NightBlogger

“The federal agencies are now collecting samples of foods typically consumed with tomatoes.”
This means lettuce, onions, cilantro, cucumbers, you could go on and on…

USA TODAY — The Food and Drug Administration activated its Food Emergency Response Network on Tuesday, adding as many as 100 laboratories to its efforts to trace the source of the salmonella outbreak that has sickened more than 800 since April. The extra labs are needed because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over the weekend expanded its investigation of the outbreak originally blamed on contaminated tomatoes. The federal agencies are now collecting samples of foods typically consumed with tomatoes. More

US intervention in Latin America is rarely discussed among American intellectuals. Latin America is where—thanks to misguided men like Reagan—the so-called “War On Terror” began in the 1980’s. Latin Americans will tell you who the real terrorists are.

Compiled by Steve Kangas

1954

Guatemala - The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years.

1959

Haiti - The U.S. military helps “Papa Doc” Duvalier become dictator of Haiti. He creates his own private police force, the “Tonton Macoutes,” who terrorize the population with machetes. They will kill over 100,000 during the Duvalier family reign. The U.S. does not protest their dismal human rights record.

1961

The Bay of Pigs - The CIA sends 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade Castro’s Cuba. But “Operation Mongoose” fails, due to poor planning, security and backing. The planners had imagined that the invasion will spark a popular uprising against Castro — which never happens. A promised American air strike also never occurs. This is the CIA’s first public setback, causing President Kennedy to fire CIA Director Allen Dulles.

1963

Dominican Republic - The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Juan Bosch in a military coup. The CIA installs a repressive, right-wing junta.

Ecuador - A CIA-backed military coup overthrows President Arosemana, whose independent (not socialist) policies have become unacceptable to Washington. A military junta assumes command, cancels the 1964 elections, and begins abusing human rights.

1964

Brazil - A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the democratically elected government of Joao Goulart. The junta that replaces it will, in the next two decades, become one of the most bloodthirsty in history. General Castelo Branco will create Latin America’s first death squads, or bands of secret police who hunt down “communists” for torture, interrogation and murder. Often these “communists” are no more than Branco’s political opponents. Later it is revealed that the CIA trains the death squads. More

Noah Shachtman
On October 24th, 1962, then-Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev told the president of Westinghouse that he didn’t want a nuclear war over Cuba. But if it happened, Guantanamo naval base there would “disappear the first day” after a U.S. invasion of the island.

“At the time, Khrushchev’s threat seemed like empty bluster,” the National Security Archive notes.
What Kennedy did not know was that the Soviets had deployed nuclear cruise missiles to Cuba, armed with 14-kiloton warheads, roughly the power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.”

At about the time that Khrushchev was speaking with [the Westinghouse executive], a convoy of FKR cruise missiles was moving from Mayari Arriba to a pre-launch position at the village of Vilorio. (See map below.) On the night of October 26-27, at the height of the missile crisis, the convoy was ordered to the launch position the village of Filipinas, 15 miles from Guantanamo naval base…

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Photo lrargerich
RANDOLPH E. SCHMID/Ap
England’s enigmatic Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings and for several hundred years thereafter, new research indicates. Dating of cremated remains shows burials took place as early as 3000 B.C., when the first ditches around the monument were being built, researchers said Thursday.

And those burials continued for at least 500 years, when the giant stones that mark the mysterious circle were being erected, they said. “It’s now clear that burials were a major component of Stonehenge in all its main stages,” said Mike Parker Pearson, archaeology professor at the University of Sheffield in England and head of the Stonehenge Riverside Archaeological Project. More

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globeandmail.com
Transcripts of 210,000 trials held at Britain’s famous Old Bailey court from 1674 to 1913 are now available online

The transcript from Oscar Wilde’s trial for gross indecency at London’s Old Bailey court went online for the first time yesterday alongside a raft of murder, robbery and abduction cases. Up for free examination are 110,000 pages of transcripts - including Wilde’s trial and the notorious story of Dr. Crippen and the murder of his wife. Lurid tales of murder and rape, stories of pickpocketing and robbery - every type of crime was paraded before the London court.

The Oldbaileyonline.org site was billed as the largest single source of searchable historical information about British lives that has been published. The transcripts cover every one of the 210,000 trials held at the Old Bailey from 1674 to 1913. The court is still in operation.
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