaties from members of congress for intervention. nevertheless earlier today the president said there were ongoing talks over an armd response. >> we've got nato, as we speak, consulting in brussels around a wide range of potential options. including potential military options. in response to the vileen... violence that continues to take place inside of libya. >> woodruff: defense secretary robert gates who has warned against a third u.s. intervention in a muslim nation has publicly said imposing a no fly zone amounts to an act of war. gates was asked today during an an unannounced visit to afghanistan about the potential for a military response in libya. >> i think we will have to monitor the situation very closely. we will do whatever the president directs us to do. but i think at this point there is a sense that any

action should be the result of an international sanction before anything is done. >> woodruff: russian foreign minister, however, said today his nation would oppose any military intervention. he told a state news agency the libyans have to solve their problems by themselves. president obama announced a $15 million increase in humanitarian assistance today to augment the international effort already underway. for more on the u.s. and international response to the libyan fighting, we go to two long-time journalists with experience covering the region. maurizio molinari is the u.s. correspondent for the italian newspaper "la stampa." and david ignatius is a columnist for the "washington post." he recently returned from a reporting trip in the middle east. thank you both for being here. maurizio molinari i'm going to

start with you. there seemed to be a flurry of activity today. the british and the french looking at putting resolution together. what's going on there? >> the u.s. and the major european powers, u.k., france, spain, italy and germany, reached an agreement on the fact that qaddafi has to go. what the president said in the east room last week, tonight is the same position of all the major european countries. from this starting point they are working at the u.n. to have a resolution to authorize, legitimize an intervention. it's the same military intervention that this morning the secretary general of nato spoke about. but the problem is the frame. the international frame. both the u.s. and europe in this moment would like this intervention, whatever it will be, in the frame of an alliance or an agreement with african countries. >> woodruff: right now there

isn't that agreement. >> there isn't. >> woodruff: who is holding it up? >> we have to look at the key partner in this game is the general secretary of the arab league. last week he spoke in favor of the no fly zone implemented by the arab countries. today he changed his position. he said i'm against any military intervention, but today the gulf countries spoke together from the gulf region and said we are in favor of an international action to defend the libyan population. so there is a debate ongoing inside the arab league. i think that this is the key. this is also what the white house and the european capital are watching at this moment. >> woodruff: david ignatius, what's your read on this? are they getting closer to an agreement that would lead to military action? >> i don't see it yet. each key player is is looking over his shoulder to another player. the nato secretary general said today that nato military action could come only if

there was a u.n. resolution of support for it. and the u.n. seems to be blocked because of russian opposition. the u.s. is watching all of this with concern but i think president obama's instinct is to be very careful about military intervention. i would guess that his own view is close to that of secretary gates who spoke in the tape earlier about all the reasons to be reluctant. so for the moment we had these strong statements, qaddafi must go. his behavior is unacceptable. this must stop but no sign of a commitment on any side that i can see to take military action from outside. >> woodruff: is that how you're reading it, maurizio molinari, that it's one looking over the shoulder at the other one, waiting to see what they say next? >> there are two ways to proceed. the first one is for the u.n. and the second one is without.

in this moment, the french and the british, they have the lead to the u.n. they are trying to do this new resolution. they're also trying to negotiate with the russians and the chinese. the americans are taking the situation in a way that they also may proceed in a different way. so it means without the u.n. resolution as far as we understand. but, of course, the situation is still open. >> woodruff: do i understand you to say that is u.s. is proceeding as if it might go on its own. >> or a coalition of the willing but without formal solution. >> woodruff: we're still a ways away, david. >> what i was hearing from the white house today was first be careful about focusing all your attention on the no fly zone. no fly zone is difficult to implement. our nato ambassador said today

that there's a sign that despite today's bombing near ras lanouf there's been a decrease in libyan air activity. in other words, libyan fighter jets aren't the biggest problem. and the signals that i'm hearing from the white house are there's a range of options. many of them not so visible as sending an air cover up over libya that could significantly reduce the ability of qaddafi's forces to communicate, to interact. i mean you can take down a command-and-control system as we saw in the wars against iraq using moted earn technology in a way that makes it very difficult for qaddafi or anyone to conduct operations. >> woodruff: let's talk about what that might be but very quickly what is going on right now, david, between the u.s. and other countries and this opposition inside libya? >> judy, that's one of the most interesting questions. the opposition that has risen up against qaddafi has won

