Washington (AFP) - The US's top psychology association colluded with the Pentagon and the CIA to devise ethical guidelines to support post-9/11 interrogation techniques that have since been labeled as torture, a report said Friday.

Some members of the American Psychological Association (APA), including senior staff, sought to "curry favor" with defense officials, according to the 542-page probe commissioned by APA's board.

These individuals issued an ethics policy that aligned with government interrogation techniques after the September 11 2001 terror attacks, such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation.

The association colluded with several government agencies, including the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to devise ethical guidelines for the interrogation program under former president George W. Bush, according to the review.

The government agencies "purportedly wanted permissive ethical guidelines so that their psychologists could continue to participate in harsh and abusive interrogation techniques being used by these agencies after the September 11 attacks," the report said.

"APA's principal motive in doing so was to align APA and curry favor with DoD (Department of Defense). There were two other important motives: to create a good public-relations response, and to keep the growth of psychology unrestrained in this area."

The findings come after Democrats on the US Senate Intelligence Committee in December released a damning report detailing brutal and previously unknown interrogation techniques, including beatings and rectal rehydration, used by the CIA on Al-Qaeda suspects post 9/11.

- APA apologizes -

According to Friday's report, APA's ethics director Stephen Behnke worked with a military psychologist to draft the organization's public policy statements and also received a Pentagon contract to train interrogators.

The report said he did not tell the APA board about his involvement in training defense department staff.

Responding to the findings, the APA -- the largest professional psychology organization in the country -- said Friday it would review its policies and urge a ban on its psychologists from participating directly in interrogations.

"The organization's intent was not to enable abusive interrogation techniques or contribute to violations of human rights, but that may have been the result," said Nadine Kaslow, who led an independent review committee that commissioned the report.

"We profoundly regret, and apologize for, the behavior and the consequences that ensued."

The independent review was led by attorney David Hoffman of Sidley Austin law firm.

It was commissioned by APA's board of directors and took seven months to complete.

The report said that in 2005, the APA created a task force to review the association's ethical guidelines that determined when its psychologists could participate in interrogations.

A subsequent report from the task force found there were no ethical violations of psychologists' participation in the government's "enhanced interrogation" program -- which included techniques such as waterboarding, forced "stress positions" and sleep deprivation.

Behnke reportedly "collaborated behind the scenes about the eventual content of the task force's report," the review said.

Critics cited in the report said the APA's decisions "were intentionally made to help the government commit torture."

The report found that the ethical guidelines "prioritized the protection of psychologists -- even those who might have engaged in unethical behavior -- above the protection of the public."

The review also found that two former APA presidents sat on CIA advisory committees, and one of them told the intelligence agency he did not think that sleep deprivation constituted torture.

VIENNA (AP) — As negotiators at Iran nuclear talks labored to make headway, the country's supreme leader called Saturday for the struggle against the U.S. to continue, in comments suggesting that Tehran's distrust of Washington will persist no matter what the outcome of the talks.

The negotiations entered their 15th day Saturday with no indications of major progress after three extensions and four target dates for a deal, and diplomats said it remained unclear whether an agreement could be reached by Monday, the latest deadline.

Iran and the U.S. have threatened to walk away unless the other side makes concessions. Although it was unclear whether Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was preparing the ground for the failure of the talks, his comments were likely to add to skepticism over the outcome at the negotiating table.

Iran's state-run Press TV cited Khamenei as calling the U.S. an "excellent example of arrogance." It said Khamenei told university students in Tehran to be "prepared to continue the struggle against arrogant powers."

Even if Khamenei isn't signaling that the talks have failed, his comments appear to be a blow to U.S. hopes that an agreement will lead to improved bilateral relations that could translate into increased cooperation in a common cause — the fight against Islamic radicals.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had hinted at just that last week, suggesting a deal acceptable to his country will open the door to joint efforts on that front.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani indicated talks could go either way.

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, centre, and State Department Chief of Staff Jon Finer, left, mee …

"We behaved so skillfully that if talks won't succeed, the world would accept that Iran is for logic and dialogue and never left the negotiating table ... and if we succeed by the grace of God, the world will know that the Iranian nation can resolve its problems through logic," his website quoted him as saying.

Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met again Saturday, this time with European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini present. Of the chief diplomats of the six countries negotiating with Iran, British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond and Foreign Ministers Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany and Laurent Fabius of France also are already in Vienna. Kerry spoke by telephone to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The Chinese and Russian foreign ministers have said they will come to Vienna if a deal appears close.

On Friday, Kerry suggested that some progress had been made, telling reporters that the "atmosphere is very constructive," but stressing that "very difficult issues" remained to be resolved. Since the start of the current round 15 days ago, he has said twice that the negotiations couldn't be open-ended and warned that the U.S. was prepared to call an end to the talks.

Any deal is meant to clamp long-term and verifiable restrictions on Iranian nuclear programs that are technically adaptable to make weapons in exchange for sanctions relief for Tehran.

The scope of access to U.N. inspectors monitoring Iran's nuclear program remains a sticking point. The Americans want no restrictions. Iranian officials say unrestricted monitoring could be a cover for Western spying. Diplomats say Iran's negotiators have signaled a willingness to compromise, but hardliners in Iran remain opposed to broad U.N. inspections.

Another unresolved matter is Iran's demand for a U.N. arms embargo to be lifted as part of sanctions relief, a stance supported by Russia and China but opposed by the U.S. and some Europeans.

The current round was supposed to conclude on June 30, but was extended until July 7, then July 10 and now July 13. The sides had hoped to seal a deal before the end of Thursday in Washington to avoid delays in implementing their promises.

By missing that target, the U.S. and Iran now have to wait for a 60-day congressional review period during which President Barack Obama can't waive sanctions on Iran. Had they reached a deal by Thursday, the review would have been only 30 days.

Iran is unlikely to begin a substantial rollback of its nuclear program until it gets sanctions relief in return.

___

This story has been corrected to reflect that the talks have gone past four deadlines and into three extensions.

___ Associated Press writer Ali Akbar Dareini contributed to this report.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's latest declaration suggests that Tehran's distrust of the U.S. will persist.
'Excellent example of arrogance'

China is fragile.

After a massive 150% rally in the Shanghai Composite Index over the last year, on June 12 China's largest stock market (and it's smaller Shenzen Index) started to plummet.

Before the bleeding stopped on Thursday, Shanghai had erased gains from April, May, and June.

And the entire country was shocked — almost as shocked as the rest of the world. China's leading Communist Party (CCP) had been very clear. The people were to buy stocks, and so they did the whole year through up to this point — taking out high-interest-rate loans to do so with gusto.

So when the downturn came, it hit retail investors — who make up 25% of China's stock market — hard. The government tried to do everything it could to stop the stock slide. It ordered large investors not to sell for six months, launched an investigation into short sellers, threw almost $20 billion at the problem, canceled IPOs and more.

The Chinese people responded by blaming foreign bankers, waiting for their government to bail them out completely, and, in some extreme cases, committing suicide.

The odd thing about all this is, as many retail investors as there are in China's stock market, the money actually in the market only makes up about 15% of household assets.

So why the freak out?