First, do no harm. This tenet of medicine applies equally to psychologists, yet they are increasingly implicated in abusive interrogations, dare we say torture, at U.S. military detention facilities like Guantanamo. While the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association both have passed resolutions prohibiting members from participating in interrogations, the American Psychological Association refuses to, despite the outrage of many of its members.

Even the army surgeon general's report SAID IT WAS THE ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGISTS TO TELL INTERROGATORS WHEN TO INCREASE THE PRESSURE, HOW TO EXPLOIT VULNERABILITIES. So I think we really do have to end this as a nation, not just as professional associations. ... We're talking about ... ending complicity in torture by a profession that has an enormous amount to contribute to the good of humanity and should not be involved in the destruction of people.

According to an article published on the New York Times last week, the new interrogation tactics are expected to prohibit water-boarding, the most used method by U.S. interrogators despite its cruelty. However, the so-called "enhanced interrogation" methods would allow prolonged stress positions, exposure to harsh elements as well as general mental and physical torture; methods that "go beyond those allowed in the military by the Army Field Manual," according to the Times.

Apparently President Bush was forced to give orders for the new interrogation methods following critics' fears over the use of such tactics and whether they are the best means to obtain a full and reliable intelligence debriefing of a detainee.

The "enhanced interrogation" methods follow the passage of the Military Commission Act of 2006, which allowed indefinite detention of prisoners and sanctioned military commissions. It also modified the War Crimes Act and gave the president explicit authority to interpret the Geneva Conventions. This was done to protect U.S. officials from prosecution and pave the way for a presidential directive that would authorize the CIA to carry out methods that amount to violations of Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions.

In experiments that entailed infecting monkeys, the researchers have shown the virus sends the immune systems into overdrive, flooding the lungs with fluids that drown its victims. The scientists say this helps explain why so many healthy young adults died as the 1918 flu pandemic swept the world killing up to 50 million - more people than died in the First World War.

The research is also expected to provide tips to halt future pandemics and protect front-line workers. "Really that's what this is all about," says Michael Katze of the University of Washington in Seattle, a member of the international team that describes the monkey experiments in the journal Nature today.

The insect-borne bluetongue virus has re-emerged in Germany, according to the UK's Institute for Animal Health. The midges carrying the virus survived a mild winter, increasing the chance of it hitting the UK, the institute says.

The viral infection can affect goats, deer and cattle, but does not pose a risk to human health. An outbreak would damage the beef and lamb industries. Once infected, up to 70% of a flock of sheep can die from the virus. Animals with the disease contract a fever that may last for several days, have mucous lining their mouth, nose and eyes, and suffer from excessive salivation and frothing.

The environment department, Defra, says there have been more than 2,000 cases of the virus, known as BTV-8, in the EU since mid-2006.

Both sides said Gaza had descended into civil war. Dozens have been killed since Monday and battles over security positions spread to central Gaza early Wednesday. Gunmen fought for control of high-rise buildings in Gaza City, and Hamas said it seized and bulldozed a key Fatah outpost that controls Gaza's main north-south road.

Tuesday's battles marked a turning point, with Hamas moving systematically to seize Fatah positions in what some in the Islamic militant group said would be a decisive phase in the yearlong power struggle. The confrontations became increasingly brutal in recent days, with some killed execution-style in the streets, others in hospital shootouts or thrown off rooftops.

The conflict escalated further when the Fatah central committee decided to suspend the activities of its ministers in the government it shares with Hamas. In an emergency meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Fatah decided on a full withdrawal if the fighting doesn't stop, said government spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh.

President Mahmoud Abbas accused the Islamic militants of Hamas of trying to stage a coup.

The definition of GM-free food was relaxed last night as European ministers decided to allow a greater proportion of genetically-modified material into products that could still be labelled "GM free".

EU agriculture ministers decided that food could include up to 0.9 per cent of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) instead of the 0.1 per cent currently used as the gold standard by leading supermarkets. Ministers also agreed a Europe-wide system for labelling foods as organic so long as they contained at least 95 per cent organically-produced material - the same threshold already in use in Britain.

