2008 April 07

Gordon Brown’s leadership rating has fallen to its lowest ever level as a third of voters regard him as worse than Tony Blair, a poll for The Times finds today.

The Prime Minister has also presided over a sharp fall in confidence in the economy as he enters a crucial three weeks of campaigning for the London and local elections.

The Populus survey will reinforce the gloom among Labour MPs as Mr Brown faces a sizeable backbench revolt over his decision as Chancellor to abolish the lower 10p band of income tax. Some Ministers already accept that concessions will have to be made to avoid a defeat on a Budget measure.

In the poll, undertaken over the weekend, the Tories have risen two points since a month ago to 39 per cent and Labour has slipped one point to 33 per cent. The Liberal Democrats are down two points at 17 per cent. These are within one point of the average ratings this year. The poll also finds that 31 per cent of voters now regard Mr Brown as worse than Tony Blair.

Support for Labour is now following a similar path to that of the doomed Conservative Government at the same point in the mid-1990s. The Tories have been in the lead for all but three months of the past two years, although they are well below the level of the Labour Opposition in the 1990s. The number of voters thinking that the economy as a whole will fare well over the next year has dropped by a quarter to 39 per cent since last September.

This is half the level of three years ago and is the lowest in the five years that the question has been asked. The number thinking that the country as a whole will do badly has risen from 45 to 59 per cent in the past seven months.

More than two thirds of voters (70 per cent) say that Britain is now heading in the wrong direction. Mr Brown’s leader rating (on a 0 to 10 index) is down again, to 4.50 from 4.59 a month ago. This is the lower than all but one month of Mr Blair’s leadership. Mr Brown’s rating among Labour voters has fallen sharply from 6.72 to 6.26.

The Prime Minister will play a personal role over the coming two weeks of parliamentary recess in trying to defuse the backbench rebellion. The Government appeared to accept for the first time yesterday that it would have to make changes in order to keep its 2007 Budget intact.

There is no question of going back on the abolition of the 10p rate, but ministers believe that moves will have to be made to appease MPs and the lower-paid workers, many of them part of Labour’s core vote, who have been hit. Downing Street officials accepted that before the Pre-Budget Report next autumn the Government would have to consider complaints that low-income single people and childless couples would be worse off. Mr Brown’s official spokesman continued to rule out a significant reversal on the ground that the change was part of a “coherent package” that allowed him to cut the basic rate of income tax by 2p a year ago and that losers were compensated elsewhere by rises in child benefit and tax credits.

David Cameron remains the most highly rated of the three leaders, at 4.96, although this is down from 5.23 previously, and is back to the level of a year ago. Despite all the recent controversy involving him, Nick Clegg’s rating has risen slightly this month from 4.16 to 4.27, but this is still only just above the low point touched by Sir Menzies Campbell in May last year.

After Mr Brown’s brief honeymoon last summer, voters have become much more critical. Whereas last September 21 per cent believed that he had performed better than expected, now just 5 per cent do. Over the same period the number saying that he has done worse than expected has risen from 6 to 36 per cent. A mere 3 per cent think that Mr Brown had made a real difference to Britain; 33 per cent only a little difference; and 62 per cent no difference at all.

Two thirds (67 per cent) say that Mr Brown has been all talk and no action, up from 46 per cent last September.

Most cruel of all for Mr Brown is the increase from 7 per cent to 31 per cent in the proportion who think that he is worse than Mr Blair. Only 14 per cent say that he is better than Mr Blair, down from 24 per cent. More than half (53 per cent) think that he is about the same.

The proportion regarding Labour as competent and capable has fallen from 56 to 37 per cent since last September and the Conservative rating has risen from 39 to 45 per cent.

*Populus interviewed a random sample of 1,502 adults aged over 18 by telephone between April 4 and 6. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to be representative of all adults. For more details see www.populus.co.uk

Olympic Torch Run Halted as Protests Spread

PARIS - What was supposed to be a majestic procession through the French capital for the Olympic torch turned into chaos Monday as thousands of people from around Europe, many with Tibetan flags, massed to protest the relay and deny China the promotional boost it hoped for in the runup to the games.

The torch went out several times, and police officers had to bring it onto a bus to try to protect it as demonstrators swarmed the security detail. In the end, organizers canceled the final leg of the procession, deciding to have the torch transported by bus.

Despite heavy security, at least one activist got within a meter of the pack of Rollerblading police officers crowding around the torchbearer. On several occasions, officers were seen tackling protesters. A police official quoted by The Associated Press said 28 people were arrested.

