Courcy’s Intelligence Brief
Risk pointers
*** German and Greek far-right forging links. According to Bavarian intelligence sources, the extreme right-wing Greek party known as the Golden Dawn has been developing close ties with neo-Nazi groups in Germany’s Bavaria.
Golden Dawn, led by Nikolaos Michaloliakos, calls for an “ethnically pure” Greece. Its supporters wear military uniforms and swastika-style insignia. Golden Dawn is showing 12% support in Greek opinion polls and has won seats in parliament for the first time on the back of the eurozone crisis.
The Bavarian branch of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution says: “Golden Dawn has an international network of contacts and also has contacts with Bavarian neo-Nazis. These contacts are nurtured through mutual visits and at meetings at right-wing extremist events in Europe.”
***China’s hold over North Korea. As the international community tries to find a way to stop North Korea conducting another nuclear test, the latest figures show the extent to which China now dominates North Korea’s external trade. Two-way trade in 2012 was up 7% at a record $6bn. Chinese exports were up 11.6% at $3.5bn while imports were up 1% at $2.5bn.
Around 60% of China’s imports from North Korea is accounted for by natural resources such as iron ore and anthracite. In turn, North Korea imported $748m of oil from China in the first 11 months of 2012.
*** Political repression in Russia. A Russian website called ovdinfo.org claims that between 4 December 2011 and 31 December 2012 some 5,169 people were detained in Moscow for political reasons.
A spokesman for the website, Daniil Beylinson, explained what the site considers to be a political detention. He said: “We consider detentions which occur at events which have this or that political colour, this includes social and ecological issues, to be political detentions.”
Beylinson says that his group tries to keep “provokers” out of the figures but this is not always possible. However, he adds: “Even if our figures contain provokers, this is a completely insignificant number compared to the total number.”