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Mr Obama banned the use of methods such as sleep deprivation and simulated drowning in his first week in office.

He has now released four memos detailing techniques the CIA was able to use under the Bush administration.

Rights groups have criticised his decision to protect CIA agents involved in the interrogation procedures.

Amnesty International said the Department of Justice appeared to be offering a “get-out-of-jail-free card” to individuals who were involved in acts of torture.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights, which has championed the legal rights of the “war on terror” detainees, also expressed its disappointment.

“It is one of the deepest disappointments of this administration that it appears unwilling to uphold the law where crimes have been committed by former officials,” it said in a statement.

Harsh techniques

On Thursday, the Obama administration published four secret memos detailing legal justification for the Bush-era CIA interrogation programme, whose methods critics say amounted to torture.

Announcing the publication of the memos, Mr Obama gave an assurance that “those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice… will not be subject to prosecution”.

One of the documents contained legal authorisation for a list of specific harsh interrogation techniques, including pushing detainees against a wall, facial slaps, cramped confinement, stress positions and sleep deprivation.

The memo also authorises the use of “waterboarding”, or simulated drowning, and the placing of a detainee into a confined space with an insect.

Critics of the Bush administration’s interrogation programme say the memos provide evidence that many of the methods amount to torture under US and international law.

During his first week in office, President Obama issued an executive order officially outlawing the use of harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA, and forcing the agency to adhere to standards laid out in the US Army Field Manual.

The White House asked Georgetown to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name in Gaston Hall, which Obama used for his speech, according to CNSNews.com.

Sea gangs from lawless Somalia have been increasingly striking the Indian Ocean shipping lanes and strategic Gulf of Aden, capturing dozens of vessels and hundreds of hostages in attacks that have driven up insurance rates.

Patrols by Western navies have done little to deter the attacks.

Kenyan Information and Communications Minister Samuel Poghisio said the 5,000 km (3,107 miles) fibre optic cable was on course for completion in June.

Last month, a government official said the route for the East African Marine Cable (TEAMS) had been shifted an extra 200 km from the coastline for fear of pirates.

“These are concerns we have but they are being addressed. We know it will be secure and will land in Mombasa on time,” Poghisio said in a statement on Thursday.

“The process (of laying the cable) has begun and will probably take two months. It is likely that by the middle of June the ship should be anchoring in Mombasa, or rather delivering the cable to Mombasa,” he added.

The $130 million cable will link Kenya’s coastal town of Mombasa with Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.

Kenya has been putting down a terrestrial cable connecting different parts of the country to prepare for the arrival of the marine cable, which could be east Africa’s first speedy but cheap telecoms link with the rest of the world.

Another undersea project known as SEACOM is also expected to be operational in the second half of 2009 and two others are due to land in 2010 — the Eastern African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and the France Telecom/Orange Sat3-wasc-Safe cable.

According to a newspaper report the laptops contained U.S. military secrets linked to plans for a sophisticated airborne radar system to be used by the Turkish air force.

Four Boeing employees were among the nine people who died when the plane crashed near Schiphol airport near Amsterdam on Feb. 25 after a problem with its altimeter.

The prosecutor’s office in Haarlem, west of Amsterdam, “gave instructions that four Boeing laptops should be removed from the plane,” a spokeswoman for the office told AFP.

“We then handed them over to the U.S. embassy in The Hague and 48 hours after the accident they were returned to Boeing.”

The four Boeing employees were returning from Turkey after a mission for the U.S. Department of Defense.

“According to Boeing they had with them four laptops containing confidential and sensitive information,” the spokeswoman said.

“The United States asked us to hand them over.”

“We’re going to need cash-flow borrowing the likes of which California has never seen, at a time when market and economic forces are stacked against us,” said Tom Dresslar, spokesman for state Treasurer Bill Lockyer. “That’s a recipe for calamity.”

While the state routinely borrows money at the start of fiscal years on July 1 by issuing interest-bearing Revenue Anticipation Notes, or RANs, a combination of factors have conspired to form a mountainous hurdle this time around.

In a series of meetings with key dealers including representatives of the National Automobile Dealers Association, GM executives also said about 200 dealerships had closed in the first quarter, according to people briefed on those talks.

“I may be a little bit ahead, but not much,” said Woodward, 39, an employee of United Construction & Engineering Inc. in Torrington, Connecticut.

He’s better off than many 401(k) investors in their 30s who began saving a decade ago, according to data compiled by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. A median- income worker who put 9 percent of salary into an all-stock plan would have finished the decade ended March 31 with almost $10,000 less than he or she invested, a loss of 26 percent, the center found. With investments divided equally between stocks and bonds, the drop would have been 3.9 percent.

“There are days when it makes me extremely nervous,” said Woodward, whose wife, a state government worker, has her own retirement plan. “I am glad I am not retiring tomorrow.”

Investors in their 30s were too young to build their retirement accounts in the rising stock market of the 1980s and 1990s. Over those two decades, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed an average of 18 percent a year, including reinvested dividends, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In the 2000s through March 31, the benchmark fell 4.7 percent annually.

‘High-Stakes Crapshoot’