BBC News photo collection showing previously unknown cache of papers related to Anne Frank, one of the most famous victims of the Holocaust. The documents note that her family tried to have her emigrate to the United States, but was unable to obtain a visa because of the difficulty of traveling from Amsterdam to an American Consul in Portugal, Spain, Free France, or Switzerland during the Nazi occupation of Europe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/6365861.stm

Check out this incredible interview. It reads like a Clancy novel! There is some rough language, which I do not condone, but it does fit well with Mr. Kavaja’s image.

Nikola Kavaja lives in a drab, Communist-era high-rise in Belgrade, Serbia’s crumbling capital. His two-room apartment is sparsely furnished: a single mattress and dresser in one room, and a scratched-up wooden desk, a couch, and a bench press in the other. The white walls are cluttered with pictures of the people who figure most strongly in his personal iconography: General Ratko Mladic, Saint Sava, Hitler, Jimmy Carter, and a young pin-up who is his current girlfriend. Guns and old military gear provide further ornamentation. A blue thermal blanket covers the street window.

By Christopher S Stewart
Published: 10 December 2006

Kavaja is 73, but he looks no older than 60. He adheres to a strict weight-training routine that gets him up every weekday before the sun. He is squarely built and muscular, with white hair cut to a military trim-line and a fighter’s mashed-up nose. Except for the fine white thread of moustache, he is cleanly shaven. In his dress, he favours black trousers, black shirts and black combat boots.

Our conversation took place over three mornings, with classical music playing softly in the background. Kavaja spoke slowly and quietly, with an air of determined precision. At times, he paused to place his hand on his forehead in search of a long-forgotten detail. As he spoke, Kavaja stared off in the distance at nothing at all, or else looked down at his booted feet.

Christopher S Stewart You were a Second World War prisoner, a Communist soldier, a CIA hitman, a hijacker, and now a fugitive on the run (among other things). Where to begin?

Nikola Kavaja Write down my name. N-I-K-O-L-A K-A-V-A-J-A. You can call me Nik.

Stewart That’s a start.

Kavaja It is a long story. Do you want some schnapps?

Stewart No thanks. I’m fine with water.

Please continue reading: Interview with an Assassin

I just received an incredible phone call this evening. The caller id on my cell phone said “Unknown.” This usually means that someone on Skype is calling me… So I answered, expecting a friend. Instead, I hear: “Hello, Scott? Scott? How are you?” I have no idea who this is, so I ask who is calling and how he knows my name. It is pretty difficult to understand him and the line is crackly. Then I hear, “My name is Jose Manuel.” I could not believe it. This was a guy that I had met over a year ago (same summer when I went on the trip to Cyprus) in the small town of Comunidad El Bonete, Villanueva, Departamento de Chinandega. I had practiced my Spanish with him and he had worked on his English with me. He even had a CD player and had phonetically written out the lyrics to some American songs that he had. At the time, I would say that my Spanish was quite a bit better than his English. It was amazing how far along he had gotten in his English because he did not have an English-Spanish dictionary.

I was in Nicaragua doing a medical mission trip with a bunch of pre-med, med, dental, and vet students. We actually started in Costa Rica and then made our way up to Nicaragua. Staying in El Bonete was one of the highlights of the 2-week trip. The people of the village were very kind to host us in their homes for the 2 nights that we stayed there. It was a very interesting experience. Most of us slept in hammocks over the home’s dirt floor. I was fortunate enough to stay with Jose Manuel’s family…they were quite well off and had wood floors and access to a boombox. (I’m hoping that Jose will eventually have access to a computer because at that time he had not heard of it, the Internet, or email.) Some of our medical team actually slept with chickens running on the floor below their hammock!
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There’s a place we all want to go when we climb into the saddle of a bicycle.

For some people, it has a name; it is the “there yet” destination that children whine about when hunger, impatience, and nature call. It is the slam of the inside door and whir of the A/C fans and satisfaction of knowing that the hot bath and unplugged phone await. However, for many others, it is the semi-transcendence of just being on the way to wherever “there yet” is; it is the rush of merely being in the saddle, legs spinning, heart pumping and wind catching the grooves and corrugations of a snug Rock-locked helmet. The bath can wait, as can the hug of privacy. There is satisfaction in the groove of consistent motion that makes the trip to point B just as (if not more) exciting than actually B-ing there.

But even for enthusiasts of the latter variety, every way does not lead to the Way (to borrow from a Buddhist axiom). The way along a shoulder on a commercial vehicle access road is a far cry from the way along a scenic and remote county path through the Fall-yellow thick of an aspen grove and the scarlet symphony of a maple swarm. The way through the crush of an urban jungle does not allow for the same introspection that the way along a mountain ridge road of breathless horizons does…

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IN the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.

