Doctors and other health professionals working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) might have been illegally performing research on detainees after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a new report issued by the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights.

If confirmed, the research would be in violation of the American Common Rule, the Nuremberg Code and other professional, national and international ethical guidelines that ban research on non-consenting human subjects. The CIA has denied that any such research or human experimentation has occurred in its detainee program.

To ensure new "enhanced interrogation" techniques did not cross the line into torture (by causing "severe and long-lasting" pain) after 9/11, the U.S. Department of Justice required health professionals to be present during many CIA interrogation sessions with detainees. But in the process of monitoring, doctors often "collected and analyzed the results of those interrogations, and sought to derive generalizable inferences to be applied to subsequent interrogations," according to the report. And that process, the report authors noted, qualifies as illegal research.

I have to wonder were these suspicious packages an inside job by factions inside the government to justify more control over the American People? We have to ask the question. Who stands to gain from these incidents? Sept 11,2001 gave us the Patriot act, Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration. The Underwear Bomber on Christmas day a little over a year ago on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit gave us full body scanners.

Homeland security recently ordered all international shipments over a certain weight to have a Social Security Number on the package. Weeks before there was a possible threat I believe was exaggerated was the ink in printer cartridges might be a bomb. We heard our Coleman thermoses might be a weapon of mass destruction even though there was no credible threat to substantiate it. They put out the alert this Christmas even though there were no credible threats.

Wal Mart has teamed up with Homeland Security using giant TV screens in stores nationwide telling the people shopping for Christmas to spy on there neighbors with "if you see something say something" talking points. This is right after the TSA abuses at airports, that have had the nation in an uproar ready to revolt.

Now just recently we had an incendiary device go off in a DC post office addressed to Homeland Security. A couple of days prior to that there were two packages detonated outside of a Maryland government office. There were only minor injuries and no deaths. Why all this?

I see now the more the Department of Homeland Security talks and announces that what the TSA did in our nations airports.The TSA and DHS want to go out on the streets of American going into bus stations, interstates, sports stadiums, shopping malls and maybe your county fair. They are up to something and have something up their sleeve to justify this action.

In 2001, Pakistani soldiers captured Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi as he fled Afghanistan. The Pakistani government turned the Libyan paramilitary trainer affiliated with al Qaeda over to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency requested permission to take al-Libi instead and send him to another country - Egypt - for interrogation, permission the Bush administration granted. While undergoing interrogation - potentially of the "enhanced" variety that includes prolonged sleep or sensory deprivation or painful body positions, among other treatments - al-Libi revealed that Iraq had been providing al Qaeda with training in making weapons of mass destruction.

What al-Libi revealed was false, and a trio of physicians now points to this case as an example of how torture provides information of "questionable reliability," in the January 6 issue of Science.

In fact, the doctors, from Physicians for Human Rights and the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, argue that science has proven that torture is an unreliable method for obtaining accurate information. In support of their claim, they cite a review paper published in Trends in Cognitive Science in September 2009 by neuroscientist Shane O'Mara of Trinity College in Dublin. Dr. Vincent Iacopino and his colleagues also argue in the latest essay that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" employed by the CIA and explicitly authorized by the Bush administration constitute torture.

There is evidence that central banks in several regions of the World are building up their gold reserves. What is published are the official purchases.

A large part of these Central Bank purchases of gold bullion are not disclosed. They are undertaken through third party contracting companies, with utmost discretion.

US dollar holdings and US dollar denominated debt instruments are in effect being traded in for gold, which in turn puts pressure on the US dollar.

In turn, both China and Russia have boosted domestic production of gold, a large share of which is being purchased by their central banks:

It has long been assumed that China is surreptitiously building up its gold reserves through buying local production. Russia is another major gold miner where the Central bank has been purchasing gold from another state entity, Gokhran, which is the marketing arm and central repository for the country's mined gold production. Now it has been reported by Bloomberg that the Venezuelan Central Bank director, Jose Khan, has said that country will boost its gold reserves through purchasing more than half the gold produced from its rapidly growing domestic gold mining industry.

In Russia, for example, Gokhran sold some 30 tonnes of gold to the Central Bank in an internal accounting exercise late last year. In part, so it was said at the time, the direct sale was made rather than placing the metal on the open market and perhaps adversely affecting the gold price.

China is currently the world's largest gold producer and last year it confirmed it had raised its own Central Bank gold holdings by more than 450 tones over the previous six years. Mineweb.com - The world's premier mining and mining investment website Venezuela taking own gold production into Central Bank reserves - GOLD NEWS | Mineweb

The personal doctor of Ariel Sharon says the comatose former Israeli prime minister responds to pinches and opens his eyes when spoken to.

Dr Shlomo Segev made the remarks in a programme broadcast on Saturday (local time) on Israeli television that coincided with the fifth anniversary of the massive stroke that incapacitated the ex-prime minister.

