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Speaking to leaders gathered in Port of Spain, Mr Obama declared: "The US seeks a new beginning with Cuba."

"I know there is a longer journey that must be travelled to overcome decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day," he said.

Cuba is excluded from the summit, which includes 34 members of the Organisation of American States (OAS), though Latin American leaders have been calling for the communist country to be readmitted.

speaking on Friday in the Dominican Republic, Mrs Clinton acknowledged that US policy towards Cuba had "failed" and said Washington was "taking a very serious look at how to respond."

Addressing the summit, Mr Obama said he wanted to move forward with a sense of "equal partnership" with all the nations of the Americas despite decades of mistrust.

Mr Obama earlier greeted and shook hands with Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, during an impromptu meeting. Photographs released by the Venezuelan government showed Mr Chavez - one of the Bush's administrations most strident critics - smiling and clasping hands with Mr Obama at the start of the summit.

Before the summit began Mr Chavez appeared to chastise the US for its approach to Cuba, which is not a member of the OAS. In a pre-summit statement, he also said that "there is more democracy in Cuba than in the United States". But he greeted the US president warmly when the opportunity arrived, gripping the Mr Obama's hand in welcome. "I greeted Bush with this hand eight years ago; I want to be your friend," Mr Chavez told Mr Obama, according to a Venezuelan presidential press office statement.

Ten techniques are approved, listed as: attention grasp, walling (in which the suspect could be pushed into a wall), a facial hold, a facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, sleep deprivation, insects placed in a confinement box (the suspect had a fear of insects) and the waterboard. In the latter, "the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner........produces the perception of 'suffocation and incipient panic'."

'Walling' involved use of a plastic neck collar to slam suspects into a specially-built wall that the CIA said made the impact sound worse than it actually was. Other methods include food deprivation.

The Bush administration, in particular former vice-president Dick Cheney, claimed that waterboarding did not amount to torture but the Obama adminstration has ruled that it is. Obama ordered the closure of Guantánamo and the CIA secret detention sites abroad.

Spanish human rights lawyers last month asked Judge Baltasar Garzón, who indicted the former Chilean president Augusto Pinochet in 1998, to consider filing charges against the former US attorney-general, Alberto Gonzales, and five others.

civil rights organisations have been disappointed by a series of rulings by the Obama administration that have protected a lot of material relating to Guantánamo and the sites abroad. The release of the memos today reversed that trend, though there will be unhappiness over the immunity from prosecution.

Echoing the president, the attorney-general, Eric Holder, reiterated that there would be no prosecution of CIA operatives working within the guidelines set by the Bush administration."It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the justice department," Holder said.

The director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, told CIA employees that "this is not the end of the road on these issues", apparently in expectation of Congressional inquiries and court actions abroad. He promised legal and financial help for any CIA employees who faced such action.

In Spain, the chances of court action against six senior Bush administration members over the torture receded today after a ruling by the attorney-general, Candido Conde-Pumpido.He said that any such action should be heard in a US court rather than a Spanish one, and that he would not allow Spain's legal system to be used as a plaything for political ends.

In the first of the memos, dated 1 August 2002, the justice department gave the go-ahead to John Rizzo, then acting general counsel to the CIA, for operatives to move to the "increased pressure phase" in interrogating an al-Qaida suspect.

Obama, in a statement from the White House, said: "In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carrying out their duties relying in good faith upon the legal advice from the department of justice that they will not be subject to prosecution."

Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, sent troops into Chechnya in 1999. His aim was to win back the region, which had enjoyed de-facto independence since the first Chechen war in 1994-1996. The security regime included arbitrary arrests, roadblocks, curfews and restrictions on journalists.

In return for abandoning their struggle for independence, Akhmad Kadyrov and other ex-separatists were granted sweeping powers and autonomy denied to other Russian republics. Moscow also agreed to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses. The policy appeared to work. Chechnya's shell-ridden capital, Grozny, was transformed.

some inside the Kremlin have questioned whether Putin's policy of entrusting power to Chechens - known as "Chechenisation" - has gone too far. Kadyrov has been repeatedly accused of murdering his enemies, including the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a critic who described him as a "coward armed to the teeth". He denies involvement in her death.In January, a Chechen exile, Umar Israilov, who had accused Kadryov of torturing him was shot dead in a street in Vienna. And last month, Sulim Yamadayev, a former Chechen rebel commander who fell out with Kadyrov, was shot dead in Dubai. Police in the United Arab Emirates accused Kadyrov's cousin and heir apparent, Adam Delimkhanov, of ordering the assassination.