The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.

Consider the parallels. The perpetrators of this spectacular assault were not in the pay of any foreign power: no nation would have dared to attack Rome so provocatively. They were, rather, the disaffected of the earth: “The ruined men of all nations,” in the words of the great 19th-century German historian Theodor Mommsen, “a piratical state with a peculiar esprit de corps.”

Like Al Qaeda, these pirates were loosely organized, but able to spread a disproportionate amount of fear among citizens who had believed themselves immune from attack. To quote Mommsen again: “The Latin husbandman, the traveler on the Appian highway, the genteel bathing visitor at the terrestrial paradise of Baiae were no longer secure of their property or their life for a single moment.”
… continue reading

Source: NY Times: Pirates of the Mediterranean

A very interesting read noting the parallels between Rome of the first century and the United States of today. Interesting, but I hope, ultimately wrong.

Wikipedia article on Lex Gabinia, the law passed giving General Pompey basically unlimited power to pursue pirates in the mediterranean.

From Reuters (Via YahooNews): Newsweek says erred in Koran desecration report.

Newsweek magazine on Sunday said it erred in a May 9 report that said U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article. …

[Editor Mark] Whitaker said the magazine inaccurately reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that personnel at the detention facility in Cuba had flushed the Koran down the toilet.

The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza.

To continue reading please go to Cox & Forkum: Flushed

SALINA, Kan. - Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett on Thursday became the first person to fly around the world solo without stopping or refueling, safely touching down in his custom-built plane 67 hours after taking off. … The project was financed by Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson, a longtime friend and fellow adventurer.

Source: Yahoo News

For information about the plane or the mission in general and for some cool pictures please visit: http://www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com

Source: ATPtennis.com

Dubai, UAE: World No. 1 Roger Federer and former No. 1 Andre Agassi took tennis to new heights on Tuesday, ascending nearly 700 feet (over 320 meters) to play a friendly match on the helipad at the luxurious Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai.

“This was an absolutely amazing experience,” Agassi said. “When you first get over how high you are and start playing it’s an absolute joy and it was a great time. I had no issues with the height as long as I didn’t have to bungee jump off the side.”

The hotel’s grass helipad, which is situated 692 feet (211 meters) high covers a surface area of 1,361 square feet (415 sq meters), was converted into a tennis court for the two players. Standing 1,053 feet (321 meters) high on a man-made island, the majestic Burj Al Arab is one of the most recognizable hotels in the world.

“The view is absolutely amazing here and it was very different when I was asked to do this as I didn’t know what to expect,” Federer said. “I have been in Dubai many times and have stayed at Burj Al Arab before, but this was an absolute treat. To play tennis with Andre on top of such an amazing hotel and overlooking the whole of Dubai was absolutely spectacular.”

Both players are in town for the ATP’s Dubai Duty Free Men’s Open, a USD $1 million International Series Gold event. Federer is the reigning champion of the Dubai Duty Free Men’s Open and is making his third appearance in the tournament while Agassi is playing an ATP tournament in the Middle East for the first time.

Click below for more photos

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10×10â„¢ (’ten by ten’) is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10×10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10×10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.

10×10 is ever-changing, ever-growing, quietly observing the ways in which we live. It records our wars and crises, our triumphs and tragedies, our mistakes and milestones. When we make history, or at least the headlines, 10×10 takes note and remembers.

Each hour is presented as a picture postcard window, composed of 100 different frames, each of which holds the image of a single moment in time. Clicking on a single frame allows us to peer a bit deeper into the story that lies behind the image. In this way, we can dart in and out of the news, understanding both the individual stories and the ways in which they relate to each other.

Very cool. It really captures the essence of the news and what’s going on in the world. I like the fact that it is totally automated…no human intervention. In that sense it is much like my often visited news.google.com.

Did Kim Jung Il miscalculate?

North Korea declared itself a nuclear power on Thursday. The Stalinist state coupled a unilateral admission of possessing nuclear weapons with the assertion that it would not take part in “six-nation talks aimed at ending the [nuclear arms] crisis,” on the Korean peninsula.

Both statements appeared to catch the US by surprise, as well as China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia, despite the fact that this was the third time in two years that N. Korea pulled the diplomatic rug out from under international talks.

A consensus of the parties involved seemed to be that the next move was China’s responsibility to confront its ally with the untenable position of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

Please click the link above to continue reading…