![]() It's also a very livable city and a safe city. And spy agencies from pretty much everywhere viewed Vienna as an excellent place to try to meet those officials and try to convince them to provide them with information. And obviously there are officials that staff those embassies. There are large embassies of all the countries. How so?ĮNTOUS: So Austria has long been an epicenter for espionage activities - and diplomacy. MARTÍNEZ: You describe Vienna as long being a den of spies. Otherwise, the symptoms can be, in some cases, very common type illnesses. And then when they come out from that location, they feel it again. And when they duck behind, you know, a cement barrier or a wall or a beam in their home, suddenly they don't feel it anymore. Their partner feels nothing and hears nothing. They describe kind of this directional quality to this, where it feels like, in some cases, they're standing in an invisible beam of energy. That's similar to what was described by several of the patients in Havana. And immediately the pressure subsides, and his son stops screaming. He guns it and pulls out of the intersection. And at the same time, his son in the back starts screaming at the top of his lungs. And suddenly he feels a pressure, intense pressure in his head and hears a ringing sound in his ears. And he's got his son in the back seat of his car in a car seat. military officer was driving his vehicle outside the embassy. And in other cases, they're less severe.Ī very good example that I was told - this is not in Vienna but in another Asian capital. ![]() In the past, the patients have said that they had issues with balance, issues with vertigo, in some cases, problems with their eyes and their vision, what they describe as brain fog and cognitive problems. What kind of symptoms are we talking about?ĮNTOUS: You know, the symptoms vary widely depending on the patient. MARTÍNEZ: All right - so beginning of spring. And then it's kind of slowly building from there, up to about two dozen reported instances, which is the largest number reported in any city outside of Havana, which first reported some of these cases back in late 2016 and in 2017. There's the first reported case, about two months after the inauguration of Joe Biden. We know that they started to be reported to, you know, the CIA and the State Department higher-ups here in the Washington area around two months into the Biden administration. And I asked him, what's been happening there?ĪDAM ENTOUS: We don't know all that much about the individual cases. And now apparently, it's in Vienna, Austria.Īdam Entous of The New Yorker was the first to report on the new health complaints in Vienna. It's been called Havana Syndrome after the place where cases were first reported, followed by others in Moscow, London and the Washington, D.C. Vienna is a hub for international affairs in Europe, with foreign diplomats working at the UN and other global organizations in the Austrian capital.The Biden administration says it is, quote, "vigorously investigating" the latest reports of a mysterious illness affecting dozens of American diplomats, family members and operatives overseas. Other researchers contend it may be linked to pesticides. Some scientists believe the syndrome may be caused by a "directed-energy" microwave weapon. The first reports of the syndrome occurred among dozens of US diplomats living in the Cuban capital of Havana in 2016.Īnonymous US government officials told news outlet Politico in May that they believe Russia's military intelligence unit, the GRU, may be behind the cases. White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Monday it is unclear what is behind the symptoms. What could be behind the mysterious illness? ![]() "The safety of diplomats posted to Vienna and their families is of utmost importance to us," it added. "We take these reports very seriously and in line with our role as a host state we are working with the US authorities on jointly getting to the bottom of this," the Austrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on Saturday. The Austrian government also said it is investigating the source of the health complaints. The symptoms of the syndrome include dizziness, headaches and hearing loss, among others. Nearly two dozens cases among US government workersĪ report published in the New Yorker magazine on Friday revealed that roughly two dozen US government workers in the Austrian capital have suffered from the ailment since Biden was inaugurated in January. US State Department spokesperson Ned Price on Monday said that President Joe Biden's administration was conducting a probe into reported cases of "Havana Syndrome" among American diplomats and intelligence officers in Vienna. ![]()
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