Russian newspapers today suggested that some inside the Russian government now believe Kadyrov has grown far too powerful, but have little idea how to keep control of him. One analyst said Chechnya now enjoys the kind of autonomy that its separatist leaders in the 1990s had failed to achieve, while remaining a part of the Russian Federation.

"It would be difficult to describe Chechnya as peaceful. But Kadyrov has achieved 'stability' in the Russian and Chechen definition of the word," Sergei Markedonov, of Moscow's Institute for Political and Military Studies, wrote in theMoscow Times.

"Nonetheless this stability has come at a very high price. The flip side is that Chechnya's internal political issues are largely resolved without Russia and with minimal adherence to federal laws," he added. "In this sense, a new type of separatism has won out in Chechnya."

Doctors working in the no-fire zone say that over the past week they have treated hundreds of civilians, accusing the Sri Lankan government of shelling the zone; one claimed that about 50 civilians are dying every day. The government denies these charges and there is no way of proving the claims because independent media are barred from entering the area.

Others among the 22 female inmates held behind barbed wire confirmed that they had received orders from the LTTE to use hand grenades to commit suicide rather than be taken alive. The instruction was simple: hold the grenade against your head or stomach and detonate it.

What appears to have turned some former supporters against the LTTE was its decision in 2007 to start conscripting fighters to fill their depleted ranks. Niraiesai, 26, says she was given no choice but to fight. She had just finished teacher training when the Tigers turned up at her home in 2007. Every family had to send one member to fight, they were told. "Many people didn't like it, but they compelled us so we had to join."

Niraiesai was held in a military camp for two months, then sent to Ambepusse. She says the Tigers stole her youth. "For 25 years, we were ruled by the LTTE and we believed them. But after 2007 people hated them because they compelled the children to fight. We were brainwashed that the Sinhalese were bad and we believed them," she says. "But now I think we can live together."

"We received the news about cancelling the counter-terrorism operation with great satisfaction," Mr Kadyrov told Russia's Interfax news agency on Thursday.

Sporadic clashes persist in Chechnya, however, and violence continues in the neighbouring regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia.

The BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow says the announcement is a moment of great symbolism, but that in fact relative stability was established some time ago. The Chechen rebels who have been fighting for independence for their republic for 15 years have not been able to carry out any serious attacks since 2004, our correspondent says.

while the rebels have been confined to the mountains, the capital Grozny, which once lay in ruins after two brutal wars, is now being rapidly rebuilt, he adds.

Our correspondent says now the question is how many Russian troops will remain in Chechnya. A source in the Russian interior ministry has said 5,000 of its troops would gradually pull out, but it is not yet clear how many regular soldiers will do the same, he adds.

"The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," said a senior intelligence official. "So have the Russians."

"Over the past several years, we have seen cyberattacks against critical infrastructures abroad, and many of our own infrastructures are as vulnerable as their foreign counterparts," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair recently told lawmakers. "A number of nations, including Russia and China, can disrupt elements of the U.S. information infrastructure."

Officials said water, sewage and other infrastructure systems also were at risk.

Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, the senior intelligence official said. He added, "If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on."

protecting the electrical grid and other infrastructure is a key part of the Obama administration's cybersecurity review, which is to be completed next week

It is nearly impossible to know whether or not an attack is government-sponsored because of the difficulty in tracking true identities in cyberspace. U.S. officials said investigators have followed electronic trails of stolen data to China and Russia.

Russian and Chinese officials have denied any wrongdoing. "These are pure speculations," said Yevgeniy Khorishko, a spokesman at the Russian Embassy. "Russia has nothing to do with the cyberattacks on the U.S. infrastructure, or on any infrastructure in any other country in the world."

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Wang Baodong, said the Chinese government "resolutely oppose[s] any crime, including hacking, that destroys the Internet or computer network" and has laws barring the practice. China was ready to cooperate with other countries to counter such attacks, he said, and added that "some people overseas with Cold War mentality are indulged in fabricating the sheer lies of the so-called cyberspies in China."

Specialists at the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a nonprofit research institute, said attack programs search for openings in a network, much as a thief tests locks on doors. Once inside, these programs and their human controllers can acquire the same access and powers as a systems administrator.

