June 6, 2009 archive

D-Day      

State Dept. Retiree Accused of Spying

Official, Wife Passed Secrets to Cuba For Decades, Federal Prosecutors Say

By Del Quentin Wilber and Mary Beth Sheridan

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, June 6, 2009

A former State Department official with top-secret security clearance and his wife have been charged with spying for Cuba over the past three decades, passing information by shortwave radio and correspondence exchanged in local grocery stores, federal prosecutors said.

State Department officials said last night they were still assessing the potential damage to the government’s security and intelligence operations and declined to comment further.

Within hours of the couple’s appearance yesterday at U.S. District Court in the District, a novel-worthy tale began to emerge from court documents and law enforcement sources, depicting an elderly couple of famed lineage, living in a Northwest Washington neighborhood and traveling abroad under code names, motivated by ideology to pass information to Cuban agents.

Plying the Pacific, Subs Surface as Key Tool of Drug Cartels



By William Booth and Juan Forero

Washington Post Foreign Service

Saturday, June 6, 2009

MEXICO CITY — When anti-narcotics agents first heard that drug cartels were building an armada of submarines to transport cocaine, they thought it was a joke.

Now U.S. law enforcement officials say that more than a third of the cocaine smuggled into the United States from Colombia travels in submersibles.

An experimental oddity just two years ago, these strange semi-submarines are the cutting edge of drug trafficking today. They ferry hundreds of tons of cocaine for powerful Mexican cartels that are taking over the Pacific Ocean route for most northbound shipments, according to the Colombian navy.

The sub-builders are even trying to develop a remote-controlled model, officials say.

USA

U.S. May Permit 9/11 Guilty Pleas in Capital Cases



By WILLIAM GLABERSON

Published: June 5, 2009

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.

The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. It could also allow the five detainees who have been charged with the Sept. 11 attacks to achieve their stated goal of pleading guilty to gain what they have called martyrdom.

The proposal, in a draft of legislation that would be submitted to Congress, has not been publicly disclosed. It was circulated to officials under restrictions requiring secrecy. People who have read or been briefed on it said it had been presented to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates by an administration task force on detention.

Its Red Its Fast

Glad we cleared that up

A survey by a Tokyo-based research institute revealed that some 60 percent of TV commercials broadcast last year “left almost no impression on viewers.”

The School of Social Informatics at Tokyo’s Aoyama Gakuin University has handed out free iPhones to all 550 of its staff and students in order to “use the GPS function to determine whether they are in school or not.”

A governmental group called the High-Grade Worker Acceptance Promotion Committee recommended that Japan relax its immigration rules for foreigners in the IT, energy and biotechnology fields, as well as for those who are really good at Japanese.

One day after saying that he wouldn’t accept blame for appointing Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshitada Konoike, who resigned last month following revelations of an extramarital affair, Prime Minister Taro Aso said that he was, in fact, responsible for the move.

Headline of the Week: “New Song by Recently Deceased Rocker to Debut in June” (via the Mainichi Daily News)

It is reported that the cost of relocating 17,000 US Marines and their family members from Okinawa to Guam will be $10.27 billion, of which Japan will pay $2.8 billion.