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In Atlanta, thieving from abandoned properties is so bad that police caught one man building a new house entirely of pilfered materials from empty homes.

Flint, Mich., has had to add firefighters and ladder trucks recently even though its population has declined. Up to 90 percent of fires start in homes where no one lives.

From Atlanta’s urban core to leafy neighborhoods filled with chirping crickets in Charlotte, N.C., some 2.2 million homes are expected to go through foreclosure – and stand empty – by the time the mortgage meltdown ends, according to Global Insight, an economic research firm. As the housing dominoes fall far from Wall Street, growing urban “ghost towns” of vacant houses are resulting in a costly crush of weeds, trash, and dereliction on a scale unseen in American cities since the Great Depression, economists say.

As a $4 billion package to help municipalities deal with foreclosure-related blight hangs fire in the US Senate, US mayors met last weekend in Miami to vent about the scourge of abandoned homes. Cash-strapped cities are now scrambling – often using on-the-fly ingenuity – to rescue neighborhoods suddenly vulnerable to crime and stunned by millions of dollars in lost equity wrought by loose credit, opportunistic speculators, and predatory lending.

“Economists and folks from the lending industry will talk about it as a market correction, which doesn’t adequately describe it,” says Joseph Schilling, an urban affairs professor at Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute in Blacksburg. “This isn’t just blight in the urban core; it’s blight and abandonment in new suburban communities, and that’s just never happened before.”

In some Sun Belt cities like Orlando, Fla., and Charlotte, officials have tripled or quadrupled the number of liens they’ve placed on vacant homes in the past year, hoping to recoup at some point the money cities are spending to try to keep the properties from going to ruin. In California and Arizona, neighborhoods of half-million-dollar homes stand nearly empty, with some lonely residents using their former neighbors’ yards as driving ranges. Meanwhile, long foreclosure lag times and uncooperative note-holders mean swimming pools go green, rain gutters fall off, weeds grow high, and ne’er-do-wells move in.

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base atGuantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Some methods were used against a small number of prisoners at Guantánamo before 2005, when Congress banned the use of coercion by the military. The CIA is still authorized by President George W. Bush to use a number of secret “alternative” interrogation methods.

Specifically, the plan “recommends the creation of a super-Intelligence Support Activity, an organization it dubs the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG), to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence and cover and deception. For example, the Pentagon and CIA would work together to increase human intelligence (HUMINT) forward/operational presence and to deploy new clandestine technical capabilities.” The purpose of P2OG would be in “‘stimulating reactions’ among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction, meaning it would prod terrorist cells into action, thus exposing them to ‘quick-response’ attacks by US forces.”[2] In other words, commit terror to incite terror, in order to react to terror.

Hundreds of 200-pound covers have disappeared in three months in California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Georgia as scrap metal prices pop up.

“It’s a sign of the times,” says Sgt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia, where 28 manhole covers disappeared in April and May. “When the economy gets bad, people start stealing iron.”

It’s the first year he has seen such thefts since he started with the department 16 years ago.

The price of heavy melt steel, the medium grade used for manhole covers, has increased from $329 per metric ton in January to $519, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries in Washington, D.C. A thief can get $10 to $15 for a manhole cover, says Ryan Alsop, spokesman for the Long Beach Water Department.

Long Beach has lost more than 80 covers this year. People who have damaged their cars driving over manholes have filed claims with the city, Alsop says.

“Our No. 1 concern” is safety, he says. “A small kid can fall into these holes,” which can be 20 feet deep.

Manufacturing activity in the euro zone contracted in June for the first time in three years while business confidence in Asia’s largest export markets is buckling and output has likely contracted further in the United States.

Purchasing managers indices showed manufacturing activity in the euro zone fell to 49.2 in June, China saw its index fall to a near three-year low of 52.0 while in Britain it contracted at its sharpest rate since December 2001.

The 50.0 mark separates growth from contraction. Factories worldwide have struggled in the face of soaring raw material and energy costs — oil hit over $143 a barrel on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan’s tankan corporate index of big manufacturers’ sentiment dropped to plus 5, from 11 in March, showing their mood has not been darker since 2003.

The picture of slowing growth and spiralling prices applied to Britain too.