Mrs Clinton made her comments about Cuba in the Dominican Republic, ahead of the Summit of the Americas that begins in Trinidad and Tobago later on Friday. "We are continuing to look for productive ways forward because we view the present policy as having failed," she said at a press conference.

Cuba is excluded from the summit, which includes 34 members of the Organisation of American States (OAS), though Latin American leaders have been calling for the communist country to be readmitted. OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said on Friday he would ask the organisation's members to readmit Cuba, 47 years after it was suspended.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he would veto the final declaration from the OAS summit because of Cuba's exclusion.

Even for those who believed that brutal treatment could produce results, the official said, “seeing these depths of human misery and degradation has a traumatic effect.”

A footnote to another of the memos described a rift between line officers questioning Abu Zubaydah at a secret C.I.A. prison in Thailand and their bosses at headquarters, and asserted that the brutal treatment may have been “unnecessary.”

In March 2002, when Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan after a gunfight with Pakistani security officers backed by F.B.I. and C.I.A. officers, Bush administration officials portrayed him as a Qaeda leader. That judgment was reflected in the Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion signed by Jay S. Bybee, then head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.The memo summarizes the C.I.A.’s judgment that Abu Zubaydah, then 31, had risen rapidly to “third or fourth man in Al Qaeda” and had served as “senior lieutenant” to Osama bin Laden. It said he had “managed a network of training camps” and had been “involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by Al Qaeda.”

The memo reported the C.I.A.’s portrayal of “a highly self-directed individual who prizes his independence,” a deceptive narcissist, healthy and tough, who agency officers believed was the most senior terrorist caught since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

His interrogation, according to multiple accounts, began in Pakistan and continued at the secret C.I.A. site in Thailand, with a traditional, rapport-building approach led by two F.B.I. agents, who even helped care for him as his gunshot wounds healed.

A C.I.A. interrogation team that arrived a week or two later, which included former military psychologists, did not change the approach to questioning, but began to keep him awake night and day with blasting rock music, have his clothes removed and keep his cell cold.

The legal basis for this treatment is uncertain, but lawyers at C.I.A. headquarters were in constant touch with interrogators, as well as with Mr. Bybee’s subordinate in the Office of Legal Counsel, John C. Yoo, who was drafting memos on the legal limits of interrogation.

Through the summer of 2002, Abu Zubaydah continued to provide valuable information. Interrogators began to surmise that he was not a leader, but rather a helpful training camp personnel clerk who would arrange false documents and travel for jihadists, including Qaeda members.

He knew enough to give interrogators “a road map of Al Qaeda operatives,” an agency officer said. He also repeated talk he had heard about possible plots or targets in the United States, though when F.B.I. agents followed up, most of it turned out to be idle discussion or preliminary brainstorming.At the time, former C.I.A. officials say, his tips were extremely useful, helping to track several other important terrorists, including Mr. Mohammed.

But senior agency officials, still persuaded, as they had told President George W. Bush and his staff, that he was an important Qaeda leader, insisted that he must know more.“You get a ton of information, but headquarters says, ‘There must be more,’ ” recalled one intelligence officer who was involved in the case. As described in the footnote to the memo, the use of repeated waterboarding against Abu Zubaydah was ordered “at the direction of C.I.A. headquarters,” and officials were dispatched from headquarters “to watch the last waterboard session.”

The memo, written in 2005 and signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that the waterboarding was justified even if the prisoner turned out not to know as much as officials had thought.

And he did not, according to the former intelligence officer involved in the Abu Zubaydah case. “He pleaded for his life,” the official said. “But he gave up no new information. He had no more information to give.”

Since 2002, the C.I.A. has downgraded its assessment of Abu Zubaydah’s significance, while continuing to call his revelations important. In an interview, an intelligence officer said that the current view was that Abu Zubaydah was “an important terrorist facilitator” who disclosed “essential raw material for successful counterterrorist action.”

Mr. Netanyahu said Tuesday that his government would support a “Palestinian security apparatus that will fight terrorism” — apparently a reference to the forces being trained in an American-backed program under the Annapolis framework.

In Israel, however, public criticism has focused on the sheer size of the new cabinet, swelled by Mr. Netanyahu’s attempts to satisfy his coalition partners’ competing demands. With 30 ministers and at least 7 deputy ministers, the cabinet has grown into the largest in Israel’s history, prompting charges that it will prove unmanageable and constitute a waste of public funds during a recession.

In 1996, Mr. Netanyahu prided himself on his establishment of a lean cabinet, with 18 ministers. The government established by Mr. Olmert in May 2006 had 25.

