The decision to try 9/11 suspects in military commissions only highlights how the US has yet to reckon with detainee abuse

On the same day President Barack Obama formally launched his re-election campaign, his attorney general, Eric Holder, announced that key suspects in the 9/11 attacks would be tried not in federal court, but through controversial military commissions at Guantánamo. Holder blamed members of Congress, who, he said, "have intervened and imposed restrictions blocking the administration from bringing any Guantánamo detainees to trial in the United States."

Nevertheless, one Guantánamo case will be tried in New York. No, not the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any of his alleged co-conspirators. This week, the New York state supreme court will hear the case against Dr John Leso, a psychologist who is accused of participating in torture at the Gitmo prison camp that Obama pledged, and failed, to close.

The case was brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Centre for Justice and Accountability (CJA) on behalf of Dr Steven Reisner. Reisner, a New York psychologist and adviser to Physicians for Human Rights, is at the centre of a growing group of psychologists campaigning against the participation of psychologists in the US government's interrogation programmes, which they say amounts to torture.

Unlike the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the largest association of psychologists in the world, has refused to implement a resolution passed by its membership barring APA members from participating in interrogations at sites where international law or the Geneva conventions are being violated. Reisner, a child of Holocaust survivors, is running for president of the APA, in part to force it to comply with the resolution.

John Leso
Torture Connection: Invented 'Category 3' interrogations

Major John Francis Leso

• 2002-2003 Member, Behavioral Science Consultation Team JTF-GTMO
• 2002 Author, interrogation protocol that relied in part on SERE "reverse-engineered" torture techniques
• 2002, 2003 Chief of the Clinical Psychology Service, Walter Reed Army Medical Center
• 2005 U.S. Embassy Austria
• 1996-current? Member, American Psychological Association (APA)

John Leso aided interrogators at Guantanamo, devised ways to increase prisoners' suffering

An army psychologist with no training or experience in interrogations, Dr. Leso in June 2002 became the first psychological clinician assigned to the new U.S. prison compounds at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As the first psychologist serving with one of the new Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCTs) at Guantanamo, Leso was tasked with using his professional expertise to support interrogators by establishing procedures and general detention conditions that would break down the prisoners' mental and emotional resistance to interrogation.

Official logs from Guantanamo indicate that Leso participated in abusive interrogation sessions and advised interrogators on how to increase the suffering of prisoners.

Prisoners under Leso abused to point of hospitalization

The BSCT teams were charged with establishing conditions that would maximize prisoners' mental, emotional, and physical distress, in hopes of breaking down their resistance to interrogation. For example, Dr. Leso was involved in sessions with prisoner Mohammed al Qahtani that included intravenous administration of large quantities of fluids; when al Qahtani requested permission to go to the bathroom, he was chained in place and told to urinate on himself. Also, al Qahtani twice needed hospital treatment for hypothermia inflicted intentionally when he was kept naked in chilled cells.

Prosecutors in Milan are investigating Silvio Berlusconi for alleged witness corruption following two high-profile trials relating to parties held at his luxurious villa.

Though widely expected, the new investigation will nonetheless come as a blow to the former Italian prime minister as he seeks to shore up his political influence in the wake of his conviction for tax fraud and expulsion from parliament last year.

A total of 45 people, including Berlusconi, his two chief defence lawyers and several young women, are reported to be under investigation in the new inquiry, which was announced by chief prosecutor Edmondo Bruti Liberati.

Prosecutors will be investigating allegations that witnesses who testified on behalf of the 77-year-old in the so-called "Ruby" trial - in which he was accused of paying for sex with an underage sex worker and then abusing his office to cover it up - and a related trial were corrupted.

Lawyers for Berlusconi have previously denied the allegations, and on Thursday the leader of the centre-right Forza Italia party issued a statement reiterating his belief that he is being hounded by a leftwing judiciary bent on his destruction.

"I am here, and am staying here, strongly conscious of the responsibility that comes from the trust and the votes of the people," he said in a statement. "I am staying on the field, more convinced than ever that I must fight on to the end to see the triumph of what I deeply believe in."

Full name: John Francis Leso
Health Profession: Psychologist
Branch/Rank: Army Major
Site: Guantanamo Bay
[B6, B4, B1, C1, D3]

Dates: June 2002 - mid-January 2003
[B1, C1, D3]

Position: Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) psychologist with the Interrogation Control Element (ICE) of JTF-GTMO.
[B6, B4, B1, C1, D3]

Reported Involvement: Dr. John Leso was the first BSCT psychologist at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base (GTMO), and while in this role, he participated in the torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment [A1, B4, D2, B13] of Mohammed al Qahtani. [A1, B1, B5] A DoD log of the interrogation of Mr. al Qahtani shows that Dr. Leso observed at least two abusive interrogation sessions and, on at least one occasion, advised the interrogators on how to increase Mr. al Qahtani's suffering.[B4]

It is not yet publicly known whether he participated in other sessions in which Mr. al Qahtani was abused, but draft BSCT policies and statements by his colleagues suggest that the question warrants further investigation. [B7, D5, D6]

Also worthy of further investigation is the question of whether, as a BSCT charged with supporting the GTMO task force's interrogation mission, Dr. Leso participated in the interrogation of other detainees during his time at GTMO. [B7, D1, C1] This question is vital to determine whether he was involved in the abusive treatment of other men and boys interrogated at GTMO between June 2002 and January 2003. [D5, A2, B12]