The UK’s manufacturing sector saw output and new orders fall at their fastest rate in almost a decade. But there was no let-up in inflationary pressures with input costs and output prices both rising at the fastest rate since the series began.

Even Japanese manufacturers, which have long struggled to pass on costs, pushed up prices in the last quarter, although not fast enough to offset a rise in costs and to keep profits growing, the tankan showed.

“That could indicate more inflationary pressures in the pipeline,” said Magnus Prim, chief Asia currency strategist at SEB in Singapore. “They’re getting squeezed on the profit side and see no alternative but to pass on price increases.”

The rally in commodity prices, driven in part by burgeoning demand from India and China, is feeding global inflation, threatening to push up low labour costs that for a decade helped keep a lid on prices.

Local officials have initiated an all-out effort to clean up the algae by mid-July. Media reports estimate that as many as 20,000 people have either volunteered or been ordered to participate in the operation, while 1,000 boats are scooping algae out of the Yellow Sea. The official news agency, Xinhua, reported that algae currently covered a third of the coastal waters designated for the Olympic races.

Water quality has been a concern for the sailing events, given that many coastal Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the sea. At the same time, rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters are often contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These nitrates contribute to the red tides of algae that often bloom along sections of China’s coastline.

But officials in Qingdao said pollution and poor water quality did not have a “substantial link” to the current outbreak, according to Xinhua. Instead, scientists blamed the bloom on increased rainfall and warmer waters in the Yellow Sea. Algae are now blooming over more than 12,900 square kilometers, or 5,000 square miles, of the sea, according to Xinhua.

“We will make all our efforts to finish this job,” said a propaganda official in Qingdao. “Now, forces from the entire province have become involved.” He said ships and boats had been sent from two other coastal cities, Rizhao and Yantai, to help haul away the algae.

Yuan Zhiping, an official with the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Committee, said Sunday that the government would attempt to block algae from floating into the Olympic sailing area by installing a fenced perimeter in the sea that is more than 50 kilometers, or 30 miles, long.

“I believe we will make sure the Olympics sailing area is clean by July 15 through our efforts, and make sure the Olympics sailing goes smoothly,” Yuan said, according to the Shandong News Web site.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has been inundated with calls from concerned gardeners who have seen potatoes, beans, peas, carrots and salad vegetables wither or become grossly deformed. The society admitted that it had no idea of the extent of the problem, but said it appeared ‘significant’. The affected gardens and allotments have been contaminated by manure originating from farms where the hormone-based herbicide aminopyralid has been sprayed on fields.

Dow AgroSciences, which manufactures aminopyralid, has posted advice to allotment holders and gardeners on its website. Colin Bowers, Dow’s UK grassland marketing manager, told The Observer that links to their products had been proved in some of the cases, but it was not clear whether aminopyralid was responsible for all of them and tests were continuing. ‘It is undoubtedly a problem,’ he said, ‘and I have got full sympathy for everyone who is involved with this.’

He said the company was unable to advise gardeners that it was ‘safe’ to consume vegetables that had come into contact with the manure because of pesticide regulations. ‘All we can say is that the trace levels of aminopyralid that are likely to be in these crops are of such low levels that they are unlikely to cause a problem to human health.’

The Dow website says: ‘As a general rule, we suggest damaged produce (however this is caused) should not be consumed.’ Those who have already used contaminated manure are advised not to replant on the affected soil for at least a year.

Aminopyralid, which is found in several Dow products, the most popular being Forefront, a herbicide, is not licensed to be used on food crops and carries a label warning farmers using it not to sell manure that might contain residue to gardeners. The Pesticides Safety Directorate, which has issued a regulatory update on the weedkiller, is taking samples from affected plants for testing.

Problems with the herbicide emerged late last year, when some commercial potato growers reported damaged crops. In response, Dow launched a campaign within the agriculture industry to ensure that farmers were aware of how the products should be used. Nevertheless, the herbicide has now entered the food chain. Those affected are demanding an investigation and a ban on the product. They say they have been given no definitive answer as to whether other produce on their gardens and allotments is safe to eat.

It appears that the contamination came from grass treated 12 months ago. Experts say the grass was probably made into silage, then fed to cattle during the winter months. The herbicide remained present in the silage, passed through the animal and into manure that was later sold. Horses fed on hay that had been treated could also be a channel.