Mr. Netanyahu has so far emphasized his plans for economic development in the West Bank. His refusal to endorse the two-state solution has led to skepticism and despondency on the Palestinian side, exacerbated by fears that his government will expedite Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, not all Israelis accept the gloomy forecasts of strained relations with Washington. “As long as Hamas is in power in Gaza, we are off the hook,” said Efraim Inbar, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. Under these circumstances, “nobody can really pressure Israel to do anything,” he said in a telephone interview.

Britain currently has 8,100 troops in Afghanistan, and is separately considering a larger permanent deployment, which may be facilitated by the imminent drawdown in Iraq. The British contribution to the reinforcements includes 275 troops who were due to return to the UK in July but will now stay until October

The countries agreeing to contribute further help, according to European diplomats, include Poland – which is to send as many as 600 troops – Spain, Croatia, Greece and the Netherlands. Germany is expected to confirm that it will be sending extra troops to the largely peaceful north of Afghanistan for the election on 22 August.

France is sending a further 150 military police to help train Afghan civilian police, arguing that last year it announced a large extra deployment.

America and Britain had become increasingly frustrated at the 28 Nato countries's unwillingness to commit troops to serious fighting against the Taliban in southern and eastern Afghanistan. While yesterday's temporary additions do not mean that Nato countries have committed themselves to a long-term increase in forces, the US claimed there was a definite change of mood.

Before the troops announcement was made, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, hastily agreed to review a draft law that allegedly legitimises rape inside marriage for Afghanistan's Shia minority. The review follows phone calls yesterday from Brown and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, as well as warnings from Canada that it will withdraw its troops if the law is passed.

Karzai has agreed to refer the law back to the Ministry of Justice and has committed himself to veto the law if it infringes the human rights of women. He protested yesterday that the law had been misinterpreted by western media and that it did not ban women from leaving their home without the permission of their husband.

Obama is committing an extra 21,000 troops, and possibly another 10,000 later in the year.

in a sign of the persisting tensions inside the 28-nation alliance, the summit at one stage appeared deadlocked over the appointment of Rasmussen, after objections from the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey had rejected the nomination because of Rasmussen's defence of Danish newspaper cartoons depicting Muhammad in 2005.

Later, however, Turkey dropped its objections and it was announced that Nato leaders agreed unanimously to appoint Rasmussen as the next head of the alliance.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has been especially unhelpful, making clear that he will do all he can to keep Turkey out of the European Union.

Ankara has played a positive role, mediating indirect talks between Israel and Syria. With Washington’s encouragement, Mr. Erdogan could also use his relationships with Iran, Sudan and Hamas to encourage improved behavior.

We are concerned about Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic tendencies. His government’s decision to slap the media mogul Aydin Dogan with a $500 million tax bill smacks of retaliation against an independent press that has successfully exposed government corruption.

Mr. Obama must persuade Mr. Sarkozy and others that admitting Turkey — a Muslim democracy — is in everyone’s interest. And he must persuade Ankara that the required reforms will strengthen Turkey’s democracy and provide more stability and growth.

Turkey’s cooperation with Iraqi Kurds has vastly improved. There are also reports that Turkey and Armenia may soon normalize relations.

We have long criticized Turkey for its self-destructive denial of the World War I era mass killing of Armenians. But while Congress is again contemplating a resolution denouncing the genocide, it would do a lot more good for both Armenia and Turkey if it held back. Mr. Obama, who vowed in the presidential campaign to recognize the event as genocide, should also forbear.

Mr Goldstone will lead a four-member team, which also includes experts from Pakistan, Britain, and Ireland, in investigating "all violations of international humanitarian law" before, during and after the Israeli campaign in Gaza that ended on 18 January.

Mr Goldstone is a former UN chief prosecutor for war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He is also a former judge at the South African constitutional court. He is also on the board of governors at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Mr Goldstone said he was "shocked, as a Jew", to be invited to head the mission.

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, including more than 900 civilians, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which published a list of names of the dead. Israel has said the toll was lower, and the "vast majority" of the dead were militants. But it did not publish a list to support the assertion.

In a joint statement, nine Israeli rights groups said the decision to close the investigation without bringing charges "only strengthens the need for the attorney general to allow for an independent nonpartisan investigative body to be established in order to look into all Israeli army activity" in Gaza.Defense minister, Ehud Barak, said the investigation showed that Israel possesses "the most moral army in the world".