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They had never carried out a real interrogation, only mock sessions in the military training they had overseen. They had no relevant scholarship; their Ph.D. dissertations were on high blood pressure and family therapy. They had no language skills and no expertise on Al Qaeda.

But they had psychology credentials and an intimate knowledge of a brutal treatment regimen used decades ago by Chinese Communists. For an administration eager to get tough on those who had killed 3,000 Americans, that was enough.

So “Doc Mitchell” and “Doc Jessen,” as they had been known in the Air Force, helped lead the United States into a wrenching conflict over torture, terror and values that seven years later has not run its course.

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It would be the world’s greatest virtual library. But some authors have mixed emotions about its effect on the act of reading.

Novelist Jonathan Lethem says Google should be “congratulated” for its effort. Lethem adds, “This is the moment to take a look and say, ‘why isn’t it as private as the world we’re being asked to leave behind, the world of physical books?'”

Lethem wonders whether future readers will have the same kind of relationship with books that he had.

“When I was on this very private, very eccentric, intense journey as a younger person, it was crucial that it be a solitary practice,” he says. But if future readers have reason to think they’re leaving a digital trail, he adds it might deprive the reading experience of its intimacy.

Lethem is one of several authors — including Michael Chabon and Cory Doctorow — who have signed on to a campaign to pressure Google Books to offer greater privacy guarantees for its readers. The effort was organized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“They know which books you search for,” says Cindy Cohn, legal director for the foundation. “They know which books you browse through, they know how long you spend on each page.”

It’s the same kind of information that’s produced by someone surfing the Web. But Cohn believes books should enjoy greater privacy.

The EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California want Google to keep reader data for less time than normal web searches. Ideally, they say, the data should be deleted after a month.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more of the goods they made and services they provided in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago. At the same time, “unit labor costs” — the amount employers paid for all that extra work — fell by 5.8 percent. The jump in productivity was higher than expected; the cut in labor costs more than double expectations.

“It’s free money!” said Alecia Rumph, 26, who waited in a Morris Park, Bronx, line 300 people deep for the cash to buy uniforms and book bags for her two kids.

“Thank God for Obama. He’s looking out for us.”

Thousands of people lined up at banks and check-cashing shops to withdraw the cash that magically appeared on their electronic benefit cards.

Some rushed out because of rumors the money would vanish by the end of the day.

“Rumors, there’s always rumors,” said Teresa Medina, who waited four hours at a Pay-O-Matic in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, to get $600 for her three teenagers – just in case they were true.

Wallace Souza, a former police officer who used his lunchtime television slot to rail against the violence sweeping the jungle city of Manaus, is suspected of commissioning at least five murders to prove his claim that the region is awash with violent crime.

“Manaus can no longer live with this wave of crime,” Souza, 50, frequently told the audience of his daily show Canal Livre. “Nowadays everyone is killing.”

In a 2008 speech at Manaus’s local parliament, Souza boasted that Canal Livre enjoyed complete editorial freedom and was conducted with “journalistic responsibility”.

But prosecutors in the remote Amazon city say the politician’s actions went far beyond the call of journalistic duty, accusing Souza of links to drug trafficking, death squads and organised crime, and possessing illegal arms.

“Our investigations indicate that they went as far as creating facts,” Thomaz Augusto Correa, the local police intelligence chief, told a Brazilian news channel. “Crimes were committed in order to create news for the group and for the programme.”

Souza was the most voted-for politician in the last elections in the state of Amazonas and is in his third term. But his transformation from politician and TV presenter to suspect began last October when his former security guard Moacir Jorge da Costa, an ex-police officer, was arrested and accused of nine murders. Costa reportedly confessed that at least one of the murders had gone to air on his employer’s TV show.

The arrest triggered a police raid on Souza’s house that uncovered more than £100,000 as well as an arsenal that included several high-calibre assault rifles. So far nearly 20 people have been arrested in connection with the case, including Souza’s son and several senior police officers.

Burnham was confronted by Castle on GMTV after researchers said the antiviral drug’s benefits did not outweigh its side-effects during the flu pandemic.

Castle said his older daughter, Georgina, had a “respiratory collapse” and “suffered very heavily” after being “just handed” the drug without a proper diagnosis.

The presenter said: “I can tell you that my child – who was not diagnosed at all – she had asthma, she took Tamiflu and almost died.”

Burnham sympathised with Castle, saying it must have been “very worrying”, but maintained that advice to parents to treat swine flu with Tamiflu remained unchanged.

The MP said Georgina would have been given Tamiflu during the earlier “containment” phase of swine flu.

He stressed that the research dealt with seasonal flu, not swine flu: “It’s very much a safety-first approach.”

Given that swine flu had a “disproportionate effect” on children, the minister maintained that the antiviral drug was “our only line of defence”.

Some 300,000 people in England, including children and adults, have received Tamiflu through the government’s National Pandemic Flu Service for England.

But yesterday, Oxford University researchers said children should not be given the antiviral drug to combat swine flu. They urged the Department of Health to rethink its policy on giving the drug to under-12s during the current pandemic.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), warned that Tamiflu could cause vomiting, which could lead to dehydration and the need for hospital treatment.

The researchers said children should not be given the drug if they had a mild form of the illness, although they urged parents and GPs to remain vigilant for signs of complications.

Parents of children with a compromised immune system or a condition such as cystic fibrosis should discuss the harms and benefits with their GP, they said.

But overall, the researchers said, children who were otherwise healthy could suffer more harm than benefit from taking Tamiflu or another antiviral, Relenza.

As the White House and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepare to release new deficit estimates this month, several economists say the news is likely to be as bad as or worse than forecasts.

“This is going to be a very depressing outlook,” predicts former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, top adviser to Republican John McCain in last year’s presidential election. “They have just a nightmare in terms of these health care bills, which do nothing but make things worse.”

Treasury yields have been rising and are back at levels last seen in early June, with the yield on 10-year notes trading at 3.84 per cent on Monday.

Traders would not be surprised to see the benchmark test 4 per cent ahead of a $23bn auction on Wednesday.

The sale will be held about an hour before the Fed’s meeting finishes, which could result in lacklustre demand for the new notes.

David Ader, head of government bond strategy at CRT, said his research and trading house was “leaning” towards a bearish view of the Treasuries market with a test of 4 per cent yield level for the 10-year note.

“The trading environment is not very liquid, volumes are low and the risk appetite of dealers is also limited,” he said.