Additionally, Dr. Leso - a clinical psychologist with no training in interrogation prior to arriving at GTMO - helped craft a policy of torture at GTMO by designing psychologically and physically abusive interrogation techniques and detention conditions. Together with psychiatrist Dr. Paul Burney, Dr. Leso co-wrote a draft interrogation policy memo for GTMO that incorporated illegal techniques adapted from methods used by the Chinese and North Korean governments against American prisoners of war. Their memo eventually formed the basis for a memo signed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in December 2, 2002, in which the Secretary authorized at least eleven abusive interrogation techniques that were similar or identical to the ones presented by Drs. Leso and Burney. [B1, B6, B8, B9, B10, B11, B6] Many of the techniques and conditions that Dr. Leso helped put in place were applied to Mr. al Qahtani [B4, B1] and many of the men and boys held at GTMO. [B1, D5] Eventually, similar techniques were also used on prisoners held in Department of Defense custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. [B1]

This time, the Federal Reserve has created a truly global problem. A big chunk of the trillions of dollars that it pumped into the financial system over the past several years has flowed into emerging markets. But now that the Fed has decided to begin "the taper", investors see it as a sign to pull the "hot money" out of emerging markets as rapidly as possible.

This is causing currencies to collapse and interest rates to soar all over the planet. Argentina, Turkey, South Africa, Ukraine, Chile, Indonesia, Venezuela, India, Brazil, Taiwan and Malaysia are just some of the emerging markets that have been hit hard so far.

In fact, last week emerging market currencies experienced the biggest decline that we have seen since the financial crisis of 2008. And all of this chaos in emerging markets is seriously spooking Wall Street as well.

The Dow has fallen nearly 500 points over the last two trading sessions alone. If the Federal Reserve opts to taper even more in the coming days, this currency crisis could rapidly turn into a complete and total currency collapse.

A lot of Americans have always assumed that the U.S. dollar would be the first currency to collapse when the next great financial crisis happens. But actually, right now just the opposite is happening and it is causing chaos all over the planet.

A Republican candidate for the Florida House of Representatives is in hot water after he agreed Monday that President Barack Obama should be hanged for treason.

Joshua Black, an African-American, agreed to the idea of hanging the president after a Twitter user sent him the following public message: "I'm past impeachment. It's time to arrest and hang him high."

"Agreed," Black tweeted in response.

A Republican candidate for the Florida House in a nearby district, Chris Latvala, was quick to denounce Black.

"[Y]ou aren't seriously calling for the killing of Obama are you?" Latvala asked, adding that Black is an "embarrassment."

All blood relatives of North Korea's erstwhile number two, who was executed a month ago, have apparently suffered the same fate, says the S. Korean Yonhap news agency.

Once all powerful, Jang Song-thaek was the 'regent' while Kim was still too young to govern after Kim Jong-il's death. He was executed on December 12, 2013 at the age of 67, after making an alleged attempt to stage a military coup and dethrone his nephew.

Now Kim Jong-un is believed to have ordered the total elimination of his uncle's biological relatives to demonstrate decisiveness and to clamp down on mutiny with an iron fist, "multiple" sources in Pyongyang told the Seoul-based Yonhap news agency.

The turtle wearing a hat backward, baggy jeans and purple sunglasses looks just like other cartoon characters that marketers use to make products like cereal and toys appealing to children.

But the reptile, known as T. Top, who says creating and breaking codes is really "kewl," is pushing something far weightier: the benefits of the National Security Agency.

"In the world of diplomacy, knowing what your enemy is planning helps you to prepare," the turtle says. "But it is also important that your enemies do not know what you have planned. It is the mission of the National Security Agency and the Central Security Service to learn what it can about its potential enemies to protect America's government communications."

Such an enthusiastic endorsement of the N.S.A.'s mission might seem particularly timely given the criticism directed at the agency since one of its former contractors, Edward J. Snowden, began leaking documents he had stolen from it. But T. Top and a troupe of eight other smiley-faced cartoon characters have been busy promoting the N.S.A.'s mission for the past nine years as part of a governmentwide attempt to make agencies more understandable to the public. With cartoon characters, interactive games and puzzles, the N.S.A.'s CryptoKids website for "future codemakers and codebreakers" tries to educate children about spying duties and recruit them to work for the agency.

A Thai anti-government protest leader has been shot in the head while delivering a speech in Bangkok, as demonstrators blocked advance voting for a controversial general election.

Piya Utayo, a spokesman for Thailand's national police, on Sunday identified the dead man as Suthin Tharathin. "At least five other people were injured," he said.

"Suthin Tharathin was shot in the head while giving a speech from the back of a truck," protest spokesman Akanat Promphan told AFP.

Mayor Bill de Blasio says 'there is no greater ally on earth' than Israel, in speech to Israel lobby that did not appear on public schedule.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio gave a heartfelt speech praising Israel at a private gala event hosted by AIPAC at the Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan Thursday night, the local website Capital New York reported.

According to an edited audio recording obtained by the site (below), de Blasio said that "part of his job description is to defend Israel" and that it is "elemental to being an American, because there is no greater ally on earth, and that's something we can say proudly."

The Israel lobby's event was closed to journalists and the speech did not appear on the mayor's public schedule, arousing suspicion and making the event all the more intriguing. A reporter with Capital who tried to get into the event was escorted out by security.

De Blasio said in his speech that he had visited Israel three times, most recently with his wife and son, and that he was especially moved by visiting Sderot, on the border with the Gaza Strip and often the target of rocket attacks.

"You can't have an experience like that and not feel solidarity with the people of Israel and know that they're on the front line of fighting against so many challenges."

He closed the speech by announcing that "City Hall will always be open to AIPAC," adding that it is his job to stand by the lobby in Washington.