The 0.1 per cent figure for GMOs represents the lowest trace detectable and green campaigners believe that it forces producers to do all they can to keep their food "pure".

Although it will remain prohibited to use GMOs knowingly in organic farming, adopting a 0.9 per cent threshold for labelling food "GM free" will encourage lower standards in keeping produce truly organic, they argued.

Mariann Fischer Boel, the EU Agriculture Commissioner, said that it would be too costly for farmers to achieve higher purity in their organic produce.

Every member state will also be granted access to millions of fingerprints, as well as vehicle and driver registrations. A two-year agreement on cross-border co- operation between seven EU countries now becomes law involving all 27 nations.

The Tories said the so-called "Prum Convention" was a "sell-out", as many of the controversial proposals were salvaged from the wreckage of the EU constitution. They added that the deal - signed by Home Office Minister Joan Ryan in Luxembourg - also paves the way for police from different EU states to set-up joint patrols. London MEP Syed Kamall said: "WE ARE SLEEPWALKING INTO A BIG BROTHER EUROPE WHILE OUR GOVERNMENT STANDS IDLY BY."

Britain receives by far the worst deal of the member states. More than 4.2million people are contained on our database, or 7 per cent of the population. It includes a million innocent people, who were arrested but never charged and 100,000 children. The database is 50 times the size of its French equivalent. In Austria, less than 1 per cent of the population is included.

Tory European Parliament spokesman Philip Bradbourn said that much of what had been agreed was originally part of the EU constitution. He added: "Mr Blair has started the constitution sell-out today. Now everyone's personal details can be sent to police throughout Europe because Britain did not wield the veto.
"This Prum treaty fundamentally goes against the rules of data protection and civil liberties that we have come to expect in Europe."

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis added: "This is a serious development which we strongly object to. It is typical of incompetent Home Office Ministers to give away powers like this without thinking through the consequences." The Luxembourg meeting also rubber-stamped a deal to set-up a common database for visa applicants' pictures and fingerprints.

Ian Wilmut, who made history when he cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996, is now calling on scientists to inject human DNA into animal egg cells as a workaround to ethical and legal roadblocks. His commentary appears in Nature Reports Stem Cells, an online stem cell resource created by the journal Nature.

Wilmut proposes that scientists take a DNA-packed nucleus from a diseased person's cell, then slip it into an animal egg from which the nucleus has been removed. About one times out of eight, a clump of human embryonic stem cells should grow. Once the clump is large enough, medical researchers could test experimental drugs on the cells without destroying a single human embryo.

Kevin Eggan, an embryonic stem cell researcher at Harvard University, said that Wilmut is onto something important. "I think that this is critical set of experiments that should go forward," he told LiveScience. The proposed process, Wilmut wrote, would be an improvement over the current approach testing experimental drugs on mice.

These experiments can take years to complete. Embryonic stem cells, however, need only a few days to grow up to a drug-testable point. "In a single year," he wrote, "thousands of compounds" could be screened in the same time and at the same cost it takes to test a "handful" of drugs with mice experiments.

Although the ethical issue is not completely resolved, as human tissue would be growing in an animal egg, Wilmut is confident about the proposed procedure's advantages. "Although barriers to producing embryos and embryonic stem cells (with this process) could be large," Wilmut wrote, "so too are the lessons that could be learned."

For some time now economists have been engaged in the mother of all debates: whether the US dollar would collapse by as much as 40% when compared to other currencies or whether there would be an orderly devaluation, that is, a gradual revaluation of other currencies vis-à-vis the US dollar. IN EFFECT, THE QUESTION THAT IS CONFRONTING US IS NOT "WHETHER" BUT "WHEN" AND BY "HOW MUCH."

