AP sources: Report reveals CIA interrogation methods

WASHINGTON – As the Justice Department considers whether to investigate alleged harsh interrogation practices sanctioned by the Bush administration, sources say a soon-to-be-released report by the CIA's inspector general reveals that agency interrogators conducted mock executions of terror suspects.

These latest allegations are contained in a 2004 report that has been kept secret and is to be released next week, two congressional officials told The Associated Press. They spoke late Friday on condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been cleared for release.

Threatening a prisoner with death violates U.S. anti-torture laws.

In one case, interrogators brought a gun and power drill into a session with suspected Cole bomber Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, the report says. The suicide bombing of the warship USS Cole killed 17 U.S. sailors in Yemen in 2000.

In another episode, a gunshot was fired in a room next to a detainee to make the prisoner believe another suspect had been killed, according to the report, which a federal judge has ordered to be made public Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The IG report's findings were first reported by Newsweek on its Web site.

Nashiri was one of three CIA prisoners subjected to waterboarding, a brutal interrogation technique that simulates drowning that was among 10 techniques approved by the Bush administration's Justice Department in 2002. President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have denounced waterboarding as torture.

"The CIA in no way endorsed behavior_ no matter how infrequent_ that went beyond formal guidance," said agency spokesman Paul Gimigliano. He declined to comment on the contents of the IG report.

Holder is considering whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's interrogation practices, a controversial move that would run counter to President Barack Obama's wishes to leave the issue in the past.

Gimigliano said the career prosecutors at the Justice Department have reviewed the report to determine if any laws were broken and whether the interrogators should be prosecuted.

"Professionals in the Department of Justice decided if and when to pursue prosecution," he said. "That's how the system was supposed to work, and that's how it did work."

Just one CIA contract interrogator, David Passaro, has been prosecuted. He was found guilty in 2007 in the beating death of a prisoner in Afghanistan.

The Los Angeles Times reported Aug. 9 that a CIA operative brought a gun into an interrogation booth to force a detainee to talk. One of the congressional officials told the AP that referred to the interrogation of the USS Cole suspect.

The IG review was completed in May 2004. The ACLU has sought its release since then. It was expected to be released earlier this year but was delayed by government request.

The report casts doubt on the effectiveness of the harsh interrogation methods employed by CIA interrogators, according to quotes from the report that were contained in Bush-era Justice Department memos declassified this spring. It says no attacks were averted by information obtained using harsh interrogation methods.

The CIA detained and interrogated 94 terrorist suspects; 28 were subjected to harsh methods. Of those three were waterboarded, according to government documents made public earlier this year.

But former CIA Director Michael Hayden said this week at a panel discussion in Washington that the review also credits the harsh interrogation with yielding information on al-Qaida's basic infrastrucutre, which in turn allowed the CIA to fight the organization behind the 9/11 hijackings.

John L. Helgerson, the now-retired CIA inspector who spearheaded the investigation, told the AP in June that the report is a comprehensive review of everything the CIA did in the secret detention and interrogation program begun in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The investigation was undertaken in response to concerns expressed by agency employees about the program, he added.

By Alisha

(from yahoo)

Friday nights

Ok as Karuna just said, what do you do on Friday nights. It may be some peoples favorite nights. Staying up late, movies are out, late night shopping in the city and much more....
Oh well, we want your say as well as mine! Make your idea great and sizzling, or make it fun and spectacular. It's your turn for your say. Comment on this and we'll pick the best and publish it in all my appropriate blogs and Karuna's favorites! After you send the comment if you want put your email address on the end of the comment and we'll contact you later if you win! Maybe a prize will be coming. (We're only kids-students in school, we'll do our best!)
Regards
Alisha

The Food Guide Pyramid is one way for people to understand how to eat healthy. A rainbow of colored, vertical stripes represents the five food groups plus fats and oils. Here's what the colors stand for:

• orange — grains
• green — vegetables
• red — fruits
• yellow — fats and oils
• blue — milk and dairy products
• purple — meat, beans, fish, and nuts

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) changed the pyramid in 2005 because they wanted to do a better job of telling Americans how to be healthy. The agency later released a special version for kids. Notice the girl climbing the staircase up the side of the pyramid? That's a way of showing kids how important it is to exercise and be active every day. In other words, play a lot! The steps are also a way of saying that you can make changes little by little to be healthier. One step at a time, get it?

