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CIA documents from the 1950s reveal that the UK and Canada secretly developed a saucer-shaped, hovering aircraft at Avro-Canada's research facility in Malton, Canada. The Project Y aircraft was designed by British designer John Carver Meadows Frost. The CIA was initially alarmed that Nazi scientists were working on similar aircraft for the Soviet Union and that the US was falling behind on the technology. The Nazis are believed to have experimented with aircraft based on inventor Henri-Marie Coanda's discovery in 1910 that a turbo-jet would create additional lift by sucking in air to form a vacuum over the wing.

US Pres. Bill Clinton made it clear during his testimony in the Monica Lewinsky case that he was annoyed that the session was being videotaped, ostensibly for the benefit of an absent grand juror. Clinton intimated that he suspected that the tape would ultimately be made public. The tape, shown on television on Sep. 21, 1998, revealed Clinton's reliance on grammar when answering questions about the exact nature of his sexual relationship with Lewinsky. Clinton was careful to make as few references to sex as possible, repeatedly referring his interrogators to a statement he had prepared in advance.

Five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, people in the countries of the former Soviet bloc are finding that freedom has brought mixed blessings. A Czech dissident is disappointed by an increase in greediness and selfishness while an old soldier is frustrated by what he sees as the ineffective laws in the new Czech Republic. An unemployed factory worker in Poland leads a miserable existence on pitiful social security hand-outs but another Pole has few regrets about returning to his homeland after 30 years in exile. A headhunter in Hungary and a detective in Poland are both doing well.

Claude Frizzell Bloodgood III, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of his mother, differs from other inmates at the Powhaten Correctional Facility in Virginia. Bloodgood is a chess genius, his US Chess Federation points rating making him a grandmaster. Bloodgood's version of his life story appears to be a mixture of truth and fiction. He claims to have been born Klaus Bluttgutt in Mexico, to have been involved in espionage as a member of the Nazi party during the second world war, and to have played chess with Hollywood greats such as Humphrey Bogart.

Byline: Julian Borger LONDON --- The killing of Osama bin Laden provided a moment of catharsis that had eluded America for a decade. Flag-draped crowds spontaneously gathered outside the White [...]

Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving on Nov. 26, 1998, knowing that they have a great deal to be thankful for. A Gallup poll in Oct. 1998 showed that 85% of Americans are satisfied with their personal well-being, compared with just 36% in the 'Camelot' years of the Kennedy era in the 1960s. Average incomes in the US are at an all-time high, while unemployment and inflation are at their lowest level since the 1960s. The murder rate is at a 30-year low and the number of serious crimes being reported to the police has fallen every year for the last six years.

Affirmative action in the US suffered the latest in a series of legal blows on Nov. 19, 1998, when a federal court ruled against the race-based admissions policy of the ancient and highly revered Boston Latin School. The court ruled that the school department had failed to prove a case for the racial admissions policy that saw a white girl, Sarah Wessman, denied a place at the school while black and Hispanic pupils with lower aptitude test scores were accepted. The ruling could prove a fatal blow for school admission policies based on positive discrimination in the US.

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr defended his case against US Pres. Bill Clinton when he appeared before the House of Representatives judiciary committee on Nov. 19, 1998. The Democrats on the committee portrayed Starr as a zealot, with John Conyers accusing him of having crossed the line into obsession. However Starr, his voice choking with emotion, suggested that his extraordinary unpopularity might stem from his devotion to the law. Starr, described by one newspaper on Nov. 19, 1998, as a Puritan Lone Ranger, argued that Clinton had lied under oath.

Peggy Salinger's view of her author father, J.D.Salinger,is examined in detail.

Tallahassee, Florida, organised a recount at very short notice but was forced to cancel it by the Supreme Court. The counters had got through about half the votes and were disappointed they had to stop.

US National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) investigators, nicknamed the tin-kickers, may take months, even years, to determine why EgyptAir flight 990 crashed into the North Atlantic off Nantucket island on Oct. 31, 1999. However meticulous, relentless investigations by the tin-kickers have led the NTSB to identify a 'probable cause' for all but four of the nearly 400 major commercial airline accidents it has investigated during its 31-year history. Bad weather has hampered the investigation of the EgyptAir crash and the tin-kickers are refusing to speculate on its cause.

Kenyan-born historian Edmund Morris has written a controversial biography of former US President Ronald Reagan, in which Morris appears as a fictional character who engages in conversation with Reagan. The book, 'Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan,' took 13 years to write. Publisher Random House supports Morris's unique literary stance, claiming that he participates as a character in the narrative because of his intense familiarity with Reagan's life. The publisher has invested $3 million in the project.

