espionage

Mysterious Russian numbers station

October 5, 2011

This month’s Wired magazine has a great article on the strange Russian numbers station, UVB-76: From a lonely rusted tower in a forest north of Moscow, a mysterious shortwave radio station transmitted day and night. For at least the decade leading up to 1992, it broadcast almost nothing but beeps; after that, it switched to [...]

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Two million Chinese spies

September 23, 2011

The Diplomat has a fairly extensive article on the expansive threat of China’s intelligence apparatus: the communist-controlled People’s Republic of China operates the single largest intelligence-gathering apparatus in the world—and its growing appetite for secrets has apparently become insatiable…From economic and military espionage to keeping tabs on exiled dissidents, China’s global spying operations are rapidly [...]

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Havana & Caracas: Symbiotic Relationship

September 14, 2011

Via the Financial Times: Carlos Romero, an expert on Cuba-Venezuela relations at the Centraniversity of Venezuela, calculates that accumulated aid from Caracas to Havana between 1999 and 2009 amounts to $19.4bn, about 70 per cent of Venezuela’s total foreign aid during that period. That includes $14.2bn in payment for professional services such as doctors and [...]

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Inept commie disguises

August 12, 2011

Via Der Spiegel: What did East German spies wear to work? Archival photographs uncovered by a Berlin-based artist reveal disguises that included fur hats, upturned collars, and, naturally, sunglasses. The images from the Stasi secret police course on the ‘art of disguising’ provide a sometimes absurd perspective on what the Cold War era spies considered [...]

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Secret police informants still unidentified

August 8, 2011

Fifty years after the construction of the Berlin Wall, thousands of West German spies for the former East German Stasi secret police have yet to be identified, an official was quoted as saying Saturday. Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives Roland Jahn told the German daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung that some 12,000 people in the former West Germany operated as informants for the [...]

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3,000 Cuban intelligence experts in Venezuela

July 20, 2011

Today’s The Wall Street Journal explores the consequences of Cuba’s deep penetration in Venezuela’s internal politics: During his tenure, Mr. Chávez has tried to indoctrinate the Venezuelan military, bringing on thousands of advisers to replicate Cuban military doctrine, and to deal with security and intelligence issues. Cuban officers are deeply involved in intelligence and security matters in Venezuela, from [...]

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