cryptogon.com

Landmines releasing brain-altering chemicals, scanners reading soldiers’ minds and devices boosting eyesight and hearing could all one figure in arsenals, suggests the study.

Sophisticated drugs, designed for dementia patients but also allowing troops to stay awake and alert for several days are expected to be developed, according to the report. It is thought that some US soldiers are already taking drugs prescribed for narcolepsy in an attempt to combat fatigue.

As well as those physically and mentally boosting one’s own troops, substances could also be developed to deplete an opponents’ forces, it says.

“How can we disrupt the enemy’s motivation to fight?” It asks. “Is there a way to make the enemy obey our commands?” Research shows that “drugs can be utilized to achieve abnormal, diseased, or disordered psychology” among one’s enemy, it concludes.

Research is particularly encouraging in the area of functional neuroimaging, or understanding the relationships between brain activity and actions, the report says, raising hopes that scanners able to read the intentions or memories of soldiers could soon be developed.

Some military chiefs and law enforcement officials hope that a new generation of polygraphs, or lie detectors, which spot lie-telling by observing changes in brain activity, can be built.

“Pharmacological landmines,” which release drugs to incapacitate soldiers upon their contact with them, could also be developed, according to the report’s authors.

The report, which was commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency, contained the work of scientists asked to examine how better understanding of how the human mind works was likely to affect the development of technology.

It finds that “great progress has been made” in neuroscience over the last decade, and that continuing advances offered the prospect of a dramatic impact on military equipment and the way in which wars are fought.

It also explains that the concept of torture could be transformed in the future. “It is possible that some day there could be a technique developed to extract information from a prisoner that does not have any lasting side effects,” it states. One technique being developed involves the delivery of electrical pulses into a suspect’s brain and delay their ability to lie by interfering with its neurons.

Research into “distributed human-machine systems”, including robots and military hardware controlled by an operator’s mind, is another particular area for optimism among researchers, according to the report. It says significant progress has already been made and that prospects for use of the field are “limited only by the creative imagination.”

The Labor Department reported Thursday that consumer prices rose by 0.8 percent last month, twice the 0.4 percent gain that economists had been expecting.

It marked the third straight month of oversized inflation increases following jumps of 0.6 percent in May and 1.1 percent in June and left inflation rising by 5.6 percent over the past year, the biggest 12-month gain since January 1991.

That inflation surge presents a major problem for the Federal Reserve, which could be forced to start raising interest rates even as the economy struggles to avoid a recession.

The big rise in inflation left consumers even more squeezed. The Labor Department said that average weekly earnings, after adjusting for inflation, fell by 3.1 percent in July compared to a year ago, the biggest year-over-year decline since November 1990.

Meanwhile, the number of newly laid-off workers filing applications for unemployment benefits fell less than expected last week, indicating continued stress in labor markets from the weak economy.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for jobless benefits dropped to 450,000, down by 10,000 from the previous week. However, that was a smaller decline than had been expected and left the four-week average for claims at the highest level in six years.

The military advocate-general told the international news agency in a letter sent on Tuesday that troops could not see whether Fadel Shana was operating a camera or a weapon but were nonetheless justified in firing a shell packed with darts that killed him and eight other Palestinians aged between 12 and 20.

Reuters said on Wednesday it was deeply disturbed by a conclusion that severely curtails the freedom of the media to cover the conflict by effectively giving soldiers a free hand to kill without being sure they were not firing on journalists.

Shana, 24, filmed two tanks positioned about 1.5 km (a mile) from where he was standing for several minutes before, in a chilling final 2 seconds of video, his camera captured one tank firing a shell that burst overhead, showering the journalist and others with thousands of metal darts known as flechettes.

“The tank crew was unable to determine the nature of the object mounted on the tripod and positively identify it as an anti-tank missile, a mortar or a television camera,” Brigadier General Avihai Mendelblit of the Israel Defence Forces wrote.

But the military lawyer cited an attack that killed three IDF soldiers in another part of the enclave earlier in the day, a separate grenade attack on a tank, the fact that Shana and his soundman who was wounded were wearing body armor — “common to Palestinian terrorists” — among reasons for suspicion.

Two days after signing a French-brokered ceasefire and with U.S. and European efforts underway to end the week-long crisis, Russian troops showed no immediate sign of vacating positions around the central Georgian city of Gori, where they arrived in force a day before.

According to the Georgian government and wire service reports from the area, Georgian police had approached the city for the start of a handover, expected from the Russians under the terms of the ceasefire and demanded by Western leaders.

However the Georgians left after it became apparent that the Russian troops planned to remain, at least for now, in control of Gori, a city near the disputed province of South Ossettia and one that sits near the country’s major east-west transportation routes.

The status of Russia’s presence in a second strategic town, the port city of Poti, and in other locations around the country was unclear. Georgian officials said that Russian troops remained in Poti, while a Russian military spokesman denied that was the case. According to the Georgian government, Russian troops also remained in the towns of Senaki and Zugdidi in the western part of the country.

Scattered explosions were still reported. In Washington, a U.S. official told the Associated Press that the Russian military was apparently destroying airfields and other Georgian miltiary equipment.

The confusing events on the ground were matched at the diplomatic level, with Kremlin officials seeming to back the breakaway aspirations of two Georgian provinces, in opposition to U.S. and European demands that the country — closely allied with the West — remain intact.

Following the events of the last week, “One can forget about any talk about Georgia’s territorial integrity,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the Associated Press reported from Moscow. “It is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state.”

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met on Thursday with leaders of the separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and pledged to support them in discussions about the future of the two disputed regions.

