Posted on 12/17/2004 5:05:04 PM PST by WmShirerAdmirer
GENEVA: The United Nations European headquarters, where a listening device was discovered in a ministerial meeting room, is probably rife with secret spying equipment, a UN security source said yesterday.
"It's like Swiss cheese," a UN security source said, referring to the Swiss Emmenthal cheese which contains holes.
If we had the technnical means and staff for thorough searches, I'm certain that we would find one microphone after another. The UN in New York and Vienna are the same," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Marie Heuze, chief UN spokeswoman in Geneva, on Thursday confirmed the report by Swiss Television which said workmen had found a sophisticated bugging device during recent renovation of a room called the Salon Francais at the Palais des Nations.
But a UN inquiry had not established who planted the bugging device or when, she said.
The television said the device was found stashed behind wooden panels in the elegant room, known for its 1930s French art deco furniture, but Heuze declined to give further details.
Patrick Daniel Eugster, a Geneva-based security expert shown photos of the device, told the television the system appeared to be of Russian or East European origin.
Its size indicated it was three or four years old, before such circuits were miniaturised, he said. "It is very sophisticated piece of listening equipment," he added.
The embarrassing discovery comes as the Palais des Nations, formerly the League of Nations, undergoes a security overhaul, including massive new entry gates and concrete barriers.
The UN is spending nearly $40 million (BD15.12m) over three years to improve protection in Geneva in the wake of the August 2003 bombing of its headquarters in Baghdad, which killed 22 people including the top UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.
It also follows public charges last March by Clare Short, Britain's former international development secretary, that British intelligence spied on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ahead of the US-led invasion of Iraq. The UN officials said at the time the bugging, if true, violated international law and should be immediately stopped.
Ya don't say.
This paper is in Bahrain. So, I would cut them a little slack on this one. I would guess swiss cheese may not be a standard item there.
This is a Bahraini paper. Maybe they don't eat Swiss cheese in Bahrain, or maybe they don't call it that.
Oh goodie, maybe they will want to move somewhere like Babylon.
OMG. LMHO. (Laughing My Hiney Off)
As a writer, if I added the definition/explanation to "educate" my readers as to what the phrase "...like Swiss Cheese" meant, I would expect to get my comeuppance for insulting their intelligence...
Article was written by Agence France-Presse (AFP). Was not identified as such in the Gulf Times. Found it again in another online paper from over seas and saw "Bugging device found at UN Geneva headquarters" (AFP) 17 December 2004.
There was more of a twist to the Geneva UN bugging news in the AFP original article that never made the Gulf Times, it read;
"...The bugging equipment was found in the French Hall -- so-named because it was decorated by the celebrated French artist Jules Leleu in the 1930s -- sometime during its renovations between the summer and the start of October.
“This room is not an important room that is why we were surprised at the discovery,” said the UN source, who declined to speculate whether the United Nations was worried that other recording equipment may have been installed in more high-profile locations as well.
France’s President Jacques Chirac used the bugged room in January when he met his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to talk about famine, Heuze told the Swiss news agency ATS earlier.
“It is not a room that serves to host negotiations, but a prestigious room which has a historic interest and is at the disposal of the heads of delegations,” she said.
During a top meeting here in September last year between the foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States to discuss Iraq, one of the delegations -- believed to be France -- again used the room, ATS said.
The French Hall, a fairly large room with a high ceiling and fancy mirror on one wall, is just next door to the Council Chamber, where the top-level meeting took place on the first floor of the UN building."
You're half right. They do eat it there, but they call it "Dee cheese full of dee holes you infidel Sweese mongrel cheese eeter!"
Hope that clears up the swiss cheese thing. I'm still researching the history of "dee moose wid thee satan horns from Diznee Wurld you infidel moose fokker" found on page 31666 in the koran.
FMCDH(BITS)
What a revelation! Someone listens to the UN!
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