REVIEW TOPICS:
Russian National Bolsheviks suspect FSB in ousting them from Runet
Film about East-German secret police wins Oscar
New book reveals communist spies’ ties with Polish clergy
Many ex-communist secret police officers served in Czech intelligence until 2003 - press
Bulgaria to Join European Defense Agency Project
Russian National Bolsheviks suspect FSB of ousting them from Runet
| |
|
 |
|
| Eduard Limonov, NBP leader |
|
For several days now the Russian National Bolshevik’s (NBP) web-page hasn’t been operating. The Bolsheviks (or "limonovsti" as they call themselves) say the Federal Security Service (FSB) is behind the attack, but IT experts do not share the view, CNews reports.
The website was hacked on February 21st and it is still out if service. Eduard Limonov’s party representatives say a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) has been conducted by the FSB. They say the number of attacking computers exceeds 120 thousand. The party’s spokesman Alexander Averin claims the queries to the server, which is in Germany, come from Russia and the neighboring countries, the Netherlands and South Korea. He added there had been no such massive attacks on a web resource so far.
IT experts doubt FSB is behind the attack. “No Trojan attacks on the National Bolshevik’s resources have been registered lately”, Kaspersky Laboratory say. “This is most likely a DDoS attack. No particular bot was found, from which the attack was conducted. That is why the hackers probably used an existing bot-network. Somebody could just receive an order and conduct the attack from an existing bot”.
Kaspersky Laboratory believes it is impossible to trace the orderer. “However we are pretty sure FSB is not behind the attack. Why would they use such methods? No attacks on their behalf have been registered so far”.
This month saw attacks on such websites as the Movement against Illegal Immigration, under more the dpni.org and dpni2.org websites. The developments might be connected to back-to-back attacks on behalf of the nationalist and anti-fascist movements in Russia. Websites of the youth Nashi and Molodoya Gvardiya movements had also been out of service for some time.
Film about East-German secret police wins Oscar
Germany's "The Lives of Others," a searing look at totalitarian powers once wielded by East German secret police, the Stasi, won the Oscar for best foreign language film on Sunday, Reuters reports.
The film by first-time filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck won rave reviews for its portrait of a Stasi agent who, while bugging a couple's home, develops an unexpected sympathy for them. Von Donnersmarck wrote and directed the film. After winning the award, he thanked California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger "for teaching me that the words 'I can't' should be stricken from my vocabulary." Backstage he confessed a life-long fascination with Schwarzenegger and his accomplishments.
The film was a favorite for the award, along with Mexico's "Pan's Labyrinth." But a surprised von Donnersmarck, 33, said he had expected "Pan's" to win, since it had already won three Oscars before the award for best foreign film was given.
Von Donnersmarck's film has been hailed as an intelligent, honest look at how East Germany's Stasi shattered lives. The film swept last year's "Lola" awards in Germany and the European Film Awards, and the Oxford-educated filmmaker said in a recent interview with Reuters he hoped an Oscar would give the film more exposure and "signal power." "An Oscar is the ultimate symbol of recognition so it means everything," he said. "Everybody in the world dreams of winning an Oscar, even people who don't work in films." Backstage, he said he's long been a fan of American directors. "American films influenced me quite a lot," he said. "Robert Zemeckis is someone who you critics don't treat well enough," he said, referring to the director of past best picture Oscar winner "Forrest Gump." "Just because it's presented in this perfect way people think it must come easy," he said.
"The Lives of Others," set several years before the Berlin Wall fell, exposes how the Communist state invaded people's lives. It features a Stasi officer assigned to spy on a playwright and his actress girlfriend. "I was happy it worked against this whole new phenomenon in Germany that people feel nostalgic for the East and start glorifying the Communist past," he said.
The director grew up in New York, West Berlin, Frankfurt and Brussels, and he visited East Berlin as a child with his mother, who had relatives there. "We knew we were endangering them," he said last year in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. "It was just 20 years ago. It showed me, as a child, that while adults were in control, circumstances could change and get them scared. I had an inkling of what went on. Everyone knows how it feels to have your privacy violated. But I wanted all the details to be 100 percent accurate."
Von Donnersmarck spent a year-and-a-half researching East Germany and its ministry of state. Backstage, von Donnersmarck told Reuters his new Oscar would be handy. "I was told that if you have an Oscar you can get into any party."
New book reveals communist spies’ ties with Polish clergy
| |
|
| |
 |
| |
Rev. Tadeusz Isakowic-Zaleski |
Poland’s communist-era spy services worked hard to infiltrate the independent Roman Catholic Church and recruit informants among junior as well as senior clergy, according to new book released to the media today, eCanadaNow reports.
In “Priests and the Secret Police”, Krakow-based priest Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski addresses the hot topic of the extent to which Poland’s Roman Catholic Church was infiltrated by communist security services. Using communist-era files, Isakowicz-Zaleski names both secret policemen and priests they aimed at.
Isakowicz-Zaleski asked priest identified as spies in the secret police archives to comment on the allegations of cooperation prior to publishing his findings. Half declined to do so.
The book also details the repression of priest who refused to co- operate with communist intelligence agents and the persecution encountered by priests actively involved during the 1980s with the anti-communist Solidarity trade union.