The 82-year-old Sharon is a former war hero who led Israel from 2001 until the 2006 stroke that left him comatose. Severe haemorrhaging caused significant brain damage and he has been in a vegetative state since. Former Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin told The AP there has been no change in Sharon's condition.

Sharon was moved home in November, but Gissin said he has since been returned to the long-term care facility outside Tel Aviv for treatment.

The assassination of Iranian nuclear scientisis, a computer virus, and international sanctions have been put as reasons for the delay.

Israel has revised downward its assessment of when Iran might acquire nuclear weapons.

Israel believes that Iran will not be able to produce a nuclear bomb before 2015. That is the assessment of the outgoing head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, in a briefing published on Friday. Previous Israeli estimates suggested that Iran could have the bomb in a year or two.

Dagan based his revised assessment on several factors, including sabotage, domestic unrest in Iran, the bite of international sanctions and technical difficulties.

Israeli analyst Gerald Steinberg says one problem is foreign sabotage, such as the Stuxnet computer virus, which invaded Iran's nuclear facilities. It is widely believed that the virus was planted by Israel.

A memoir by a top former Turkish intelligence official claims that a worldwide moderate Islamic movement based in Pennsylvania has been providing cover for the CIA since the mid-1990s.

The memoir, roughly rendered in English as Witness to Revolution and Near Anarchy, by retired Turkish intelligence official Osman Nuri Gundes, says the religious-tolerance movement, led by an influential former Turkish imam by the name of Fethullah Gulen, has 600 schools and 4 million followers around the world.

In the 1990s, Gundes alleges, the movement "sheltered 130 CIA agents" at its schools in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan alone, according to a report on his memoir Wednesday by the Paris-based Intelligence Online newsletter.

The book has caused a sensation in Turkey since it was published last month.

Gulen could not be reached for comment.

But two ex-CIA officials with long ties to Central Asia cast doubt on Gundes's charges.

Former CIA operative Robert Baer, chief of the agency's Central Asia and Caucasus operations from 1995 through 1997, called the allegations bogus. "The CIA didn't have any 'agents' in Central Asia during my tenure," he said.

It's possible, Baer granted, that the CIA "turned around this ship after I left," but only the spy agency could say for sure, and the CIA does not comment on operational sources and methods.

I have a feeling that Refusenik types like me will be the next crop to be harvested. (The first being overt "threats" to the government.)

Everything's already in place; the circle is closing. Soon it will be impossible to pretend we still live in an even semi-free country.

I try to practice avoidance - for example, not flying anymore to avoid being scanned/felt up. But I know that eventually, it will be impossible - illegal - to avoid being scanned (and much else, besides). For example, they are going to require us all to carry a biometric National ID card - not merely a driver's license. Without it, you will be unable to function (legally) and be subject to arrest merely for going about your peaceful, harming no one else business without it. Just wait.

100's of contractors and private employee's of the U.S. Government have purchased child pornography and have neither been prosecuted or even investigated. Yes, you heard correctly, Child Pornography (CP).

Project Flicker had discovered the activities in CP of as many as 5200 people, many of whom were linked to fleet zip codes or military addresses.The investigation by the pentagon ran for eight months and only cross referenced 3500 ties with pentagon employees according to a senator.

Test Was Designed by Psychologist Who Inspired CIA's Torture Program

An experimental, Army mental-health, fitness initiative designed by the same psychologist whose work heavily influenced the psychological aspects of the Bush administration's torture program is under fire by civil rights groups and hundreds of active-duty soldiers. They say it unconstitutionally requires enlistees to believe in God or a "higher power" in order to be deemed "spiritually fit" to serve in the Army.

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a $125 million "holistic fitness program" unveiled in late 2009 and aimed at reducing the number of suicides and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases, which have reached epidemic proportions over the past year due to multiple deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the substandard care soldiers have received when they return from combat. The Army states that it can accomplish its goal by teaching its service members how to be psychologically resilient and resist "catastrophizing" traumatic events. Defense Department documents obtained by Truthout state CSF is Army Chief of Staff George Casey's "third highest priority."

CSF is comprised of the Soldier Fitness Tracker and Global Assessment Tool, which measures soldiers' "resilience" in five core areas: emotional, physical, family, social and spiritual. Soldiers fill out an online survey made up of more than 100 questions, and if the results fall into a red area, they are required to participate in remedial courses in a classroom or online setting to strengthen their resilience in the disciplines in which they received low scores. The test is administered every two years. More than 800,000 Army soldiers have taken it thus far.

But for the thousands of "Foxhole Atheists" like 27-year-old Sgt. Justin Griffith, the spiritual component of the test contains questions written predominantly for soldiers who believe in God or another deity, meaning nonbelievers are guaranteed to score poorly and will be forced to participate in exercises that use religious imagery to "train" soldiers up to a satisfactory level of spirituality.