cheers around the arab world and around the whole world. brave people rising up against a dictator who seems so irrational but we know very little about them. one u.s. analyst i talked to said that this is a country where you have effectively no political parties, no strong military. all the pieces that you look for in an opposition that you could grab hold of don't really exist here. >> woodruff: trying to get to know who they are and who to trust, is that part of what's going on? >> and which tribes are most important because this is the key. as far as we understand the british are trying to contact these tribes especially in the eastern part of the country. >> woodruff: we know that the british sent in a helicopter intending to help but they ended up being... it was.... >> we really don't know what's going on on the ground but it's clear that the u.k. took the initiative in contacting these tribes among the europeans while the french are taking the lead the u.n..

>> woodruff: just in the minute we have left we know there are stepped-up reconnaisance.... >> air surveillance now on a 24/7 basis. >> woodruff: but so far no discussion yet of getting arms or advisors in to the opposition. >> my understanding, judy, is that the u.s. and our allies are just trying to make contact with these rebel opposition groups. who are you? what do you need? how can we help? just to set up lines of communication. that's what this british team that flew in covertly and got caught is doing. i'm sure there are many other teams doing the same thing. >> woodruff: before they can take any of these other steps we were discussing a minute ago, maurizio molinari, they have to establish those contacts. >> exactly. who they are, what they are asking. when i say ask i mean also the egyptians. they are close. also the egyptians may play a role. >> woodruff: even in their unsettled state. >> but the military are still in the country at this moment. >> woodruff: the egyptian

military. we will continue to keep an eye a it. we thank you both for being with us tonight. >> ifill: coming >> ifill: coming up, how the crisis in libya has affected the price of oil; violence against women in guatemala; and military trials for guantanamo detainees. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: demonstrations flared in bahrain today as hundreds of members of the shiite muslim majority protested outside the u.s. embassy. they appealed to the u.s. to support their campaign for more political freedom. to the south in yemen, president ali abdullah saleh called for a national conference to help calm the unrest in his nation. but the opposition insisted no such talks will take place until saleh agrees to step down. defense secretary gates told afghans today the u.s. is not interested in keeping bases there permanently. during his unannounced visit, gates met with afghan president hamid karzai and discussed the u.s. troop drawdown, set to start this july. and by 2014, the u.s. expects afghans to be responsible for their own security.

at a news conference in kabul, gates also apologized for a nato air strike that accidentally killed afghan children last week. >> i'd like to begin by joining general petraeus in offering my personal apology for the accidental killing of nine afghan boys by coalition forces last week. this breaks our heart. not only is their loss a tragedy for their families, it is a setback for our relationship with the afghan people whose security is our chief concern. >> sreenivasan: president karzai accepted the apology, but pleaded with the u.s. to avoid similar attacks in the future. >> we the afghan people are allies with the rest of the world in the war on terror. we are victims in the war on terror. for us then to continue to suffer civilian casualties is something that we face during

this time. it becomes a major issue of grief and disappointment. >> sreenivasan: the growing civilian casualties drew hundreds of protesters into the streets of central kabul yesterday. they carried photos of those killed in the most recent air strikes, and burned an effigy of president obama. clashes in ivory coast spread and intensified today. three people were killed and 30 wounded in a rebel attack on a village outside abidjan on the coast. meanwhile, on the border with liberia, rebels also seized control of a 30-mile corridor. it's all a part of a political standoff between incumbent president laurent gbagbo and alassane ouattara, who won last november's election. u.n. officials announced over the weekend they are sending an additional 2,000 peacekeepers to reinforce the 8,000 already on the ground. the supreme court ruled today that a man on death row in texas could seek new d.n.a. testing for his case. hank skinner wants to test crime

scene evidence that he believes will exonerate him of a triple murder in 1993. in a 6-3 ruling, justices found that prisoners can use a federal civil rights law to seek genetic testing that was not performed before they were convicted. but the decision did not rule on the merits of skinner's care, merely on a narrow procedural point. republican senator john ensign of nevada will not run for reelection when his current term expires. he made the announcement in las vegas, and said he was putting his family ahead of his career. in 2009, ensign admitted he had an extramarital affair with a former campaign staffer, and helped her husband get lobbying work. but ensign said a senate ethics committee investigation into his actions did not factor into his decision to retire. stocks fell on wall street and around the world on fears the unrest in libya could drive oil prices even higher. on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average lost 80 points to close at 12,090. the nasdaq fell 39 points to close at 2745. those are some of the day's major stories.

