Everyone knows about the Cambridge Spies from the Fifties, identified and broken up after passing national secrets to the Soviets for years. But no spy ring was ever unearthed at Oxford. Because one never existed? Or because it was never found…? 2022: Former spy Simon Sharman is eking out a living in the private sector. When a commission to delve into the financial dealings of a mysterious Russian oligarch comes across his desk, he jumps at the chance. But as Simon investigates, worrying patterns begin to emerge. His subject made regular trips to Oxford, but for no apparent reason. There are payments from offshore accounts that suddenly just… stop. Has he found what none of his former colleagues believed possible, a Russian spy ring now nestled at the heart of the British Establishment? Or is he just another paranoid ex-spook left out in the cold, obsessed with redemption? From Oxford’s hallowed quadrangles to brush contacts on Hampstead Heath, agent-running in Vienna and mysterious meetings in Prague, A Spy Alone is a gripping international thriller and a searing portrait of modern Britain in the age of cynical populism. Perfect for readers of Charles Cumming, Mick Herron and John le Carré. Know more
The 231 Club, a CIA true story, encompasses intriguing personalities, an examination of the psyche behind the storyteller, exciting and unique espionage adventures at a time when wits were at play more than gadgets. It dissects how one man with a great career and fulfilling life takes a radical detour which turns his whole world upside down. J Bartell was an instructor, lecturer and chief of staff of a large California-based therapy institute whose clients included people from all walks of life. But it was his worldwide travels on behalf of affluent clients, including heads-of-state, that put him on the radar of the CIA. What started out as simple courier work eventually led to Bartell becoming part of a small group that handled off-book assignments, meaning no record, so there’s “plausible deniability”. The CIA covert black ops group consisted of Bartell, his CIA handler Chauncey Holt and former U.S. Marine, Michael Harries, who is best known for having created the famous Harries Flashlight Technique which is used by law enforcement around the world for handling weapons in low-light conditions. Additional support to the group came from master gunsmith Jim Boland and Jeff Cooper, who is considered to be the father of modern combat shooting and tactics. As a result of Bartell’s increased involvement, a virtual trip down a forbidding rabbit hole, he experiences everything from weapons deals and covert training missions to helping ruthless killers, hiding behind positions of power, get their due. This CIA memoir informs and excites with true tale CIA black ops assignments. For more info
Houthis Are Using Weapons That Can Reach the Mediterranean Sea, US Says
The Houthi militants in Yemen have weapons that can reach as far as the Mediterranean Sea, according to a senior defense official, lending some credence to the group’s threats that it can expand its attacks on shipping beyond its immediate borders.
The US government is concerned that the Iran-backed group has the capability to extend strikes on shipping beyond the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to the Mediterranean, said the official.
Think before you link – Director-General’s introduction
Not everyone you meet online is who they say they are. That won’t be news if you’re familiar with the messaging from our colleagues at the Australian Cyber Security Centre and Australian Federal Police about keeping yourself safe online.
But ASIO’s interests are a little different. Our business is to identify those who are trying to recruit Australians with access to sensitive information in order to get them to commit acts of espionage or foreign interference. This includes foreign spies who are targeting online social and professional networking sites.
That’s why this campaign is primarily aimed at Australians with access to sensitive information, such as those of you working in government, defence industry or academia. But our message is a cautionary tale for all Australians—be mindful of what personal information you choose to post online. You could be targeted for information that, if shared, could have serious consequences for Australia’s security, its economy or your business.
Dengue surges in Europe thanks to climate change
Rates of dengue are surging in Europe driven by climate change and the spread of mosquitos, the EU’s disease agency has warned.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) found there were 130 locally acquired cases of dengue in the EU/EEA last year, compared with just 71 in the ten-year period between 2010 and 2021. Dengue symptoms include a high fever, headache, body aches, nausea and rash.
There were also 713 locally acquired human cases of West Nile virus and 67 deaths, from nine EU countries in 2023, including in many regions where infections had never been seen before. While this was lower than the previous year (1,133 cases), the ECDC is concerned at the wide geographical circulation of the virus.
