News you may have missed #0033

• China says US media exaggerates Chinese espionage threat. China’s state-owned People’s Daily newspaper dismisses claims that there are over 3,500 Chinese spy operatives currently in the US. Chinese authorities have also dismissed as fabrication the espionage charges in the US against former Boeing engineer Dongfan “Greg” Chung.
• “Adoptive father” of Israeli intelligence dies. Meir Amit, who revolutionized Israeli intelligence in the 1960s, has died at the age of 88.
• China to drop espionage charges in Rio Tinto case. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says Beijing is “not interested in what we would regard as espionage” in the Rio Tinto case.
• New books on MI5, NSA, reviewed. Writing for The Washington Times, Joseph Goulden reviews Chapman Pincher’s Treachery (on whether MI5 head Sir Roger Hollis was a Soviet agent) and Matthew Aid’s Secret Sentry: The Untold Story of the NSA, which intelNews first mentioned here.