now, back to gwen. >> ifill: we take a closer look as those skyrocketing energy prices. crude oil futures have climbed to nearly $106 a barrel, and gas prices have jumped 14 cents in just the last week, to a national average of $3.50 a gallon. obama administration officials say they won't rule out relieving that upward pressure by tapping into the strategic petroleum reserve, an emergency stockpile of 727 million barrels of oil in texas and louisiana. white house spokesman jay carney told reporters today it would take more than the skyrocketing cost of fuel to reach that decision. >> i wouldn't look to a price threshold. the issue here is disruption. is there a major disruption in the flow of oil? that's obviously a factor. but i think the point that we want to make is that we're very cognizant of the fact that americans are experiencing a sharp rise in

prices at the gas pump. that affects them. and their family budgets. and we are monitoring that very closely. >> ifill: for more on all this, we turn to daniel weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the center for american progress. and lisa margonelli, author of "oil on the brain: oil's long strange trip to your tank," and director of the energy policy initiative at the new america foundation. welcome to you both. daniel weiss, explain for us as concisely and clearly as you can, why we have seen the prices go up so steeply so quickly and whether it has anything to do with what's happening in libya. >> absolutely it has to do with the instability in libya and the middle east. only a small portion, maybe about half of libya's oil production has been disrupted which is about 1% of total world oil production. what the market is worried about is that this is not going to be the end and that there will be unrest in other

oil-producing countries like bahrain and particularly saudi arabia. so some of these high prices are based on speculation, fear that prices will go higher still. that's why we believe that when price gets a little bit higher and gasoline prices get a little bit higher, the president needs to act to pop that speculative bubble by putting oil into the market from our emergency reserves. >> ifill: yet we just heard that the white house, they're making the distinction between taking some sort of government intervention because of price hikes and taking it because of disruption. explain what the distinction is. what is disruption? >> well, disruption would be that we actually don't have a flow of oil coming. right now i think there's only a cut of about a million barrels of oil a day. and strategic petroleum reserve is really thought of as... we try to make it not a political tool. it is very politicized but we try to use it just to put oil in the market to meet the

needs. rather than to work on prices. on the other hand obviously talking about releasing oil will possibly lower prices. just the talk. >> ifill: you've actually seen the spr, kind of like going to fort knox. >> absolutely. >> ifill: is it there for moments like this or is it not? >> well, i think that's a big ideological controversy in the u.s. we built it to combat the 1973 oil embargo. in those days we used to... well, saudi arabia, for example, would load crude on to a tanker and it would have an address label on where it was going in the u.s. with a price that had been determined a year or so in advance. these days all oil trades in international markets a tanker can change hands 300 times so in the course of its sailing towards wherever it's going. so these days that kind of supply crunch is unlikely. and so the s.p.r. was built

like a fort knox, as you say. it's a bunch of fields down in the gulf of mexico and underneath our big salt deposits and mined out of the salt deposits are huge, huge holding tanks for oil. and the idea was that we would put that oil back on the market as sort of our own oil weapon. what's happened though is that there's no shortages of oil now. there's just high prices. so the big question in american politics is, do we use that to fight high prices or do we use it only for shortages? and the result has been the way we've sort of thrashed it out is we only use it for weather disruptions. we don't use it for political issues. >> ifill: we've seen it, for instance, used after katrina. we did see it used during the first gulf war. do you think that's why it's there. >> it's important to note that it was done in advance of the first gulf war under the first president bush in anticipation

that there might be supply disruptions which didn't really occur. you have to remember the republican congress under newt gingrich sold oil from our strategic reserve to reduce the deficit. george w. bush used it post katrina to ensure a steady supply after there were some refineries disrupted. here's the problem. every $10 increase in the price of oil will reduce our economic growth by 10%. our economy right now is... our economic recovery is very fragile. the shoots are coming up but they haven't yet turned into flower. having high oil prices could smother that growth. in addition american families are already paying a lot more for oil than they did just a year ago yet income has staggered. so we've got to make sure that our prices reach a certain threshold that we protect our recovery and protect middle and low income families by taking a small amount of oil that will still leave 9% of it left in there, sell it and use that money to reduce oil use