This global imbalance can be understood in economic terms by simply examining the massive size of America's twin deficits, trade and budgetary. Put modestly, AMERICANS HAVE BEEN LIVING WAY BEYOND THEIR MEANS, CONSUMING MUCH MORE THAN WHAT THEY COULD POSSIBLY AFFORD AND, IN THE PROCESS, BORROWING FAR BEYOND THEIR CAPACITY FOR TOO LONG. By mid-May 2007, the US National Debt stood at approximately at mind-boggling $8.85 trillion

WHAT IS BIZARRE TO NOTE HERE IS THAT DESPITE THE FACT THAT CRUDE IS PRODUCED MAINLY IN THE MIDDLE EAST; OFFICIALLY IT CAN BE PURCHASED IN DOLLAR TERMS FROM ONE OF THE TWO OIL EXCHANGES SITUATED IN NEW YORK AND LONDON. Obviously, should Iran carry out the threat to commence oil trade in Euros or better still an oil exchange, the US dollar would come under tremendous pressure.

THE US DOLLAR IS AKIN TO THE PROMISSORY NOTE OF A DEFUNCT FINANCE COMPANY. It is common knowledge that a currency, when not backed by anything precious is just a piece of paper. When US abandoned the Gold Standard in early 70s, countries habituated by then to the US dollar under the Bretton Woods arrangement continued to accept the US dollar as an international currency without demur as the world was not prepared for any other alternative. Else, the global economy would have collapsed by 1971.

But the diplomatic silence did not solve the problem. It merely postponed it and it has come back to haunt us.
While every central banker is conscious of this fact and thereby seeks to postpone the inevitable while nervously looking for his counterpart in any other country to break ranks and thereby trigger the collapse.

Surely, the emperor is without any clothes. There are only two possibilities from here on: EITHER WE ARE WITNESS A GLOBAL MELTDOWN OF THE US DOLLAR, OR ALLOW CONTROLLED US DOLLAR DEVALUATION.

If it is a global meltdown the global economy is doomed, if is an orderly devaluation, it is damned.

In its annual report on military forces around the globe, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute also said the rising number of nations with nuclear weapons is raising the risk such arms could be used. "THE CONCERN IS THAT COUNTRIES ARE STARTING TO SEE THESE WEAPONS AS USEABLE, WHEREAS DURING THE COLD WAR THEY WERE SEEN AS A DETERRENT," said Ian Anthony, a nuclear expert at the institute. The US, Russia, China, France, Britain, Pakistan and India are known to have nuclear weapons, while Israel is thought by most experts to have them.

The report estimated those nations had 11,530 warheads available for delivery by missile or aircraft at the start of 2007, with Russia and the United States accounting for more than 90 percent - 5,614 in Russia and 5,045 in US. Both countries are reducing their stockpiles as part of bilateral treaties, but are developing new weapons as they modernize their forces. Britain and France also plan to deploy new nuclear weapons, the institute said.

India, Pakistan and Israel each have dozens of warheads, but their stockpiles are believed to be only partly deployed, the institute said. "India and Pakistan are both thought to be expanding their nuclear strike capabilities, while Israel seems to be waiting to see how the situation in Iran develops," it said.

The United States remained the world's biggest military spender last year, devoting about $529 billion to its military forces,the report said. US military spending grew from $505 billion in 2005 mainly because of the "costly military operations" in Iraq and Afghanistan, SIPRI said. "This massive increase in US military spending has been one of the factors contributing to the deterioration of the US economy since 2001," it said.

The US was followed by Britain and France in military spending. Russia, which spent $34.7 billion on arms, has used its energy wealth to revive national pride, to restore its influence "in surrounding countries and to maximize its geopolitical power," SIPRI said.

He said a fresh effort was needed to contain the current violence, or energetic diplomacy to try to bring peace."The picture which emerges is very dark, and apparently getting darker," he said. "So there are reasons for real concerns in the international community."

Roed-Larsen, the current UN envoy for Lebanon-Syria issues who for many years was the top UN Mideast envoy, said "the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East has changed fundamentally over a few years".

"A few years ago, as it had been over many, many decades, the centre of gravity for all the conflicts were the Israeli-Arab conflicts," he said. "Now, there seems to be four epicentres of conflict in the region with their own dynamics, THE IRAQI ISSUES, THE IRANIAN ISSUES, THE SYRIAN-LEBANESE ISSUES, AND OF COURSE THE HEART OF HEARTS, THE TRADITIONAL CONFLICT, THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI ISSUE."