A book published in autumn 1999 reveals that the original inhabitants of Vermont, the Abenaki, were the victims of a ruthless ethnic cleansing experiment by the euphemistically named Vermont Commission on Country Life. The book, by local historian Nancy Gallagher, describes the way in which families deemed 'genetically inferior' were sterilised in an experiment masterminded by a local zoology professor, Henry Perkins. Abenaki chief Homer St Francis discovered the names of members of his close family among the 50 or so Abenaki men and women in the Vermont eugenic survey.

Joint Military Intelligence College (JMIC) Pres. Denis Clift explains that, to his knowledge, the JMIC is unique in awarding full bachelor's and masters degrees to budding intelligence officers. The JMIC is located inside the Bolling air force base in Washington, DC, but it produces a public prospectus outlining the courses it offers. Clift points out that US espionage is a branch of the people's government but he declines to comment on recent highly embarrassing mistakes by US intelligence. Clift does not hide his pride in his students, commenting that their talent and motivation is chilling.

The dream that a John F. Kennedy reincarnate would one day become US president, an essential part of the Camelot myth that has surrounded the Kennedy family for the past 36 years, may finally be laid to rest with the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. in Jul. 1999. John F. Kennedy Jr.'s funeral may prove to be a cathartic moment for the US as Princess Diana's funeral was for the UK. John F. Kennedy Jr.'s death may lead Americans to abandon their search for the holy grail of US politics as they come to realise that he may have been their last best hope of reliving the elusive dream.

All 40,000 Serb troops sent into Kosovo, Yugoslavia, by Yugoslav Pres. Slobodan Milosevic had withdrawn from the province hours before the deadline of midnight on Jun. 20, 1999, agreed with Nato. Private Gona Kostic, a Serb soldier who had somehow been left behind by his comrades, commented bitterly that the Serb forces had been betrayed by their political leaders. Kostic, who was so drunk he could barely stand, pointed out that many Serb soldiers had died for nothing. Meanwhile Kosovo Albanians took their revenge by looting and burning the homes of their former Serb neighbours.

The sound of joyous children chanting 'Nato! Nato!' when British soldiers arrived in the village of Mali Ribar, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, on Jun. 13, 1999, contrasted with the deep silence surrounding 26 graves lined up against a wire fence. The optimism sparked by Nato's arrival prompted Shemsije Vishesella to go home for the first time since Apr. 18, 1999, the day a detachment of Serb irregulars had arrived in Mali Ribar. The Serbs had killed the slow, the infirm and the unlucky, including Vishesella's husband and two sons. Vishesella herself was shot in the cheek.

Nunavut, a self-governing homeland for the Inuit people of Canada's Arctic north, will come into being on Apr. 1, 1999. Nunavut, which means 'Our Land,' will be led by Paul Okalik, a 34-year-old law graduate lacking any political or government experience. Okalik has personal experience of the alcoholism, drug abuse and suicidal despair into which Inuit culture has plunged as a result of the Canadian government's treatment of its Inuit subjects in the 1950s and 1960s. Okalik's father was forced to give up his nomadic life as a hunter when his sled dogs were shot dead by Canadian police.

The US is facing the possibility that some of its most closely guarded nuclear secrets have fallen into the hands of the country regarded as its potentially greatest enemy, China. A scientist and researcher at the University of California, Wen Ho Lee, was dismissed from his post at the US national laboratories at Los Alamos, NM, on Mar. 8, 1999, on the orders of US energy secretary Bill Richardson. Lee is suspected of having passed details of the US's nuclear weapons miniaturisation technology to the Chinese government, but the FBI lacks sufficient information to arrest him.

The Bank of Scotland has teamed up with US television evangelist Pat Robertson to create a new telephone banking operation in the US. The new bank will employ some of the telephone-based techniques that have enabled Robertson to create a $200 million business empire. Robertson's ministry attracts donations of around $150 million/yr. His Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) empire includes a Christian university and law school, a hotel and conference centre and a video business, while its television and radio programmes broadcast in 90 countries and 46 languages.

The hostility to genetically modified (GM) foods prevalent across Europe contrasts starkly with attitudes in the US. An International Food Information Council survey in Feb. 1999 showed that 62% of people in the US would be more likely to buy vegetables that had been made to test better or fresher by genetic engineering. The US currently has more than 50 million acres of farmland sown with GM foods and 75% of the processed foods on sale have been genetically engineered. In contrast, the European Union has rejected the four most recent applications for experimental growth of Genetically Modified Organisms.