in other ways which will also help bring the price down. >> ifill: you don't necessarily agree that the spr, releasing oil from that is the way to go. lisa, are there other options to bring down this pressure, this upward pressure on oil prices? >> well, i think one thing would be to get... it would be very important to get the europeans and asian strategic reserves also involved in the action. but the other thing i think, and the most important thing is that american families are paying with enormous amounts of money for gasoline. i talked to someone in maine last week who had three jobs between he and his wife. one job alone was going to pay for the cost of their cars and their fuel. that's enormous. that's just sapping our economy and sapping their future. and so we need to have ways for people to get to work. we need to have ways for the u.s. economy to work with less oil. you know, the strategic petroleum reserve addresses supply. we need to be able to reduce demand in a hurry. in order to do that we need to have plans in place. we need a long-term strategic

plan to reduce our dependence upon oil overall. as well as the sort of political situation in the middle east. we need to have kind of immediate plans forgetting people to work and keeping them working when prices go up to possibly $4 a gallon. >> ifill: but some would argue, mr. wyss, that this idea of reducing consumption is also not going to drive the pressure down enough. so are there other things? you mentioned putting an end to oil speculation. are there other options? or is this just a cycle? it feels like i've had this conversation every few years? is this a cycle we have to put up with? >> as long as we're so dependent on foreign oil we will, which is why the long-term steps that the obama administration has taken to have more efficient fuel economy standards that start this fall is critical. there's a couple other things we can do to reduce oil prices right now. first, we need to have the police on the beat who police these trades make sure that they oversee it so there

aren't manipulators in the market trying to make a quick killing. unfortunately the republican budget would cut the agency that polices these trades by one-third. we need more cops on the beat not fewer. second, if we invest in transit right now assisting local transit systems to get more people to take transit, that will reduce oil some. third, we need to increase incentives for people to buy electric vehicles and extremely high efficiency cars. both those things are going to take money which is why if you sold oil from the reserve for a little bit you could make at least $3 billion and invest in both transit and electric vehicles. that would reduce oil use ight away. >> ifill: lisa margonelli, how realistic is it? it might reduce oil use. does it reduce oil prices? >> i don't think it will reduce oil prices. i think we need kind of actually a worldwide response to reduce demand. the other thing is that, you know, reducing prices may not be possible in this case.

what we're talking about and the reason everyone is so scared the that maybe we're not just talking about one million barrels of oil a day coming off the market in libya. maybe we're talking about something much larger in the middle east. in that case we're in for something kind of long term that is really going to cause us to completely reassess our prioritys in the area. >> ifill: thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> suarez: in a modest now, to the grim story of violence against women in the central american nation of guatemala. this woman holds tight to the memory of her daughter. pictures of 15-year-old maria at her 15th birthday celebration. taken shortly before her murder in 2001 are a daily

reminder of a life cut short. >> maria was a happy girl. very dynamic. a high school queen who dreamed of becoming an air force pilot. >> suarez: maria worked part time at a clothing boutique where a known drug trafficker came in one day to shop. he met the teen and insisted she become his girlfriend. >> he had money and belonged to the cartel. he believed that all women should pay attention to him, but my daughter refused. >> suarez: one evening the girl left work to find three cars waiting outside the shop. >> she was forced into a car and kidnapped. co-workers saw her mouth was covered. i was watching the news, and they were saying a woman had been found face down dead. she had maria's clothes and i

kept saying, no. but the camera focused on her feet. it was her. maria. >> suarez: stories like those have become commonplace in guatemala. organized gangs have moved in. (gunfire) challenge and corrupted the justice system. guatemala has become an epicenter of violence in central america. violence against women in particular has hit record levels. amnesty international reports 717 women were killed in 2009. of those, many had been raped and mutilated. according to the united nations nearly 45% of guatemalan women have suffered some kind of violence in their lifetimes. and abuses that don't end in death are underreported. the country has a long history of brutality toward women during a long and bloody civil

war rape was often used as a weapon. and cultural biases that tilt power to men have only compounded the problem. >> violence against women andendorer-based violence is one of the biggest problems of our country. >> suarez: even guatemala's top law enforcer, the attorney general, admits most crimes against women are unpunished. >> the justice system hasn't given violence cases the importance they deserve. with violence against women the problem is even worse. we live in a culture of sexist behavior. violence against women is either not seen or women are considered somehow responsible, somehow guilty. >> suarez: horrific cases like those of maria show how gangs often torture young girls with the goal of scaring entire neighborhoods. police and even the justice system. >> her face was destroyed.

