<http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0,1478,3179078a12,00.html> Fairfax New Zealand Limited Polish spies list leaked SUNDAY , 06 FEBRUARY 2005 WARSAW: Polish spies may be in danger after a list of names from communist-era files was leaked onto the internet earlier in the week, Prime Minister Marek Belka says. The directory of 240,000 names includes informers, spies and people questioned by the secret police under communist rule. The archives are held by the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) but the names were copied by a journalist and published. Speaking after meeting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Belka said yesterday it was possible that names of working agents were on the list. "I don't want to be alarmist. On the other hand, I would like to treat with the utmost gravity the possibility of a safety threat to a few or even just one active security agent, especially abroad," Belka told reporters. Poles have flooded the internet trying to find family members on the list. But daily paper Trybuna earlier yesterday scolded the journalist, former anti-communist activist Bronislaw Wildstein, pointing out the potential threat to spies. "The fun has ended. Polish intelligence officers are in danger... Operations have been suspended, people withdrawn," it wrote in a front page article headlined "Catastrophe". Belka said there would be a meeting between the secret services and the IPN to establish the precise threat posed. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'