Belfast Telegraph – There are not many journalists who, when you ask them if they are being followed by the CIA, say “We have surveillance events from time to time.” Actually it’s not a question I’ve ever asked before, and Julian Assange does not call himself a journalist. But the answer is typical of this 41-year-old former computer-hacker: cryptic, dispassionate, and faintly self-important. Read article
MSNBC – Soldiers fighting future battles in crowded urban areas will be able to launch hummingbird-sized unmanned nano aerial vehicles — or NAVs — capable of carrying sophisticated sensors and flying through open windows in buildings to report back on enemy positions. A new project partly funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA) called the Nano Aerial Vehicle (NAV) program aims to develop an extremely small, ultra-lightweight aerial vehicle for urban military missions that can fly both indoors and outdoors and that is capable of climbing and descending vertically as well as flying sideways left and right. Read article
BBC – Two of the 11 members of a suspected spy ring in the US have admitted they are Russian citizens, prosecutors say. Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills say their real names are Mikhail Kutzik and Natalia Pereverzeva, court papers say. They and a third suspect, Mikhail Semenko, appeared in court in Virginia briefly on Friday. Read article
VOA News – Russia’s parliament is considering a new law that would extend the powers of the country’s secret security agency, the FSB. If the bill is passed, it would restore practices once associated with the infamous KGB. Russia’s security services have steadily regained power and influence under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB officer. Human rights advocates are concerned that the new measures could further curtail the rights of government critics and the independent media. Read article
BBC – Ten alleged members of a Russian spy-ring have been charged in the US with acting as foreign agents. The suspects are accused of posing as ordinary citizens, some living together as couples for years. They were charged with conspiracy to act as unlawful agents of a foreign government, a crime which carries up to five years in prison. A Russian foreign ministry spokesman said the allegations were contradictory. Read article
Seacoast Online – Details of the sweeping intelligence sharing pact struck between the United States and Britain at the dawn of the Cold War were made public for the first time Friday, laying bare the details of an unprecedented espionage arrangement. Read article
Sydney Morning Herald – IT READS like a James Bond novel: an enigmatic white-haired computer hacker; a soldier turned whistleblower; secret government correspondence; and the world’s most powerful country desperate to contain the situation. Julian Assange, the Australian-born face of the web iconoclast WikiLeaks, is in hiding overseas after the US military arrested one of its own soldiers, Bradley Manning, and accused him of leaking a a secret video of a US Army helicopter gunning down civilians in Iraq in 2007. Read article
Telegraph – Polish authorities have arrested a suspected Mossad agent thought to have played a role in the Dubai assassination of a Hamas commander. Uri Brodsky was arrested in early June on arrival at Warsaw’s airport on suspicions that he helped a member of the hit squad get a German passport in June 2009. Read article
BBC – Pakistani intelligence gives funding, training and sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban on a scale much larger than previously thought, a report says. Taliban field commanders interviewed for the report suggested that ISI intelligence agents even attend Taliban supreme council meetings. Read article
Times – A seven-year-old boy was murdered by the Taleban in an apparent act of retribution this week. Afghan officials said that the child was accused of spying for US and Nato forces and hanged from a tree in southern Afghanistan. Daoud Ahmadi, the spokesman for the provincial governor of Helmand, said that the killing happened days after the boy’s grandfather, Abdul Woodod Alokozai, spoke out against militants in their home village. Read article
Telegraph – Iran has released a video purporting to back its claim that a nuclear scientist who disappeared a year ago was kidnapped and taken to the United States. Tehran summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents US interests in Tehran, on Tuesday and handed over documents which it said showed Shahram Amiri, a university researcher working for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, was taken during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and handed to the Americans. Read article
Newsy – U.S. Military General David Petraeus plans to expand covert ops in the Middle East and other regions, raising questions about classified information.
Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com
Washington Post – President Obama’s national security adviser, James L. Jones, and CIA Director Leon Panetta were set to travel to Pakistan on Monday night for meetings with top government, military and intelligence officials on progress in the Times Square car bomb investigation and concerns about future terrorist attacks. Read article
Reuters – The CIA received approval to target a wider range of targets in Pakistan’s tribal areas, including low-level fighters whose identities may not be known, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Read article
Al Jazeera – The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been granted approval by the US government to expand drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal regions in a move to step up military operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, officials have said. Read article
Press TV – The US is deploying thousands of drones in Afghanistan, raising suspicions as to whether the move is aimed at monitoring militants or targeting another country. Regional defense analysts believe that the unmanned aerial vehicles could be brought into play against regional countries in the wake of mounting tensions with Iran over its nuclear activities, the Pakistan Observer newspaper reported on Tuesday. Read article
The Independent – The mayor of New York has promised additional surveillance cameras around Times Square and throughout the tourist heart of the city, as police struggled to come up with footage that would help their investigation into the failed bomb attack. Read article
Guardian – Disclosing MI5 files about the July 7 suicide bombers to the families of those killed in the London attacks would be “impossible”, counsel for the Security Service and the home secretary said today. Investigating claims that MI5 could have prevented the 2005 atrocities would involve “handing over the keys” to MI5’s Thames House headquarters, Neil Garnham QC told a hearing to decide the scope of the inquests into the bombings. Read article
BBC – Indian opposition parties disrupted parliament, asking questions about a report alleging the government secretly tapped the phones of top politicians. Both the upper and lower houses were adjourned amid angry scenes. India’s home minister denies the allegations. Read article
Times – Somewhere above earth is America’s latest spaceship, a 30ft craft so classified that the Pentagon will not divulge its mission nor how much it cost to build. The mysterious X37B, launched successfully by the US Air Force from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, using an Atlas V rocket, looks like a mini-Space Shuttle “” but its mission is top secret. Read article
Times – CLAIMS that the prime minister’s study in Downing Street and the cabinet room were bugged by MI5 between 1963 and 1977 were ordered to be removed from an official history of the security service. Details of the surveillance devices, which covered the tenure of five prime ministers from Harold Macmillan to Jim Callaghan were due to be revealed in The Defence of the Realm, an official history of MI5, written by the Cambridge historian Christopher Andrew. Read Article
Daily Mail – MI5 used hidden electronic surveillance equipment to secretly monitor 10 Downing Street, the Cabinet and at least five Prime Ministers, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. The extraordinary disclosure comes despite a succession of parliamentary statements that no such bugging ever took place. And it follows a behind-the-scenes row in which senior Whitehall civil servants ““ backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown ““ attempted to suppress the revelation. Read article
CNN – New U.S. military intelligence suggests Iran plans to smuggle new shipments of weapons into Afghanistan in the coming weeks as part of an increased effort to interfere with coalition operations, a senior U.S. Defense Department official said Friday. The information came from an “Iranian source” whose tips on past shipments have been verified by the United States, the official said. Read article
UPI – A federal judge in Utah ruled in favor of the CIA in the agency’s refusal to release documents regarding the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups Tuesday refused to order the agency to hand over the documents to Salt Lake City lawyer Jesse Trentadue, who filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA in 2008. Read article
Reuters – The Pentagon is focused on getting more trucks, surveillance equipment and other military equipment into Afghanistan to prepare for what will be a critical summer in the war, Defense Undersecretary Ashton Carter said on Friday. Carter, head of Pentagon acquisition, technology and logistics, said the success of the war in Afghanistan would depend largely on being able to get weapons and support services to the U.S. troops headed to the land-locked country, which he described as “the last place where you would like to be fighting a war.” Read article
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better.