WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he will allow long-blocked secret files on the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy to be opened to the public for the first time.
The Nov. 22, 1963 assassination — an epochal event in modern US history — has spawned multiple theories challenging the official version that Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.
The release of all the secret documents has been eagerly anticipated by historians and conspiracy theorists alike.
Trump’s announcement followed reports that not all the files would be released, possibly to protect still relevant intelligence sources and methods.
But Trump appears to have decided otherwise. “Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as president, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened,” he said in the tweet.
The files are due to be opened in their entirety on Thursday nearly 54 years after Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas — unless the US president decides otherwise.
Millions of classified Kennedy files have been released under a 1992 law passed in response to a surge in public demand for disclosure in the wake of Oliver Stone’s conspiracy heavy movie on the assassination.
But the law placed a 25-year hold on a small percentage of the files that expires Oct. 26. Some reports put the number withheld at 3,100 and say tens of thousands that had been released with portions blacked out are set to be fully declassified.
Trump may allow release of JFK assassination files
Trump may allow release of JFK assassination files
Bangladesh’s religio-political party open to unity govt
- Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years
DHAKA: A once-banned Bangladeshi religio-political party, poised for its strongest electoral showing in February’s parliamentary vote, is open to joining a unity government and has held talks with several parties, its chief said.
Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years as it marks a return to mainstream politics in the predominantly Muslim nation of 175 million.
Jamaat last held power between 2001 and 2006 as a junior coalition partner with the BNP and is open to working with it again.
“We want to see a stable nation for at least five years. If the parties come together, we’ll run the government together,” Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman said in an interview at his office in a residential area in Dhaka, days after the party created a buzz by securing a tie-up with a Gen-Z party.
Rahman said anti-corruption must be a shared agenda for any unity government.
The prime minister will come from the party winning the most seats in the Feb. 12 election, he added. If Jamaat wins the most seats, the party will decide whether he himself would be a candidate, Rahman said.
The party’s resurgence follows the ousting of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a youth-led uprising in August 2024.
Rahman said Hasina’s continued stay in India after fleeing Dhaka was a concern, as ties between the two countries have hit their lowest point in decades since her downfall.
Asked about Jamaat’s historical closeness to Pakistan, Rahman said: “We maintain relations in a balanced way with all.”
He said any government that includes Jamaat would “not feel comfortable” with President Mohammed Shahabuddin, who was elected unopposed with the Awami League’s backing in 2023.
