With months left in office, US President Barack Obama said Thursday he was not ready to give up on an eight-year-old promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. "I am not ready to concede that it may still remain open, because we're still working diligently to continue to shrink the population," Obama said at a press conference in Laos. Obama urgently wants to close the facility before he leaves office at the start of next year but has been continually thwarted by Republican lawmakers.
