Top Secret Trash

Leslie Harrison and Erin Spinka

THE CYPRUS GOVERNMENT is learning to take better care of its trash — after piles of its confidential documents recently were found in a public stairwell.

According to a local, daily newspaper journalist who stumbled onto the abandoned bags of papers, the documents included reports of police routinely abusing sick leave, attempts to tap the rumored Cyprus off-shore oil wealth, and army maps detailed in the minutes from at least six years of cabinet meetings.

The Health Ministry's office believes the confidential agreements, arms purchase receipts and other intelligence reports were bound for an incinerator at a nearby hospital, but left unguarded when the burner broke down. Now, government authorities are taking care to shred their materials to prevent others from uncovering their top-secret “treasures.”
Source: Reuters