US intelligence officials are certain that Iraqi officials working for Pres Saddam Hussein tried to recruit terrorist Osama bin Laden in Dec 1998. Bin Laden is the most wanted man in the West and the world's most prolific terrorist, and a link-up with Saddam would be a nightmare for the West. Attacks attributed to bin Laden include the Aug 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Activists in both the Democrat and Republican camps in the US are talking excitedly about the prospect of a presidential race between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Elizabeth 'Liddy' Dole. Elizabeth Dole announced on Jan. 4, 1999, that she was resigning from the top job at the American Red Cross, while New Jersey senator Robert Torricelli suggested on Jan. 3, 1999, that Hillary Clinton would run for the senate in 2000. Elizabeth Dole and Hillary Clinton both come from Methodist middle-class families, trained as Ivy-league lawyers and could undoubtedly run for the presidency.

The House of Representatives was making history on Dec. 18, 1998, as the first full chamber to debate the impeachment of a US president in 130 years, yet both Republicans and Democrats seemed aware of the constant risk of the proceedings sliding into farce. The rhetoric rarely rose to the demands of history and Democrats, aware that the vote-counters in the media had already all but declared impeachment, soon began slipping out of the room. All but the area around the lectern started to empty after the first 20 minutes of debate and the chamber was only a quarter full after an hour.

British forces became involved in the biggest military venture of US Pres. Bill Clinton's presidency on Dec. 17, 1998, when RAF Tornado pilots took off from Kuwait to launch a second wave of strikes against Iraq. The first wave of strikes on Dec. 16, 1998, had been designed to cripple Iraq's air defences. They had also been aimed at the headquarters of Iraqi military intelligence in Baghdad, Iraq, and at barracks housing some members of Pres. Saddam Hussein's most trusted unit, the Special Republican Guard, which the US claims is directly responsible for Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

The UK joined the American armed assault against Iraq for the first time on Dec. 17, 1998, when RAF Tornado pilots took part in the second night of attacks. The Pentagon reported that the first night of attacks on Dec. 16, 1998, had involved 50 or more targets. Iraqi sources claimed that 25 people had been killed and 75 wounded in the first day of raids which had also caused serious damage to two hospitals. Meanwhile US Pres. Bill Clinton spent much of Dec. 17, 1998, on the telephone trying to rally support for Operation Desert Fox from the heads of state of Israel, Jordan, Egypt and France.

US Pres. Bill Clinton and secretary of state Madeleine Albright repeated on Nov. 13, 1998, that the aim of the military build-up in the Gulf region is to allow Unscom to resume monitoring the destruction of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capability. However many in the US Air Force doubt whether the planned air strikes will even come close to achieving the Pentagon's stated aim of destroying what the Unscom monitors have failed to find. Experts cannot agree on further goals although any military campaign would be followed by action designed to break Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein's hold on power.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's media adviser Marwan Kanafani commented on Oct. 23, 1998, that US Pres. Bill Clinton deserved the credit for the agreement reached between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu shortly before 3.15 am. Kanafani pointed out that Clinton was focused. Clinton arrived at the Wye summit in Maryland on Oct. 22, 1998, determined to overcome the remaining obstacles concerning the Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and the Palestinian Covenant committing the Palestine Liberation Organisation to the destruction of the Jewish state.

Just 80 people now live in Rentiesville, OK, but the town was once part of a dream to create a black utopia where freed slaves and their families could build a new society. Rentiesville was one of 27 black-run towns founded in the last decade of the 19th century, the plan being to merge them together into a black state. The black state never materialised but Rentiesville's mayor, Mildred Burkhalter, is determined to ensure her town's survival. She points out that African Americans founded the town on their own and declares that no-one is going to take it away from them.

Half a dozen men constitute the key power brokers who will tell US Pres. Bill Clinton that he has to resign should they fail to find a way of keeping him in the Oval Office. The advice of Tom Daschle, the Democrats' leader in the Senate, would count for a great deal, as would that of his predecessor, George Mitchell. Clinton would be less likely to listen to Daschle's House counterpart, Dick Gephardt, but his support is crucial. Senators Joe Lieberman and Bob Kerry will also have a pivotal role, as will Congressman John Conyers, the most senior Democrat on the House judiciary committee.

The frailty and ill-health of King Hussein of Jordan, Syrian leader Hafez Assad and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has sparked fears among Israeli and Arab strategic thinkers that a fleeting opportunity for resolving the Middle East crisis may soon be lost. Hussein, Assad and Arafat had all reconciled themselves to accepting a Jewish state in the Middle East in return for Arab territory lost in the Six Day War in 1967. The death of the three leaders at a time when the implementation of the 1993 Oslo peace accords has been stalled could result in an all-out Arab-Israeli war.

Queen Noor of Jordan seems to be the ideal person to replace Diana, Princess of Wales, in the fight against landmines. She has stated that she has no desire to take on a higher public profile, but may not be able to resist media pressure for a replacement for Diana, Princess of Wales. She benefits from being attractive, and has already been adopted as a figurehead by the Landmine Survivors Network and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. She already has impressive credentials as a peace campaigner.