Continue reading
US Leaders Dodge Questions About Israel’s Influence Campaign
Federal lawmakers in the US have dodged repeated inquiries over the past week about a covert operation ordered by the Israeli government to artificially boost support among Americans for its war in Gaza. At the same time, senior White House officials charged with advising President Joe Biden on matters of national security are claiming to have no knowledge of the operation—first disclosed publicly more than four months ago.
The operation, formally tied to the Israeli government by a New York Times reporter last week, kicked off in October 2023 following the surprise attack by Hamas in southern Israel. Researchers internationally began work to expose the campaign in February, identifying a flood of “suspicious accounts” on US-based social networking apps, most masquerading as Americans avowing support for the Israeli military response.
In addition to eroding support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides assistance to 5.6 million Palestinian refugees, a chief aim of the Israeli operation, researchers say, was to sway the opinions of Black Americans. Per the Times—which cited four current and former Israeli officials in confirming their government had commissioned the campaign—its primary targets included the account of US congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats in the House, among others who are “Black and Democratic.”
Chinese-linked hacking units increasingly use ‘ORBs’ to obfuscate espionage, researchers say
Successfully tracking Chinese-linked cyber espionage operations is becoming increasingly difficult as Beijing’s hackers shift toward networks of virtual private servers and compromised smart devices to conceal their campaigns, researchers with Google Cloud’s Mandiant said.
Although not necessarily a new tactic, the growing use of such networks, akin to botnets, makes life harder for those tasked with defending networks amid frequent warnings from Western governments about aggressive Chinese espionage and pre-positioning within U.S. critical infrastructure networks as part of activity tracked as Volt Typhoon.
US Eavesdroppers Have Kept Track of Netanyahu
Veterans of the spy business like to remind people that there are friendly nations, but no friendly intelligence services.
In practical terms, that means our intelligence community shares intelligence with our close allies and even partners with their spy services when our respective interests overlap. At the same time, it also means that we spy on each other because each side never entirely trusts that the other’s intelligence is accurate or providing a full or disinterested picture.
Perhaps nowhere is this convoluted relationship better illustrated than in the intelligence ties between the United states and Israel. The two allies have a long history of intelligence cooperation that goes back to the earliest days of the Jewish state in the 1950s, when legendary CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton established close ties to the Mossad and essentially took over the Israel account.
For the past two decades in particular, the CIA and Mossad have been sharing intelligence on mutual targets like Iran and its regional proxies: Hezbollah in Lebanon, several Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. And in the wake of Hamas’ devastating Oct. 7 attack—which surprised Israeli leaders—Jerusalem and Washington signed a secret memorandum that expanded their already extensive intelligence cooperation, raising concerns among some lawmakers and human rights groups that the new arrangement is adding to the staggering civilian death toll in Gaza.
Russia Taps Unlikely Allies to Help Ship Sanctioned Oil
An armada of old tanker ships has sprung up to move sanctioned Russian and Iranian oil, putting sailors in peril and threatening environmental catastrophes.
At the center of this trade is a surprising new player in global shipping.
Taliban’s opium crackdown could have spillover effect on Europe
The EU should prepare for the consequences of a future heroin shortage, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has warned, following the Taliban crackdown on opium in Afghanistan.
In 2022, the Taliban announced a ban on the cultivation of opium, previously a mainstay of the Afghan economy. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates there has been a 95% decline in production since the ban was introduced.
“The analysis of satellite images shows that this ban is being implemented,” said Alexis Goosdeel, director of the EMCDDA.
“What we know is that there are still stocks available, either in Afghanistan or along the heroin route, so we can expect that it will take some time before we can observe a decrease on the market.”
Has Trust in the U.S. Intelligence Community Eroded?
Over the past several years, media reports and articles by policy and U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) professionals have suggested that the IC is held in increasingly lower regard by some decisionmakers—and also by some in the general public—and that predictions made by IC professionals have had variable success in influencing decisionmakers. The authors of this report explored whether and to what degree trust in intelligence predictions and national estimates has degraded over time and what internal and external factors might be drivers of any perceived or real changes in the relationship between policymakers and the IC.
