M A I N   N E W S

USA expels 50 Russian diplomats

Washington, March 22
The USA has ordered the expulsion of 50 Russian diplomats here following the recent arrest of an FBI agent accused of spying for Moscow, CBS television reported.

CBS reported that Russian Ambassador Yuri Ushakov was summoned to the State Department and told of the order.

The order, which would mark the first US mass expulsion of Russian diplomats in the post-Soviet era, comes slightly more than a month after former FBI counter-intelligence agent Robert Hanssen was arrested after allegedly leaving a package full of classified information in a Virginia park for his Russian handlers.

Hanssen, 56, allegedly began to pass highly sensitive information to Moscow in 1985 and continued to do so even after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. AFP