Ex-CIA officer indicted as Chinese spy

(Photo by: Jacquelyn Martin) “They continue their malign activities across the region” said Defense Secretary James N. Mattis during a Senate hearing on Wednesday about Iran. (Associated Press)

 

A federal grand jury in Virginia has indicted former CIA operations officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee for conspiracy to spy for China, in a case that has been under investigation for more than six years.

Federal officials say the case represents one of the most damaging spy cases in the CIA’s checkered history of losing recruited agents to foreign spy services.

Mr. Lee is believed by American intelligence and law enforcement officials to be the cause of the agency losing a large number of its recruited agents in China around 2010. The agency and FBI spent the next eight years trying to find out the source of the losses.

Why Trump and US intel clash over Russia

 

America’s intelligence chiefs may have been singing their swan’s song Thursday and Friday (Jan. 5-6) when they hurled allegations of election-meddling “ordered at the highest Kremlin level” against Russia at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in Washington. The committee’s chair John McCain picked up the ball and declared that Russian hacking was “an act of war,” after hearing grim testimony from the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the National Security Agency head Adm. Michael Rogers.

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The furious clamor keeping the alleged Russian hacking scandal on the boil is being orchestrated by the outgoing president and his intelligence chiefs to ramp up US-Russian friction to an eve-of-cold war pitch.

DEBKAfile’s Washington and intelligence sources find that the campaign is prompted by five motives:

1. The president-elect not only proposes to put relations with Moscow on a new and different footing, his transition teams are already at work with Putin’s advisers to chart areas of cooperation between the two powers, ready for the Trump administration to go forward when he moves into the White House on Jan. 20.

Germany to ‘spy on US and UK intelligence gathering’ for the first time in 45 years

Germany has ordered surveillance of British and American intelligence gathering on its soil to begin for the first time since 1945, according to reports.
Under the decision, US and British intelligence operations in Germany will be subject to the same counter-espionage measures as those of Russia, China and Iran.

“We need to send a strong signal,” a source close to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government told Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. The unprecedented move is a direct response to a series of spy scandals that have rocked British and American relations with Germany in the past year.

Mrs Merkel’s government has given the go-ahead to surveillance plans that first emerged after two suspected double agents were found allegedly spying for the Americans inside the German security establishment a few weeks ago.

Why India must be prepared to face China militarily

Although a war between China and India is not likely, should a conflict arise it would revolve around the Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh regions as they have been a flashpoint in the past. They have much more in common between each other than they do with their Western counterparts, mainly the United States.  Both know the United States is a declining superpower and India likely sees it as a less stable partner. It has much more to gain through a probable SCO economic and military umbrella protectorate.

American intelligence has leaked a document on Sino-Indian relations and has speculated that India is possibly preparing for an armed conflict with China. While the American ‘leak’ may well be a part of mischief mongering, we as Indians need to look a long hard look at our northern neighbour. For far too long the media focus has been on the failing State to our West.

As the ‘n’th round of Sino Indian border talks ended in Delhi it is time we carry out a reality check. Many have questioned the logic in speculating an Indo-Chinese conflict in June/July 2012. Here are some of the factors that make this a possibility.

PEACEFUL RISE OF CHINA IS AN OXYMORON!

Much confusion and controversy has been caused by this ‘wishful thinking’ that somehow the rise of China, as a superpower will be peaceful. This would indeed be a miracle that will be contrary to the over 5,000 years of recorded history of the humankind.

Antagonists have always come in pairs — Rome versus Cartha#8805 Kalinga versus Magadha; Spain versus Engl#8743 England versus France; England versus Germany; Prithviraj Chauhan versus Jayachand Rathore; Harshavaradhan versus Pulkeshin et al…

The rule of history has been that change in power equations in a State system is always accompanied by violence.

Full article: Why India must be prepared to face China militarily (Rediff)