she had a rope around her neck. they took off nails, a piece of ear, her legs were broken. these are very powerful men that use women as their objects. if women no longer want to be in that situation, if they want to leave they are killed. women are used as instruments to threaten their adversaries. if they don't do what i want, i'll kill your wife, your daughter, your mother. >> suarez: pushing back against a society that tolerates brutality a group of guatemalan girls came together at a workshop dedicated to gender violence. the session was part of a larger program run by an international ngo, the population council. called opening opportunities, the program is intended to give voice to the most marginalized of gaut man and populations, indigenous girls. jennifer oversees the latin american programs for the

population council. >> it's a history of political and social violence, a history of marginalization and discrimination. a very patriarchal history where girls and women have been marginalized and oppressed. on top of that, you have the rise of activities related to drug trafficking and organized crime. so all of these layers of violence have created a situation that place girls and women at very high risk. >> suarez: the girls here have traveled great distances. each is expected to bring back what they've learned to their communities. >> change starts locally. i think that these girls are in their communities demonstrating desire for their own lives to be different from the lives of their mothers and their grandmothers. that's really creating significant change in these communities. >> suarez: but changing attitudes in small, isolated rural communities, has its challenges. this person runs the council in guatemala. >> the challenge is to engage

the community to see its face as a recognizable face, their sisters and mothers and daughters in every sing victim. >> suarez: on a road in the rural heartland a team is walking from door to door combatting violence against women and girls using a combination of 21st century technology and good old fashioned community organizing. >> we walk door to door, knock on people's houses and ask if there are girls who we can invite to join the club. with the g.p.s. we put a point in every household that has girls between the ages of 8 and 17. >> suarez: girls are interviewed about threats they encounter in their villages. >> we are able to map public spaces considered safe spaces. we identify where girls may be at risk to be sexually assaulted or places where it just unsafe to go.

>> suarez: age is critical here. often when girls hit puberty, fathers order them to stay home to protect them from sexual attacks they mighten counter walking to and from school. and that handicaps their future. they're required to do chores instead. but a member of the local community council and the local mayors shows families influential men are ready to stand up to protect women and girls. this person says engaging households, particularly fathers, is key. >> we talk about the opportunities and the positive things that can come from allowing the girls to go to school, to learn new things. but you also make them a little afraid. i think part of the discussion is what will happen when it is your daughter or your sister or our mother? and then by putting familiar faces to the victims i think the reflection and the discussion becomes more

honest. they real it will happen to them unless they do something about it. >> suarez: the groups meet weekly for drills about self-esteem, education, and health. every year new peer leaders are identified and mentored. this person was an intern for the girls' network and now serves as a mentor. she led a group of more than 300 girls in santa cruz in northern guatemala. and she stood up for one young girl named maria who saw her father beating her mother. >> the other children saw how their mother was being choked by their father. he used ropes. but when one of the boys tried to stop it, the father beat him. >> we knew my mother was very afraid of my father. afraid when he would come back from work.

>> suarez: last november after years of abuse, maria's mother died. maria stood up to her father and insisted she and her siblings be removed from his care. >> i want my brothers and sisters to be treated well. and i want to go to school. >> suarez: for now maria is back in school. she and her siblings are safe from their father. it's cases like these that mark progress for leaders like colon. >> every person counts. every time you have a father realize this is important, every time you see a community leader tell you that he got engaged in solving a dispute or stopped something from happening and every time you hear a girl say she feels safer, it's a gain. we focus on each individual case. and then we try not to see all the work that's ahead.