The Pyramid Speaks

Let's look at some of the other messages this new symbol is trying to send:

Eat a variety of foods. A balanced diet is one that includes all the food groups. In other words, have foods from every color, every day.

Eat less of some foods, and more of others. You can see that the bands for meat and protein (purple) and oils (yellow) are skinnier than the others. That's because you need less of those kinds of foods than you do of fruits, vegetables, grains, and dairy foods.

You also can see the bands start out wider and get thinner as they approach the top. That's designed to show you that not all foods are created equal, even within a healthy food group like fruit. For instance, apple pie would be in that thin part of the fruit band because it has a lot of added sugar and fat. A whole apple — crunch! — would be down in the wide part because you can eat more of those within a healthy diet.

Make it personal. Through the USDA's MyPyramid website, people can get personalized recommendations about the mix of foods they need to eat and how much they should be eating. There is a kids' version of the website available too.

My fish just had babies

Right now I am helping my Dad scrape off fish eggs that my Angel fish just laid. We are putting them in another tank so the bigger fish don't eat them. Wish us good luck!
If you have any tips for looking after fish eggs please mail me at falisha@y7mail.com

His hair cracks me up!

Fuifui Moimoi Source: The Daily Telegraph

BOASTING 108kg worth of pure Tongan muscle, Parramatta hardman Fuifui Moimoi has long been a hair-raising prospect for opposition defences.

But weekly visits to his local hair salon have lifted Moimoi's game - and cult status - to another level.

While the 29-year-old prop has been consistently damaging, his game-day hairstyle is now more unpredictable than Parramatta's early-season form.

Moimoi has sported dreadlocks, plaits, and even decorative yellow beads. But the real crowd-pleaser came last Sunday against Newcastle at Parramatta Stadium, when he risked a life ban from the front-rowers' union by packing into scrums with a hair extension.

Hello, this is Karuna Nair on the Monthly Telegraph! (senior editor, junior journalist and photo editor)
Today we ask you this one question.
What do you do on a Friday night?
Please answer by clicking on comments and writing your name and answer. We will choose the best answers and publish them.

Dusty debris!

July 31, 2009: Earth is entering a stream of dusty debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, the source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Although the shower won't peak until August 11th and 12th, the show is already getting underway.

Brian Emfinger of Ozark, Arkansas, photographed this early Perseid just after midnight on Sunday, July 26th:

"I used an off-the-shelf digital camera to capture this fireball and its smoky trail," says Emfinger. "It was a bright one!"

Don't get too excited, cautions Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "We're just in the outskirts of the debris stream now. If you go out at night and stare at the sky, you'll probably only see a few Perseids per hour."

Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery

This will change, however, as August unfolds.

"Earth passes through the densest part of the debris stream sometime on August 12th. Then, you could see dozens of meteors per hour."

For sky watchers in North America, the watch begins after nightfall on August 11th and continues until sunrise on the 12th. Veteran observers suggest the following strategy: Unfold a blanket on a flat patch of ground. (Note: The middle of your street is not a good choice.) Lie down and look up. Perseids can appear in any part of the sky, their tails all pointing back to the shower's radiant in the constellation Perseus. Get away from city lights if you can.

There is one light you cannot escape on August 12th. The 55% gibbous Moon will glare down from the constellation Aries just next door to the shower's radiant in Perseus. The Moon is beautiful, but don't stare at it. Bright moonlight ruins night vision and it will wipe out any faint Perseids in that part of the sky.

Above: Looking northeast around midnight on August 11th-12th. The red dot is the Perseid radiant. Although Perseid meteors can appear in any part of the sky, all of their tails will point back to the radiant. Image copyright: Spaceweather.com, used with permission.

The Moon is least troublesome during the early evening hours of August 11th. Around 9 to 11 p.m. local time (your local time), both Perseus and the Moon will be hanging low in the north. This low profile reduces lunar glare while positioning the shower's radiant for a nice display of Earthgrazers.