It was the second time in two days that the torch relay had been disrupted in a European capital. About 3,000 police officers — on foot, horseback, Rollerblades, motorbikes and even boats in the Seine — had been deployed in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the scenes played out in London on Sunday, when the relay turned into a tumult of scuffles and dozens of people were arrested.

But the Paris leg proved just as chaotic. At the start of the relay, a man identified as a Green Party activist was grabbed by security officers as he headed for Stéphane Diagana, the president of France’s national athletics league and a former world champion in the 400-meter hurdles, who was carrying the torch from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. The man was tackled before he got close to Diagana.

An event that was supposed to burnish China’s image around the world has turned into a public relations nightmare — not only for China, but also for the nations along the torch’s route.

The Summer Games and the torch’s journey have served as rallying points for opponents of the Chinese government, most notably those supporting autonomy or freedom for Tibet.

The 5:30 Eurostar train from London to Paris on Sunday evening carried a large contingent of activists moving from one protest to the next, including Tibetan nuns who had been jailed in China for 12 years and Tibetan athletes who live in Switzerland and who call themselves Team Tibet.

The attention has focused public attention on a cause that has languished on the international back burner for many years. At the International Campaign for Tibet the phones have been ringing off the hook — from media outlets, politicians, and people wanting to sign petitions and host events — said Jan Willem den Besten, the campaign coordinator for the Netherlands who was in Paris on Monday morning.

“What is most dramatic is to see how broad and deep the support has become,” said den Besten, who accompanied the nuns from London. “You almost have to feel sorry for the Chinese because its turned completely against the public image they wanted to present.”

In Paris, again and again protesters interrupted what was supposed to be a triumphant procession. On a street along the Seine, the police said, protesters forced officers to retreat with the torch onto a bus to continue along the route. Around the same time, the flame went out for a first time — for “technical reasons” unrelated to the protests, a police spokeswoman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with policy. About an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a traffic tunnel by an athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was again halted by activists who booed and chanted “Tibet,” The Associated Press reported.

The torch was extinguished for a second time and again put on a bus despite protesters’ apparent failure to get close this time, The AP said, which reported that the flame went out at least four times in total.

By the time it reached the Arc de Triomphe and descended along the Champs-Elysées, the torch was once again carried by an athlete but was barely visible through the dense escort of officers and police vans. A helicopter circled above as a rival teams of onlookers, cheering supporters waving Chinese flags and protesters responding with chants demanding “freedom” for Tibet, crowded behind metal barriers lined by paramilitary police officers. A small truck decorated in the Olympic logo and carrying a percussion band was almost inaudible.

In Beijing on Monday, a spokeswoman for the city’s Olympic organizing committee — speaking before the disruptions in France but after the London protests — vowed that the relay would continue on its international tour. “The torch represents the Olympic spirit, and people welcome the torch,” said Wang Hui, the spokeswoman.

Ms. Wang spoke at a hurriedly organized news conference that was apparently intended to address the protests Sunday in London. “The general public is very angry at this sabotage by a few separatists,” she said. “Some people, they want to disrupt the torch relay. And this will not do any good.”

The prospect of the Chinese Olympic torch traveling through Europe’s cities — from Athens to Istanbul, St. Petersburg, London and now Paris — has even created a bond between groups of protesters who previously had little in common.

In Paris, at the Trocadéro opposite the Eiffel Tower, Amnesty International, the human rights group and Reporters Without Borders, which advocates greater press freedom, protested side by side with representatives from a banned underground Chinese democracy party, Taiwan nationalists and proponents of independence for the Uighurs, a Muslim minority group in western China.

“We all have the same problem,” Can Asgar, a leader of the Uighur diaspora in Munich, yelled into a microphone at Trocadéro. “Freedom for Uighurs. Freedom for Tibet. We must fight together.”

The range of China’s opponents was so thoroughly covered that Amnesty International has a hard time finding a niche: they protested today on behalf of a blind Chinese human rights lawyer who is in prison in Shandong Provice in eastern China.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, used a meeting of national Olympic committee representatives in Beijing on Monday to criticize the London protests, but also to call for a rapid and peaceful solution to the confrontations in Tibet.

“The torch relay has been targeted. The I.O.C. has expressed serious concerns and calls for rapid, peaceful resolution in Tibet,” Rogge said in a speech to the Association of National Olympic Committees, according to Reuters.