>> suarez: that's the only way you can go on. >> that's the only way you can go on is day by day. >> suarez: the attorney general echos that sentiment. >> change can't occur immediately. 20 to 50 years of impunity can't be changed from one day to the next but we have begun. >> suarez: and while admitting the change is slow, 57,000 cases of abuse were reported in 2010, a sharp increase in reporting from previous years. >> woodruff: ray's n >> woodruff: ray's next report examines efforts to teach guatemalan women about family planning. there's much more on our web site, including a slide show of images of daily life in guatemala, ray's reporter's notebook, and a timeline showing key moments in the country's history. >> ifill: this is pledge week on public television. we'll be back shortly with an update on the administration's plan to restart trials at guantanamo bay. this break allows your public television station to ask for

>> ifill: finally tonight, the obama administration reverses course on trials for suspected terrorists. jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: closing down guantanamo was a top priority for the new obama administration two years ago. but it ran into repeated opposition over holding or trying terror suspects in the u.s. reversing it today, the president issued an order that calls for resuming trials at guantanamo. here to tell us about is scott shane of the "new york times."

scott, was this expected? did the white house feel it had no choice really given the strong opposition? >> this has been speculated about in news reports. so it wasn't a complete surprise. since congress is essentially banned the administration from bringing any of these 172 detainees left at guantanamo to the united states for trial, the administration really had no choice but to... if it wanted to have trials to renew military commissions down at the base in cuba. >> brown: now what's the immediate impact? i understand there are 172 prisoners still held there. is there any sense of when trials would resume and who might be first? >> there's no precise idea. they didn't say who would be first. specifically they wouldn't say what will happen to khalid sheik mohammed who is of course the chief planner of the 9/11 attacks. the obama administration had

wanted to bring him and his 9/11 co-defendants to the united states in new york actually for regular civilian criminal trial. but new york protested. and now they cannot be brought to the u.s. it's unclear whether they will be just be held there or will go for military commissions. there is another man named nashiri who is the accuseed plotter of the attack on the u.s.s. coal, the destroyer attacked in yemen in 2000. he is queued up for military commission and is likely to be one of the first people to go before military commission now that they're starting up again. >> brown: the president at the same time reaffirmed his desire to try terror suspects in federal courts, right? i mean, he's resuming the trials at guantanamo but he's still making his own position as clear as we can. >> that's right. the vast majority of terrorists who have been convicted since 9/11 have been

in federal courts. i believe there are six convictions now in the military commission versus, you know, a couple hundred in federal courts. but at least for the moment, the 172 people in guantanamo will stay there. none of those guys will be available for federal trial. >> brown: this order also outlines some procedures for reviews of prisoners who are held without charge or trial to be reviewed at least every four years. right? tell us about that. >> yes, i believe that each one has to get... each detain ee has to get a review within a year of today's order. then there has to be a review every three years after that. it's by a group of... a panel made up not only of folks from the defense department but representatives from state and justice and other departments. you know, in general i'd say that civil lib effortees

advocates who have been very critical of guantanamo say at the procedural level this is an improvement compared to just letting people sit there forever without trial. but they still certainly object to the use of military commissions as opposed to civilian trials and to the ongoing use of guantanamo which of course president obama had pledged to close in his first year in office. >> brown: there was always these questions about these trials beforehand. what evidence was admissible, et cetera. anything new on what we might see processwise once these trials do resume? >> there were some changes made in the procedures for military commissions by congress in 2009. and the combination of that with these periodic reviews that are required by the new executive order, i think in general legal authorities say that they've moved in the direction of an ordinary

criminal trial even if they're not all the way there. >> brown: as you said, i think, in this order the president reiterates his commitment to closing guantanamo. once again. but this certainly makes it seem as though that day is further away than ever, right? >> well that's right. part of the problem is that the largest remaining group of detainees is from yemen. of course yemen is in turmoil. they're afraid to send anyone back there. many countries including countries that have been very c.i.t. al gaun man owe have refused to take any of these detainees or only taken tiny numbers. >> brown: he's already guesting push back from civil liberties group and some allies. senator leahy saying this is not good for civil liberties. >> that's right. i mean i think people see it as a mixed bag. they're still studying it but the under lying reality is that guantanamo stays open, that some of the people there will be held indefinitely

without trial. and others will face military commissions which even with the improvement some civil libertarians don't like. >> brown: scott shane of the "new york times". thanks very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. pro-qaddafi forces launched air strikes on rebels in libya, and the opposition fighters pushed west toward tripoli. and crude oil futures reached nearly $106 a barrel, prompting u.s. officials to consider tapping the strategic petroleum reserve. and before we go, an update on a story we aired recently about a 20-year-old police chief in a small mexican town on the u.s. border. marisol valles garcia was fired for apparently abandoning her post after receiving death threats. she reportedly went to the united states for personal matters, and did not return. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll have the latest on the fighting in libya. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening.

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