While Israel Aerospace Industries and the Defense Ministry made the last-minute preparations for the launch on Sunday, a diplomat with the International Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna revealed that Iran was operating an additional 300 centrifuges each week at its enrichment center in Natanz. At the same time, Israel is debating whether to renew peace talks or go to war with Syria, which is beefing up forces along the Golan Heights.

But beyond the contribution the new satellite will make to IDF operations and to the work being done at Military Intelligence, it also PLACES ISRAEL AT THE FOREFRONT OF GLOBAL SATELLITE DEVELOPMENT. Israel is one of seven countries with independent satellite launch capabilities and is part of an exclusive club that includes the United States, France, Japan, China, India and Russia.

The launching also comes at a time when there is a "race to space" taking place in the Middle East. IRAN recently tried launching a satellite into space and EGYPT is working on following Israel's suit. In February, IAF chief Maj.-Gen. Elazar Shkedy warned that Israel will be facing a possible threat to its vital space-based assets within the coming decade for which it has to start preparing immediately.

The consequences are clear: While Iran already purchases images of Israel from civilian satellite companies, A SUCCESSFUL INDEPENDENT LAUNCH BY TEHERAN COULD SPELL EVEN MORE DANGER FOR THE MIDDLE EAST and would mean that they have the ability to launch ballistic rockets into space and POTENTIALLY INTERCEPT WESTERN SATELLITES.

Israel's space program began in the 1980s and since then, despite a number of failures and setbacks, the country has succeeded in launching close to 10 satellites into space, with an outrageously-small annual budget of around $50 million. In comparison, the US annually invests $50 billion in its space programs.

According to Friends of Earth-Middle East (FoEME), a regional environmental organization of Jordanians, Israelis and Palestinians, "90 PERCENT OF THE JORDAN RIVER'S NATURAL WATER FLOW HAS BEEN DIVERTED BY ISRAEL, JORDAN AND SYRIA FOR DOMESTIC AND AGRICULTURAL USE, WITH SEWAGE FLOWING IN ITS PLACE. The region's current policies treat the river as a backyard dumping ground, resulting in its ecological devastation."

Government water and sewage authority spokesperson Uri Schor said the government shared concerns for the southern Jordan River. "However, we have to take into account the current water crisis in Israel and the region," he said. "WE ARE ON THE HEELS OF A TWO-YEAR DROUGHT AND WE DON'T KNOW WHAT NEXT YEAR WILL BE LIKE. Schor said that any solutions would have to be dealt with on the highest levels as part of a regional agreement between Israel and its neighbors.

Last month, Scotland's most senior Roman Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, launched a fierce attack on pro-abortion Catholic politicians, saying they should consider their stance on receiving Communion. Urging them to renounce what he called an unspeakable crime, he said the abortion rate in Scotland was the equivalent of two Dunblane school massacres a day.

Then, last week, MPs at Westminster voted down a proposal by Conservative Ann Winterton that women seeking an abortion be required to have counselling first. Winterton said the suicide rate among women who had had abortions was six times higher than among women who gave birth the previous year, citing a 2005 Finnish study. "An increasing number of doctors are becoming seriously concerned about the possible effects of abortion on women involved in this destructive form of medicine," she said.

Anne Quesney, director of pro-choice group Abortion Rights, said Winterton's bill was "part of a concerted campaign in Parliament to misrepresent the abortion issue with the aim of winning successive restrictions in women's rights and ultimately a complete ban."

The number of women in England and Wales choosing to end their pregnancy has been rising steadily since abortion was legalised in 1967, with 186,416 terminations conducted in 2005. The BMA's medical ethics committee says that women should be able to decide for themselves whether to have a termination in the first three months, with no need for medical permission, as is the case in many other countries. It says that the current legislation already in effect amounts to abortion on demand for pregnancies of less than 13 weeks.

However, as many as one in four GPs refuse to sign abortion consent forms, according to a survey last month by medical weekly Pulse.