Controversy erupted last October after the Roman Catholic Church in Poland silenced Isakowicz-Zaleski, ordering him by decree to keep quiet about information he had gathered regarding Roman Catholic clergy alleged to have acted as agents for communist-era intelligence services prior to the 1989 demise of communism.
The decree issued by the Krakow diocese alleged Isakowicz-Zaleski “distorts the image of a priest by becoming an inquisitor and a merciless and ruthless accuser.” The Krakow diocese is headed by Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the former personal aide of the late Polish-born Pope John Paul II.
Isakowicz-Zaleski had been granted permission to investigate cases of alleged collaboration in the Krakow diocese, but naming names of alleged collaborators working in other dioceses was beyond his jurisdiction, Cardinal Dziwisz said at the time. Himself a victim of persecution by Poland’s communist-era secret police, Isakowicz-Zaleski took up the task of sifting through secret police archives to find the names of clergy in the Krakow diocese who had been secret informers.
Publication of the book, due to hit bookstore shelves this week, was delayed several months following the gag order. Several prominent Polish priests have recently been unmasked as communist secret collaborators in recent years. The development has shocked Poles who knew the church as the only independent institution in communist Poland. By its very nature, it was also staunchly opposed to the atheistic communist system. Vetting public officials for possible communist-era collaboration with secret police has always provoked controversy in Poland.
Investigators must rely on secret police records, often making it impossible to determine the truth of a case. Communist-era spies are known to have fabricated reports - sometimes alleging persons cooperated when they in fact did not.
Many ex-communist secret police officers served in Czech intelligence until 2003 - press
A number of the former Czechoslovak communist secret police (StB) officers served in the Czech military counter-intelligence service until 2003 on the basis of false lustration certificates proving they had never worked for or collaborated with the StB, military counter-intelligence chief Miroslav Krejcik told today's issue of the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD). These officers intentionally marred the service's work, Krejcik said.
By the end of 2003, a total of 40 former StB officers and dozens of StB agents had to leave the military counter-intelligence where they occupied high posts of almost all section heads as well as the defence intelligence chief. "It was a hard fight to make them leave. They abused all possible contacts, including the Government Office and some deputies," Krejcik told MfD about the StB officers in the Czech military secret service.
Krejcik, however, mentioned no concrete damage these people caused to the service. He only said they had kept facts and information "inconvenient to them" secret. "They sabotaged the work of the military counter-intelligence service," Krejcik told the paper. He noted that the former StB officers had even been promoted within the counter-intelligence since they had succeeded in obtaining negative lustration certificates.
It was former military counter-intelligence head Petr Pelc who allegedly granted them security vettings. "I am convinced that [Pelc] was expediently misled by these people whom I later fired," Krejcik told MfD, adding that personal data on former StB officers were intentionally withheld from Pelc.
Czech military intelligence head Krejcik to leave
| |
|
 |
|
| Miroslav Krejcik |
|
Miroslav Krejcik, head of the Czech Military Intelligence (VZ), will have to leave his post this year, Euro Online server said today. The server said that two former intelligence officers linked with the current government coalition are interested in the post. They are Jiri Ruzek (junior Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL), former director of the military counter-intelligence, and Petr Pelz, former head of the military intelligence, who is close to the senior ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS), according to the server. Petr Hostek had to leave the post of National Security Office after the ODS won last June's elections, and Karel Randak left as head of the civilian intelligence shortly after Hostek.
Krejcik told today's issue of daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) that a number of officers of the former Communist state police StB worked in the military intelligence until 2003. They held important posts and "sabotaged" the service's work, Krejcik said. According to Krejcik former StB members were even promoted since they were able to get negative lustration certificates, confirming that they did not hold leading posts in the former Czechoslovak Communist Party, were not StB agents or members of the People's Militia.
Krejcik said that the certificates were issued by Pelz. "But I am convinced that he was intentionally misled by people whom I was later dismissing. The information for whom he signed the security certificates must have been intentionally withheld from him," Krejcik told MfD.
Krejcik has headed the military intelligence and counter-intelligence service (VZ) since 2004. VZ provides information on military threats to the Czech Republic, and it also gains, gathers and assesses information indicating the risk of terrorism, organised crime and sabotage.
Bulgaria to Join European Defense Agency Project
Bulgaria has been invited to join a EUR 5 M project of the European Defense Agency, the state information security commission announced at a meeting, Sofia News Agency reports.
Local defense companies will take part in the creation of a light armoured machine that could be transported by air, Stefan Vodenicharov, co-chairman of the Bulgarian Defensive Industry Association explained. The machine would be used in peacekeeping missions and Bulgarians will take part in developing the armour, camouflage and communication systems.
New opportunities are opening up before Bulgaria and the country has the chance to be a part of such projects, Vodenicharov said. He explained that only about five percent of Bulgaria's military industry production stays in the country, while the rest is exported. Vodenicharov, who is also the deputy head of the Institute for Metal Sciences with the Bulgarian Academy of Science, pushed for changing local legislation which now bans universities and institutes from taking part in commercial developments and tenders.
Previous review
List of daily reviews
Main Page | News Page | 007 News | Print
|
