The News Minute| July 8, 2014| 11.20 pm IST

It was in the air yesterday when German Chancellor Angela Merkel took time out of her trade visit to China to say that the United States spying on Germany was “a very serious matter.”

Today Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière has told a German newspaper that the country is reversing its policy of not spying on friendly nations since 1945 to start a “360 degree surveillance” of all intelligence operations in Germany. The post-war agreement was that Germany would not spy on friendly countries which included the US, UK and France. 

The announcement is a response to the scandal last week following the arrest of a 31-year old double agent who spent two years selling top secret German intelligence documents to his US spy bosses in return for payments of 10,000 euros per document (one euro is INR 81.30)
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