The degree of perceived bias in intelligence estimates is highly dependent on the presidential administration in power. Also, policymakers most frequently introduce bias in intelligence assessments from a desire to minimize the appearance of dissent, while the IC tends to introduce bias through self-censorship. The research team observed tensions in the relationship between IC professionals and policymakers: The IC has an incentive to elicit positive feedback from policymakers, and there are limited benefits (with regard to both the careers of intelligence professionals and their agencies’ budgets) in receiving negative feedback from policymakers. These tensions could create friction between (1) providing objective information and analysis to policymakers and (2) serving policymakers as customers of intelligence.
NIJ Special Report: Public Mass Shootings Research
This Special Report from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) presents a synthesis of select findings from NIJ-supported research projects on public mass shootings, including school mass shootings, and identifies areas of need and interest for future research and recommendations.
Few events in American life shatter the public’s sense of well-being or shock the national conscience as much as someone repeatedly firing into a crowd. Scientific research supported by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) confirms the profound negative impact of public mass shootings on the average citizen’s sense of safety. For over two decades, NIJ has supported scientific studies that examine the public mass shooting problem from multiple angles. Since 2014, NIJ has invested in numerous research projects that study mass shootings and, specifically, public mass shootings. This effort to build basic knowledge and advance our understanding has resulted in more than 60 distinct research publications. This special report presents a synthesis of select findings from over 60 publications on 18 NIJ-supported research projects on public mass shootings, including school mass shootings, since 2014. It also identifies areas of need and interest for future research and recommendations.
The sad state of Australia’s security discourse
Australia has all but institutionalised self-censorship in intellectual strategic thought. An absence of secure academic positions, widening of the policy-scholarly divide, and a corrosive culture of in-fighting over a piece of the same (dwindling) funding pie continues to diminish our national security studies sector.
We have curated an intellectual space in which the same voices exist in harmonious agreement. Most strategic analysis or intellectual work tends to be churned out by design, not debate. Who needs robustness, let alone nuance?
Where there is difference, it tends to be personalised and emotional. Ad hominem jabs, attacks, and improper (often lasting) accusations of political allegiance are no longer manageable hazards of public intellectual life. Instead, they have become entrenched realities of our security discourse. Such forces use social media platforms, spill ink in national newspapers, and tend to dictate the membership of security centres and institutes – as well as the invitation lists for seminars and conferences.
More people care about climate change than you think
People across the world, and the political spectrum, underestimate levels of support for climate action.
This “perception gap” matters. Governments will change policy if they think they have strong public backing. Companies need to know that consumers want to see low-carbon products and changes in business practices. We’re all more likely to make changes if we think others will do the same.
If governments, companies, innovators, and our neighbors know that most people are worried about the climate and want to see change, they’ll be more willing to drive it.
On the flip side, if we systematically underestimate widespread support, we’ll keep quiet for fear of “rocking the boat”.
This matters not only within each country but also in how we cooperate internationally. No country can solve climate change on its own. If we think that people in other countries don’t care and won’t act, we’re more likely to sit back as we consider our efforts hopeless.
True Spies: The Last Honest Man
Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Risen details the life and work of Frank Church – the man who forever changed the US Intelligence Community. From humble Idaho beginnings through to his lofty Presidential ambitions, we delve into who Church really was and his tireless devotion to serving American ideals of transparency and accountability – culminating in the Church Committee. However, Church learned that you can’t shine a light on the darkest corners of the FBI, CIA, and NSA without making some powerful enemies.
For more information
Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence Webinar
Academic Integrity supports institutions in implementing a unified approach to integrity training amidst the changing landscape of higher education. The course is comprised of four student-facing modules to support studying with integrity, and four staff-facing modules on fostering a culture of integrity. The modules emphasise that maintaining academic integrity is a shared responsibility that involves everyone within an academic community, including students, faculty, administrators, and staff.
Hosted by Epigeum, this webinar, part of our thought leadership series, Epigeum was joined by distinguished speakers Dr Lee Adam and Professor Michelle Picard.
Both speakers provided a presentation, which was followed by an audience Q&A.