Bryn Pugh, legal consultant at the National Society of Allotments and Leisure Gardeners, said he was preparing claims for some members to seek financial compensation from the manure suppliers. But it was extremely difficult to trace the exact origins of each contaminated batch. ‘It seems to be everywhere. From what I know, it is endemic throughout England and Wales. We will be pressing the government to ban this product,’ he said.

Aminopyralid is popular with farmers, who spray it on grassland because it controls weeds such as docks, thistles and nettles without affecting the grass around them. It binds itself to the woody tissue in the grass and only breaks down when exposed to bacteria in the soil.

Shirley Murray, 53, a retired management consultant with an allotment near Bushy Park in Hampton, south-west London, said several of her allotment neighbours had used the same manure bought from a stables and all were affected. ‘I am absolutely incensed at what has happened and find it scandalous that a weedkiller sprayed more than one year ago, that has passed through an animal’s gut, was kicked around on a stable floor, stored in a muck heap in a field, then on an allotment site and was finally dug into or mulched on to beds last winter is still killing “sensitive” crops and will continue to do so for the next year,’ she said.

‘It’s very toxic, it shouldn’t get into the food chain. You try to be as organic as you can and we have poisoned our food. I’ve been everywhere, emailed all the right people, but nobody will speak on the record to guarantee what is safe to eat. We all think it is a scandal. Not to mention what it has cost in time and money.’

Pesticide expert Professor Vyvyan Howard, a toxico-pathologist at Ulster University, said it was ‘a very powerful herbicide’ but in his opinion was ‘unlikely to pose any human health risks’. However, advice about its use should be strengthened, he said. ‘I think the thing that is going to drive this is the commercial damage that could be done to market gardeners,’ he said.

Guy Barter, the RHS head of horticultural advisory services, said they were receiving more than 20 calls a week. ‘Our advice is not to eat the vegetables because no one seems to have any idea whether it is safe to eat them and we can’t give any assurances,’ he said. ‘It is happening all over the country. A lot of cases we are seeing is where people have got manure from stables and the stable have bought their hay from a merchant, and the merchant might have bought hay from many farmers, possibly from different parts of the country. So they have no idea where the hay came from. So finding someone to blame is quite difficult.’ Weedkiller in the soil should dissipate by next year, but in stacks of contaminated manure it might take two or more years to decay, he added.

Dow is planning a major publicity campaign to reiterate warnings to farmers over usage, and to encourage allotment holders to check the provenance of manure that they put down in an effort to prevent the problem escalating. On compensation, it was less forthcoming. ‘There is no easy answer to that,’ said Bowers. ‘The first port of call is always where the manure comes from. From that point on, I can’t really comment.

‘The chain is horrendously complicated. In the cases we have managed to trace back, we might find that the farmer who supplied the manure didn’t spray anything himself, but he might have bought in a couple of bales of silage from one of his neighbours, and that farm might have sprayed.’

Robin and Christina Jones spread a large amount of manure over their flower garden and vegetable patch at their home in Banstead, Surrey. When the potatoes failed, Robin took a sample to the RHS, which identified aminopyralid. His neighbour, who bought from the same source, suffered the same problems. ‘We have lost 80 per cent of our vegetable patch,’ said Jones, 65, a retired sound engineer. Raspberries, French beans, onions, leeks, even a newly planted robina tree were all affected. ‘We are distraught. But what worries me is that the courgettes look very healthy. Had we not had the problem with the potatoes, we might never have realised. Now we are advised not to eat them.

‘This is a very serious issue, and people must be made aware of the advice not to eat vegetables grown in contaminated manure.’

Sue Ainsworth, 58, an education consultant, said around 20 allotments at her site in Hale, Cheshire, had been affected. ‘We first noticed with the potatoes. As they came through, they were deformed, all curled over and rotten underneath. But the worry is that the courgettes also planted on the manure are fine – but are they safe to eat? This must have affected thousands of people. I am really worried about this product and really think it should be withdrawn.’

She said the farmer who supplied the manure said he had used nothing unusual. ‘But he may have bought in the straw and genuinely knew nothing about the herbicide used.’