“We will support any decision made by the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” Medvedev said, following a meeting in which the separatist leaders signed the French ceasefire plan in Moscow.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began a trip to the region on Thursday, beginning with talks in France on her way to Tbilisi.

Speaking in Washington, he expressed concern about reports of continuing Russian action in Georgia, and urged Russia to respect a ceasefire accord.

Mr Bush hinted that Russia could be jeopardising its international ties.

The first US C-17 military aircraft has landed in Tbilisi carrying medical and other supplies.

The Kremlin said the US must choose between partnership with Moscow, or with the Georgian leadership.

“At some time it will be necessary to choose between supporting this virtual project and [a] real partnership on questions which actually require collective action,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The BBC’s Caroline Wyatt, in Moscow, says the Kremlin’s reaction suggests they have been bitterly stung by Mr Bush’s comments.

Nationwide, more than 272,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice in July, up 55 percent from about 175,000 in the same month last year and up 8 percent from June, RealtyTrac Inc. said. That means one in every 464 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing last month.

Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac monitors default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. More than 77,000 properties were repossessed by lenders nationwide in July, the company said.

Nevada, California, Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Georgia and Michigan had the highest foreclosure rates. Foreclosure filings increased from a year earlier in all but eight states.

The combination of weak housing sales, falling home values, tighter mortgage lending criteria and a slowing U.S. economy has left financially strapped homeowners with few options to avoid foreclosure. Many can’t find buyers or owe more than their home is worth and can’t refinance into an affordable loan.

As foreclosures soar, banks and mortgage investors are also facing a pileup of foreclosed properties on their books and are cutting prices dramatically.

RealtyTrac noted that it had more than 750,000 foreclosed homes in its database of properties for sale, equal to about 17 percent of the 4.5 million U.S. homes that were up for sale in June.

Growth in the 15 economies that share the euro currency contracted by 0.2 percent from the first quarter, expanding just 1.5 percent from the same period a year ago, the EU statistical agency Eurostat said in a first estimate that it may change at a later date.

Germany, the region’s largest economy, shrank 0.5 percent in April-June from the previous quarter with France and Italy both down 0.3 percent.

The newly created lockup is on the northeast side of Denver. Protesters have already given this place a name: “Gitmo on the Platte.”

Inside are dozens are metal cages. They are made out of chain link fence material and topped by rolls of barbed wire.

“This is a secured environment,” Capt. Frank Gale of the Denver Sheriff’s Department told CBS4. “We’re concerned about how that’s going to be utilized by people who will be potentially disruptive.”

In past conventions, mass arrests have taken place.

With Denver’s jails already overflowing, new space had to be created and officers trained.

The suspect fled, apparently to the Arkansas Baptist State Convention about six blocks down the street, where he threatened a security guard. When he left there, sheriff’s deputies gave chase and shot him after a 30-minute pursuit, authorities said. He later died.

It was not immediately known whether any senior insurgent figures were among the dead, but officials in the South Waziristan tribal region said those killed included “foreigners,” often used to mean Al Qaeda operatives and commanders from outside Pakistan.

On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.

Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.

“Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I’m fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here,” Mayor James Valley said. “The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution.”

The area under curfew, in what used to be a West Helena neighborhood, sits among abandoned homes and occupied residences in disrepair.

White signs on large blue barrels warn those passing by that the area remains under curfew by order of Mayor James Valley. The order was scheduled to end at 3 p.m. Tuesday, but Valley said the city council’s vote would allow police to have the same powers across Helena-West Helena.

Among the curfew operation’s arrests, 10 came from felony charges, including the arrest of two people carrying both drugs and weapons, Fielder said. The police chief said the officers in the field carry military-style M-16 or M-4 rifles, some equipped with laser sights. Other officers carry short-barrel shotguns. Many dealing crack cocaine and marijuana in the city carry pistols and AK-47 assault rifles, he said.

“We’ve had people call us, expressing concern for their children,” Fielder said. “They had to sleep on the floor, because of stray bullets.”

Fielder said officers had not arrested anyone for violating the curfew, only questioned people about why they were outside. Those without good answers or acting nervously get additional attention, Fielder said.

However, such stops likely violate residents’ constitutional rights to freely assemble and protections against unreasonable police searches, said Holly Dickson, a lawyer for the ACLU of Arkansas who addressed the council at its packed Tuesday meeting. Because of that, Dickson said any convictions coming from the arrests likely would be overturned.

“The residents of these high-crime areas are already victims,” she said. “They’re victims of what are happening in the neighborhoods, they’re victims of fear. But for them to be subject to unlawful stops and questioning … that is not going to ultimately going to help this situation.”

The council rejected Dickson’s claims, at one point questioning the Little Rock-based attorney if she’d live in a neighborhood they described as under siege by wild gunfire and gangs.

“As far as I’m concerned, at 3 o’clock in the morning, nobody has any business being on the street, except the law,” Councilman Eugene “Red” Johnson said. “Anyone out at 3 o’clock shouldn’t be out on the street, unless you’re going to the hospital.”

The curfew is the second under the mayor’s watch since the rival cities of Helena and West Helena merged in 2006. That year, Valley set a nightly citywide curfew after a rash of burglaries and other thefts.

Police in Hartford, Conn., began enforcing a nightly curfew for youths after recent violence, including a weekend shooting that killed a man and wounded six young people.

Helena-West Helena, with 15,000 residents at the edge of Arkansas’ eastern rice fields and farmland, is in one of the nation’s poorest regions, trailing even parts of Appalachia in its standard of living.