Experts say that there are still Russian ministries that use typewriters; including the Defense Ministry, Emergency Situations Ministry, and the Security Services Ministry. Now the Federal Guard Service, which is responsible for the security and protection of top officials, including the Russian President, has been budgeted $15,000 dollars for the purchase of new typewriters and new ink ribbons for the older machines.

The Moscow Times reports that “tender to purchase 20 electric typewriters for 486,540 rubles was published on the government’s procurement website zakpki.gov on July 3. According to the announcements, the equipment must be delivered to the special agency by Aug. 30”

“The typewriters in question are designed for printing classified documents, in that each machine has unique ‘handwriting’ that can be traced back to the source.” reports Radio Free Europe.

Although hard copies can be difficult to transport securely and easily lost, it is a sign of how hackers and leakers, as well as spies are making government officials wary of computer technology.

Mustafa Taleb, in actuality, returned to Israel as his real self, Massoud Bouton, as a result of the decision made by Israel’s Intelligence Unit to end his spy career without compensation because of a disagreement with his bosses.

Bouton’s story is told by a former Shabak (Israel’s Internal Security Service) officer in his newly-released book An Intelligence Agent’s Story. He met with Bouton for hours to gather the details of his life of espionage, which began in 1956 and spanned seven years as he operated in Beirut and Damascus. As Mustafa Taleb, Bouton created a vast network through which he used to collect intelligence. He used a special communication device to relay his information to Tel Aviv. The author wrote this book to clear Bouton’s defamed reputation ensuing from being fired. Bouton died last year.

Yury Schmidt, the esteemed human rights attorney, cautioned that the efficacious prosecution throughout Russia of scholars and researchers as spies in the last ten years has been coupled with harsher sentences. Four years ago, the former general director of the Central Machinery Construction Research Institution, Moscow scientist Igor Reshetin, was found guilty of handing over technology to the Chinese and received a sentence of eleven and a half years in a penal colony. He had justified his actions, claiming the technology’s nonclassified status permitted its export and international dialogue. Physicist Valentin Danilov in 2003 likewise was convicted of placing classified information in Chinese hands, and drew a similar sentence of 13 years in a penal colony. In fact, the only instance of acquittal in an espionage or treason case in the legal annals of the Soviet Union and modern Russia was that of the aforementioned researcher and ecologist Alexander Nikitin, the skillful defense having been mounted by the already heralded Mr. Schmidt. Nikitin, a onetime naval captain and submarine officer, authored a study on the environmental risks of radioactive waste and decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines, expressly in northern Russia, for the Norwegian ecological organization Bellona, resulting in an accusation of high treason being levelled against him.

As regards the current case, Afanasiev and Bobyshev disavowed any wrongdoing and contended that the Harbin period was devoted solely to teaching and, furthermore, that the contents of the lectures were under the strict supervision of the Military Mechanical University. Schmidt indicated that should convictions of the two men be secured, the prison terms would run from 12 to 20 years. The public will be barred from the proceedings.

Omid Kokabee, an Iranian Ph.D. candidate in physics at the University of Texas in Austin, is standing trial on espionage charges in his homeland, after being held in custody since the end of January or February. It is believed he was picked up at the Tehran airport en route to continuing his graduate studies in the United States. Physics World reports that Kokabee allegedly divulged Iranian scientific data and was a CIA operative. The specific charges against him encompass unlawful earnings and contact with a hostile nation, a veiled reference to the CIA. The adviser for graduate studies in Kokabee’s department, John Keto, scoffed at Internet accounts that depicted the accused as a renowned nuclear physicist and maintained he was instead a beginning doctoral student in optics and photonics. His friends and colleagues suggest a likely motive for the arrest is to deter student involvement in the pro-democracy Green movement disputing the 2009 election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Sources close to Kokabee gave his whereabouts while awaiting trial as Tehran’s Evin Prison, which has gained an infamous reputation for the many academic and political prisoners there as a result of Iran’s backlash against suspected spies for Western countries. The presiding judge at the trial is Abolghasem Salavati who, according to Eugene Chudnovsky of the Committee of Concerned Scientists, an international human rights organization, is noted for the severe penalties he imposes. Chudnovsky theorizes that a death sentence is within the realm of possibility, as a means to frighten Iranian students overseas. His organization has petitioned Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to grant clemency to Kokabee, while the accused’s attorneys feel that international pressure and the media spotlight might aid their client.

The discovered intelligence papers raise the possibility of dozens of Czech operatives who, like Bartek, held scientific positions in the West. The one-time head of Czech military intelligence, Andor Sandor, explained that scientists seeking employment abroad were frequently the targets of StB recruitment and refusal brought with it a ban on foreign travel. As for Bartek himself, his handler, Dusan Schwarz, made note in his file of Bartek’s daring and bravery in the pursuit of his objectives. The erstwhile agent currently lives in Denmark and acknowledged his StB connection to the Czech newspaper MF Dnes. He would not disclose exactly what he had purloined and maintained that his actions were not damaging to others.

The BBC reported the episode marked the first instance of journalists charged with espionage in Georgia. An unconnected spy incident occurred recently there, when nine arrests were made of suspected operatives for Russia, according to a Russian state newspaper. Four of the nine accused were Russian.