"Earthgrazers are meteors that approach from the horizon and skim the atmosphere overhead like a stone skipping across the surface of a pond," explains Cooke. "They are long, slow and colorful—among the most beautiful of meteors." He notes that an hour of watching may net only a few of these at most, but seeing even one can make the whole night worthwhile.

The Perseids are coming. Enjoy the show.

By Alisha Francis (The manager and journalist)

Kepler spots exoplanet

The news, once again is on! Check this pic out-
This is an exoplanet HAT-P-7 that was first spotted a couple of years ago. Then NASA's Kepler Space Telescope which was just launched this March, spotted it in it's first 10 days of data. It took much clearer images of this exoplanet which orbits its sun very close as you can see. The planet is a giant gas planet just slightly larger than Jupiter. Scientists are nicknaming it Hot Jupiter since it's a gas giant thats very hot since it's near the sun.

By Karuna Nair
Photo Credit:Kepler Space Telescope

TENNIS STARS TWINS!

Roger Federer posted the first public photo of his twin girls on the internet on Friday.

"It was very funny as both girls had the hiccups while we were trying to take a decent picture," Federer wrote below the photo on his Facebook account, thanking friends and fans for their warm wishes. "The girls and mom are doing great."

Federer and his wife, Mirka, are each holding one of the babies and smiling at them in the picture. Federer said it was taken by his father.

Charlene Riva and Myla Rose were born July 23 on what Federer said was the best day of his life.

The 27-year-old top-ranked tennis great married Mirka in April. He announced her pregnancy in March, but it was a well-kept secret that she was expecting twins.

Federer is not scheduled to return to the ATP tour until August 10 in Montreal. Mirka sat courtside last month when Federer won an epic Wimbledon final against Andy Roddick for his 15th Grand Slam title, breaking Pete Sampras' record.

Federer met Mirka in 2000 when they were competing for Switzerland at the Sydney Olympics. Mirka emigrated from Slovakia with her family to Switzerland as a child. After playing on the WTA Tour and retiring because of injury, she became one of Federer's managers.

Woman was waiting for 'new daughter'

Friday, August 07, 2009 » 09:02pm

A woman at the centre of the worldwide search for Madeleine McCann is claimed to have been waiting for a child to be delivered just days after the British three-year-old vanished.

Private detectives are hunting the mystery woman, believed to be from Australia or New Zealand, after a British businessman told them about a conversation he had with her in Spain just 72 hours after Madeleine vanished from a Portuguese resort on May 3, 2007.

Although investigators refused to reveal details of what was said, British newspapers on Friday said the woman had confused him with a man she was waiting for to deliver her 'new daughter'.

Unnamed sources claimed the businessman, who was in Barcelona partying with friends, spoke to the woman about 2am on May 7 as she paced anxiously outside a waterfront bar in Barcelona.

It is claimed that when he approached her, she asked him: 'Are you here to deliver my new daughter? Have you got her? Have you got the child?'

When she realised he was not a courier and did not know what she was talking about, she walked off.

'The man came to believe the woman had been expecting someone who was going to hand something over,' one source told The Sun newspaper.

'From what she said he took it to be a female child. She was very insistent he had her new daughter' - and where was she?

'He had no idea what she meant at the time but when he found out about Maddie's abduction he found it very suspicious.

'The woman seemed to be at the bar at an appointed hour, waiting for someone to show and hand over something.

'When she realised he wasn't who she was expecting, she quickly brought the conversation to a close.'

The man told investigators he strongly believed the woman had an Australian accent, but a friend who also heard their conversation thought it was possible she was a New Zealander.

Madeleine disappeared from her family's rented holiday apartment at Praia da Luz in the Algarve nine days short of her fourth birthday.

The private investigators, hired by Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann, believe the toddler could have been taken by boat from Portugal to Barcelona.

They have released a sketch of the woman in question, based on the British witness's description, in the hope of tracking her down to question her about the girl's disappearance.

She is described as being aged between 30 and 35, of slim build and 'glamorous' appearance, similar to former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham.

The woman had short brown hair and was about 157cm tall.

She wore expensive-looking blue jeans and possibly a pastel jumper.

Anyone with information is urged to contact the international hotline on +44 845 838 4699 or email investigation@findmadeleine.com

relax

This might
be boring but
it's news and
i'm just a kid!