“Violence for whatever reason is not compatible with the values of the torch relay and the Olympic Games,” he said. “Some people have played with the idea of boycotts. As I speak today, there is no momentum for a general boycott.”

But after the meeting the head of the Norwegian Olympic Committee, Tove Paule, said in an interview that the torch relay should be reconsidered.

“The International Olympic Committee may have a bigger problem when the torch relay continues, if we get more of these demonstrations,” Paule was quoted as saying by NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, Reuters reported. “One will have to look at whether the plans need to be changed.” It was not immediately clear whether she was talking about changing the route or scrapping the relay altogether.

As the relay began in Paris, the French authorities had appeared determined to try to spare China — and France — the disorder that occurred in London, resorting to measures normally reserved for a visiting head of state.

Their efforts drew scorn from protesters, who angrily noted the heavy police presence. Armed officers guarded sensitive Metro exits along the 28-kilometer, or 17-mile, route.

“One would almost think oneself in Lhasa,” said Jean-Paul Ribes, leader of the Support Committee of the Tibetan People in France, who was among the thousands massed on the Trocadéro. “It snowed last night, now the sky is blue — and police are everywhere.”

Many protesters — demonstrating against China’s human rights policies in general or for a free Tibet, or simply advocating a boycott of the Olympics in Beijing — echoed a headline that was emblazoned across the front page of the leftist daily Libération, under a picture of the Olympic rings restyled as handcuffs: “Liberate the Olympic Games!”

Protesters came to Paris from all around Europe, including four busloads from Belgium. Lobsang Dechen, a 29-year-old Tibetan refugee who has lived in Belgium for four and a half years, said that Europeans should help the cause of Tibet by boycotting the Games. “China does not deserve to be the host,” she said. “They have to first learn to respect human rights in Tibet.”

Kevin Khayat, 19, a design student in Paris and a member of the International Federation for Human Rights, said sports should be separated from politics. “I am against a boycott, and in favor of human rights,” he said. He handed stickers to demonstrators urging: “Let’s keep our eyes open.”

Protests took different forms along the route. A banner calling for human rights across the world was hung on Paris City Hall. Demonstrators hung a banner depicting Olympic rings as handcuffs from Notre Dame Cathedral. Supporter of Reporters Without Borders chained themselves to the Eiffel Tower.

Lawmakers from the opposition Socialist Party stood outside the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament, wearing Tibetan colors.

“We cannot miss this opportunity to send a message on human rights,” said Jean-Marc Ayrault, the organizer of the initiative and president of the Socialists’ parliamentary group. He condemned the conspicuous police presence in Paris. “This looks more like a military parade than an Olympic celebration.”

In London on Sunday, the torch was relayed on a seven-hour journey from the new Wembley soccer stadium in the city’s northwest to the principal site for the 2012 Summer Olympics in Stratford in the east.

Along the way, numerous protesters seeking to reach the torch were wrestled to the ground by police officers. One man carrying a fire extinguisher narrowly failed to reach the person carrying the torch, but set off the extinguisher anyway, dousing police officers with foam.

The torch’s London relay was the fourth stop of a global itinerary that began last month in Greece, where pro-Tibetan demonstrators briefly interrupted the torch’s lighting and its subsequent progress through Athens.

Tibetan organizations have said they plan protests at every stop on the torch’s 21-nation tour. The flame moves to San Francisco on Wednesday, its only U.S. stop. The monthlong tour is scheduled to end in Vietnam; it is to be followed by a six-week, 46-stop tour of China.

In London, more than 2,000 police officers were deployed; the security cordon around the torch was so dense that the flame and those carrying it were often barely visible to crowds.

Caught in the middle are foreign governments. Both Britain and France sought to protect delicate trade and diplomatic relations with China while supporting the Games and yet to also placate those who oppose holding the Olympics in a country with a harsh record for punishing dissent.

The centerpiece of the torch parade Sunday was 10 Downing Street, where the Chinese contingent was greeted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Brown, like President George W. Bush, has said he plans to attend the Games’ opening ceremonies in Beijing in August. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has hinted he may not attend if China’s recent crackdown on Tibetans does not relent.

Under pressure from human rights groups in Britain, Brown has voiced sympathy for the Tibetan protests. He has also said that he will meet the Dalai Lama in Britain next month.

Female detainee tortured; needs medical attention

Female detainee Shereen Mohammad Hasan, from Bethlehem city, voiced an appeal to several human rights groups to intervene for her release in order to receive adequate medical treatment, as she is losing her sight and suffering a kidney disease.

