Free Republic

An employee of Germany's intelligence agency has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the US, reports say. The man is said to have been trying to gather details about a German parliamentary committee that is investigating claims of US espionage. German media say the man arrested this week is a 31-year-old employee of the federal intelligence agency, known as the BND. The German federal prosecutor's office confirmed the man's arrest, but gave no other details. A spokesman for Ms Merkel said she had been informed of the arrest, as had the members of the nine-strong parliamentary committee investigating the...

Picture: German Chancellor Willy Brandt at the Warsaw memorial for the Ghetto Uprising “The American people don’t have to guess whether I understand the issues or whether I will need a foreign policy instruction manual to guide me through a crisis or rely on advisers to advise me on foreign affairs,” (Hillary Clinton)“We need to rediscover the power of diplomacy. So I said very early on in this campaign that I will meet not just with our friends but with our enemies, not just the leaders I like, but leaders I don’t,” (Barack Obama) Senator Barack Obama’s foreign policy platform...

Markus Wolf, the sinister East German spymaster who spun his web across Western Europe, has died peacefully in his sleep — taking with him some of the darkest secrets of the Cold War.A solitary red rose was deposited by a sympathiser yesterday on the doorstep of his Berlin apartment block. But few tears were being shed for the 83-year-old Stasi general who dispatched some 30,000 agents to seduce Nato secretaries, buy up politicians, vacuum up secrets and train terrorists. Normally voluble politicians contacted for comment yesterday refused to utter a word, as if Mr Wolf were a demonic presence. “Let...