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Egyptian intelligence warned American officials about a week before Sept. 11 that Osama bin Laden's network was in the advance stages of executing a significant operation against an American target, it will be reported on Tuesday (in the NY TIMES)... MORE... A senior U.S. intelligence official denied the warning was received...

Was Columbus Greek?Was Columbus a woolworker from Genoa or a Byzantine Prince and sailor from the island of Chios in what was then the Republic of Genoa? The ferry that sails between the island of Lesvos and Athens port city of Pireaus stops at the island of Chios, a few miles off the coast of Asia Minor. If you are traveling from Athens it arrives at four a.m. and unless you are awakened by the change in the rhythm of the ship's engines as it slows down and backs into the quay you won't even know you have been there....

Christophoros Columbus: A Byzantine Prince from Chios, Greece, by Ruth G. Durlacher-WolperCover of the book by Ruth G. Durlacher-Wolper. Over 500 years ago, Admiral Christophoros Columbus stepped upon the soil of San Salvador Island, Bahamas, in the New World, with the banner of the Royal Standard of Spain flying in all its glory. The captains of La Nina and La Pinta followed him off the La Santa Maria, carrying the banners of the Green Cross. Behind them came the weary crew -- men whose faith had weakened during the hard journey, but who had had their faith revived time and...

Was Columbus from Chios? Read Matt Barrett's review of the Book by Ruth G. Durlacher-Wolper Christophoros Columbus: A Byzantine Prince from Chios, Greece Was Columbus a woolworker from Genoa or a Byzantine Prince and sailor from the island of Chios in what was then the Republic of Genoa? There has been more written about Christopher Columbus than about any person with the exception of Jesus Christ, and yet his past has been shrouded in mystery. We all have been told that he came from Genoa, a city in Italy and sailed for Isabella and Ferdinand, the king and queen of...

A Portuguese historian believes he has solved the age-old mystery surrounding the nationality of Christopher Columbus. According to Manuel Rosa, a lecturer at Duke University, North Carolina, the explorer was in fact the son of Polish King Władysław III. It has always been thought that King Władysław III fell in battle against the forces of the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Varna in 1444. According to Mr Rosa, however, the king managed to survive the battle unscathed and fled to the Portuguese island of Madeira where he lived out the rest of his life as a hermit and married...

SNIPPET: "(ANSA) - Genoa, June 11 - Six Italians were arrested Thursday on suspicion of plotting to attack Group of Eight summit facilities. The Rome-based group was trying to revive the Red Brigades terrorist organisation that plagued Italy in the 1970s and '80s, officials said." SNIPPET: "The six, including two men from Genoa, one from Milan, a Sardinian pro-independence militant and an old-guard Red Brigades terrorist, have been taken into custody on terrorism charges. Five have been taken to prison and one, reportedly found with a bomb, was placed under house arrest because of his age. The arrests were the...

ROME (AP) — Italian police arrested six people Thursday in raids on a group of suspected radical leftists who were allegedly planning a terror attack, authorities said.

GENOA, Italy (CNS) -- At first glance, Pope Benedict XVI's two-day visit to the northern Italian city of Genoa seemed designed to highlight the ascendancy of the region's prelates in his pontificate. The pope chose Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the former archbishop of Genoa, as his secretary of state. He named the new head of the archdiocese, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian bishops' conference. And the archdiocese's liturgist, Msgr. Guido Marini, is now the master of papal liturgical ceremonies at the Vatican. But for all the local pride it evoked, the pope's May 17-18 visit had broader implications and...

Nazi Eichmann's passport found in ArgentinaThe passport used by notorious Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann to enter Argentina in 1950 has been found by accident in an archive in Buenos Aires. The passport, still in good condition, was issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva. Eichmann was one of the main executors of Adolf Hitler's 'final solution', the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II. A judge, Maria Servini de Cubria, stumbled upon the document in court archives. The passport has been handed over to the Holocaust Museum in Buenos Aires, which confirmed the discovery....

One of Italy's most senior churchmen has been placed under armed guard after threatening graffiti appeared in the northern port city of Genoa. The threats follow a strongly-worded attack Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco made on government plans to give legal rights to unmarried couples. The first slogan - Shame on you, Bagnasco - was scrawled on the doors of his cathedral a week ago. A pro-Church paper has dubbed the attacks "spray-paint terrorism". Over the weekend the words "Death to Bagnasco" appeared elsewhere in the city - accompanied by the Communist hammer and sickle, and the five-pointed star of the far-left...

Vandals have defaced the cathedral of Genoa, Italy, in an apparent retaliation after Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco spoke out forcefully against same-sex unions. The words "Bagnasco shame" were spray-painted across the main entrance to the cathedral of St. Lawrence in Genoa. The words appeared shortly after Archbishop Bagnasco, the president of the Italian bishops' conference, issued a statement opposing the legal recognition of civil unions, and saying that the government's failure to enforce moral norms regarding marriage could open the way to all kinds of perverse relationships. Police in Genoa told reporters that Archbishop Bagnasco was being accompanied by an armed...

(ANSA) - Rome, June 19 - The most important move in Pope Benedict XVI's reshaping of the Vatican administration after his election in 2005 will be announced soon, according to Vatican-watchers in Italy . The current Vatican Secretary of State, the 79-year-old Cardinal Angelo Sodano, is widely expected to step down later this year and Benedict must choose a replacement . It is a crucial choice because the holder of the position, akin to that of a prime minister, is second only to the pope in the Vatican hierarchy. He is in charge of all the political and diplomatic activities...

Italian investigators are focusing their attention on a shadowy group thought to be based in Bologna after a string of bomb attacks beginning in the Christmas period. A Red Brigades logo was found near a murder scene in 2002 They suspect that a number of letter bombs received by EU officials, including European Commission President Romano Prodi, are the work of Italian anarchists. An Italian-based group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Federation has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Investigators believe the group has fewer than 300 members in Italy. The previously unknown group shares the Italian initials - FAI -...

ROME - Anti-terrorism police arrested the Algerian cleric of a mosque and four Tunisians Sunday in a crackdown authorities said was aimed at preventing an al-Qaida-linked cell from sending suicide attackers to Iraq (news - web sites). The suspects were seized in pre-dawn raids in three cities in the northern Tuscany region, Genoa's Police Chief Oscar Fiorolli said. Genoa, a northern port city, began the investigations that led to the arrests. The suspects allegedly belonged to a cell of Ansar al-Islam, an organization based in northern Iraq with links to al-Qaida, Fiorolli told the Associated Press in Rome in a...

Italian police planted petrol bombs on G8 summit protesters By Jessie Grimond in Rome 30 July 2002 Italian police planted two Molotov cocktails in a school where anti-globalisation pro-testers were sleeping to justify a brutal crackdown during last year's G8 summit in Genoa. A policeman has confessed that he planted the explosives following a year of acrimony over the handling of security at the summit where a protester was shot dead by the police. "I brought the Molotov cocktail to the Diaz school. I obeyed the order of one of my superiors," the 25-year-old unnamed officer told prosecutors investigating the...