Shereen is currently under interrogation in Ha-Sharon Israeli prison. During interrogation, one of the soldiers repeatedly slammed her head against the wall, which caused sharp pain in her eyes and head.

A prison physician who examined Shereen stated that she needs immediate surgery at a specialized hospital, but the prison administration ignored her condition and have continued to detain and interrogate her.

In a letter that was smuggled out from the prison, Shereen said that she is concerned that she might lose sight in her left eye, after she already lost sight in her right eye.

She added that she is suffering from a kidney disease, in addition to being in constant, severe pain.

Shereen voiced an appeal to several human rights groups to intervene and place pressure on the Israeli prison Administration to allow her to receive surgery at a specialized hospital.

She added that she should, at least, be examined by ordinary physicians sent by human rights groups in order to determine the needed medical treatment.

On Sunday, Shereen was sentenced to 45 months imprisonment. In spite of her medical condition, she was sent to the Ofer Israeli military court where she received her sentence for “resisting the occupation”.

Lawyer of the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) stated that the Israeli prosecution violated an agreement achieved with him. Under the terms of the agreement, Shereen was supposed to be setenced to two years.

Diana inquest lays blame on driver and paparazzi

LONDON: After six months of hearings and testimony by 278 witnesses, a jury at a British inquest found Monday that Princess Diana and her lover, Dodi al-Fayed, were unlawfully killed by the negligent driving of their chauffeur and photographers who pursued the couple’s speeding Mercedes into a Paris underpass more than a decade ago.

Since then, the case has seized attention in Britain and around the world, with rumors, conspiracy theories and allegations about the road crash in August 1997 that extinguished the life of a woman described by Tony Blair, the former prime minister, as the “people’s princess.”

The 9-2 majority verdict said the crash “was caused, or contributed to, by the speed and manner of the driver of the Mercedes and the speed and manner of the following vehicles.”

Coming one year after Diana’s divorce from Prince Charles in 1996, her death inspired a wave of soul-searching among Britons that threatened to dissolve the longstanding bonds between them and the monarchy. Indeed, the royal family’s reclusive and stand-offish behavior in the first few days after Diana’s death seemed to set Queen Elizabeth II apart from many of her subjects caught up in an uncharacteristically public display of mass grief.

Even in death, Diana has remained a focus of fascination and her destiny has been the object not only of books and newspaper articles but also a series of official investigations costing some $20 million.

A British police inquiry in 2006, for instance, found that Diana and Fayed had died in an accident as they sought to escape the attentions of the paparazzi photographers camped outside the Ritz Hotel in Paris owned by Mohamed al-Fayed, Dodi’s father. On the night they died, Diana and her lover were traveling to Dodi al Fayed’s apartment in a Mercedes driven by Henri Paul, a Ritz employee.

Fayed long insisted that his son and the Princess had been killed in a conspiracy by the British security services acting under instruction from Prince Philip, the queen’s husband. The judge presiding at the inquest, Scott Baker, had ordered the jury to discount those allegations.

The jury’s verdict Monday - tantamount to manslaughter - was the toughest judgment available to the panel of six women and five men, who began to deliberate their decision April 2.

The verdict surprised some people who had forecast that the inquest would confirm the previous police assessment that the crash, which also killed Paul, the driver, had been an accident.

Among the causes of recklessness, the panel found that Paul’s judgment had been impaired by alcohol. Paul was the deputy head of security at the Ritz and had been off duty for several hours when he was called back to the hotel to drive Diana and Dodi al-Fayed. Evidence at the inquiry showed that he had been drinking when he set out to drive the couple.

Other contributing factors, the jury found, included the fact that Diana, in the rear of the car with Fayed, had not been wearing a seat belt and that the Mercedes slammed headlong into a pillar when it crashed after entering the Alma underpass at over 95 kilometers per hour, or 60 miles per hour - twice the speed limit for that section of road.

Mohamed al-Fayed, who had pressed for years for a public inquiry, said he was disappointed at the result of the inquest, insisting that members of the royal family should have been called as witnesses.

“I have always believed that Prince Philip and the Queen hold valuable evidence that only they know. No one should be above the law,” he said in a written statement that suggested he had not abandoned his belief that Diana was murdered.

“I’m not the only person who said they were murdered. Diana predicted that she would be murdered and how it would happen,” said Fayed, who owns the Harrods department store in London. The royal family made no immediate comment on the verdict.

Apart from considering the exact circumstances of Diana’s death, the inquest also shone an unforgiving spotlight into details of her private life that had been previously been kept secret. The jury heard details of Diana’s contraceptive methods, her lovers and purported intimate conversations relayed by her onetime butler, Paul Burrell. The inquest also offered Mohamed al-Fayed a platform to taunt the royal family, calling Prince Charles’ second wife, Camilla Parker-Bowles, a “crocodile wife” and labeling Prince Philip a “Nazi” and “racist.”

Highly unusually, members of the MI6 secret service were called to testify that they had not mounted a conspiracy to assassinate Diana. Mohamed al-Fayed has frequently insisted that Diana was pregnant by his son and was killed to prevent her from bearing the child of a Muslim. But Lord Scott Baker said the theory was “without substance.”

The start of the inquest was delayed until French legal processes were complete and the British police inquiry had reached its separate findings. Charges of manslaughter in France were brought against nine photographers who pursued the Mercedes and took photographs after it crashed. None of those paparazzi were found guilty in the manslaughter proceedings but three photographers were convicted in 2006 of invading privacy.

In December, 2006, a British police inquiry found that the deaths had been an accident. “Our conclusion is that, on the evidence available at this time, there was no conspiracy to murder any of the occupants of the car,” John Stevens, who led the inquiry, told reporters at the time. “This was a tragic accident.”

On Monday, the jury’s finding raised the question of whether criminal charges against the paparazzi could be revived. However, Stevens said he hoped “everyone will take this verdict as closure.”

Clinton urges Bush to boycott Beijing Olympics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton urged President George W. Bush on Monday to boycott the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies this summer unless China improves human rights.

Clinton, in a statement, cited violent clashes in Tibet and the lack of pressure by China on Sudan to stop “the genocide in Darfur.”

“At this time, and in light of recent events, I believe President Bush should not plan on attending the opening ceremonies in Beijing, absent major changes by the Chinese government,” the New York senator said.

Bush plans to attend the Summer Olympics ceremonies in Beijing in August and so far has resisted pressure to change his plans in response to a violent crackdown against protesters in Tibet by Chinese authorities.

China has also been accused of refusing to use its influence on the Sudanese government to get it to stop what the United States calls a genocide in the Darfur region.

Clinton joined U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California in calling on Bush to boycott the ceremonies.

“I encourage the Chinese to take advantage of this moment as an opportunity to live up to universal human aspirations of respect for human rights and unity, ideals that the Olympic games have come to represent,” Clinton said.

Speaking before Clinton’s statement was released, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that, “We have a great deal of concern about human rights in China.”

He said the Bush administration expects American athletes to participate in the Olympics.

Israel threatens Iran with destruction

An Israeli minister has threatened Iran with destroying the country if the Islamic Republic launches ‘an attack on the regime’.

“An Iranian attack against Israel would trigger a tough reaction that would lead to the destruction of the Iranian nation,” National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said, AFP reported Monday.

The minister, a member of prime minister Ehud Olmert’s security cabinet, stressed however that Iran was unlikely to attack as “they understand the meaning of such an act.”

The threats come amid speculations that the Israeli regime is preparing for another war in the Middle East.

Israel has taken steps to isolate Iran in the international community alleging that the country has threatened it with annihilation, after the Iranian President called for the ouster of the regime.

Permissible Assaults Cited in Graphic Detail

Thirty pages into a memorandum discussing the legal boundaries of military interrogations in 2003, senior Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo tackled a question not often asked by American policymakers: Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner’s eyes poked out?

Or, for that matter, could he have “scalding water, corrosive acid or caustic substance” thrown on a prisoner? How about slitting an ear, nose or lip, or disabling a tongue or limb? What about biting?

These assaults are all mentioned in a U.S. law prohibiting maiming, which Yoo parsed as he clarified the legal outer limits of what could be done to terrorism suspects as detained by U.S. authorities. The specific prohibitions, he said, depended on the circumstances or which “body part the statute specifies.”

But none of that matters in a time of war, Yoo also said, because federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes by military interrogators are trumped by the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief.

The dry discussion of U.S. maiming statutes is just one in a series of graphic, extraordinary passages in Yoo’s 81-page memo, which was declassified this past week. No maiming is known to have occurred in U.S. interrogations, and the Justice Department disavowed the document without public notice nine months after it was written.

In the sober language of footnotes, case citations and judicial rulings, the memo explores a wide range of unsavory topics, from the use of mind-altering drugs on captives to the legality of forcing prisoners to squat on their toes in a “frog crouch.” It repeats an assertion in another controversial Yoo memo that an interrogation tactic cannot be considered torture unless it would result in “death, organ failure or serious impairment of bodily functions.”

Yoo, who is now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, also uses footnotes to effectively dismiss the Fourth and Fifth amendments to the Constitution, arguing that protections against unreasonable search and seizure and guarantees of due process either do not apply or are irrelevant in a time of war. He frequently cites his previous legal opinions to bolster his case.

Written opinions by the Office of Legal Counsel have the force of law within the government because its staff is assigned to interpret the meaning of statutory or constitutional language. Yoo’s 2003 memo has evoked strong criticism from legal academics, human rights advocates and military-law experts, who say that he was wrong on basic matters of constitutional law and went too far in authorizing harsh and coercive interrogation tactics by the Defense Department.

“Having 81 pages of legal analysis with its footnotes and respectable-sounding language makes the reader lose sight of what this is all about,” said Dawn Johnsen, an OLC chief during the Clinton administration who is now a law professor at Indiana University. “He is saying that poking people’s eyes out and pouring acid on them is beyond Congress’s ability to limit a president. It is an unconscionable document.”

Yoo defends the memo as a “near boilerplate” argument in favor of presidential prerogatives, and says its fundamental assertions differ little from those made by previous presidents of both parties. In comments to The Washington Post and other news organizations, Yoo has also criticized the Justice Department for issuing new legal opinions that do not include detailed discussions of specific interrogation tactics, which he views as crucial to defining the boundaries of what is lawful.

“You have to draw the line,” Yoo said in an Esquire magazine interview posted online this past week. “What the government is doing is unpleasant. It’s the use of violence. I don’t disagree with that. But I also think part of the job unfortunately of being a lawyer sometimes is you have to draw those lines. I think I could have written it in a much more — we could have written it in a much more palatable way, but it would have been vague.”

The 2003 memo includes long discussions of the relative illegality of a wide variety of coercive interrogation tactics, including a British technique in which prisoners are forced to stand in a spread-eagle position against a wall and an Israeli technique, called the Shabach, in which a suspect is hooded, strapped to a chair and subjected to powerfully loud music.

Various courts had declared both tactics to be inhumane, but not torture, Yoo noted. This meant that they were illegal under a provision of the Geneva Conventions that the administration said had no relevance to unlawful combatants in its custody.

In another passage, discussing the bounds of Eighth Amendment protections involving confinement conditions, Yoo concluded that “the clothing of a detainee could also be taken away for a period of time without necessarily depriving him of a basic human need.” Yoo cited the need to prove “malice or sadism” on the part of an interrogator before he or she could be prosecuted.

The interrogation memo was considered a binding opinion for nine months until December 2003, when OLC chief Jack Goldsmith told the Defense Department to ignore the document’s analysis.

In his 2007 book “The Terror Presidency,” Goldsmith, who now teaches law at Harvard University, said that some of the memos written by Yoo and his colleagues from 2001 to 2003 were “deeply flawed: sloppily reasoned, overbroad, and incautious in asserting extraordinary constitutional authorities on behalf of the President.”

Douglas W. Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor who served as constitutional legal counsel for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said Yoo can be faulted “for not writing more narrowly.” It is often better to “brush in hazy gray” rather than “spray paint in black and white,” Kmiec said.

Food Additives as Damaging as Lead

British Researchers Find Artificial Colors Harm Children’s Brains, Request Phase-Out

A team of British researchers from Southampton University carried out a study to look at seven food additives, and their findings were grim: The additives are doing as much damage to children’s brains as the lead in gasoline.

According to an article in The Independent, the researchers said children’s intelligence was being damaged by the seven additives, also called E-numbers, which are codes indicating permitted additives in the European Union. The additives included sunset yellow (E110) and tartrazine (E102), and researchers said they caused temper tantrums among normal children.

Officials at the Food Safety Agency (FSA) in Britain have requested their directors call for additives to be phased out of food products by the end of the year. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has said that while the limited evidence shows some damage to children, the agency said there wasn’t enough proof to change the safety standards.

One researcher involved wrote an 18-page rebuttal to the criticism of his study. The FSA will meet Thursday to decide what to advise ministers.

E-numbers have been linked to behavioral problems since the 1970s, according to the article, but the debate has been fueled since the publication of this study.