VIENNA -- Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, Vienna remains a spy haven, swarming with foreign agents who think nothing of killing in broad daylight, while the Austrian authorities turn a blind eye, experts say.(原來澳大利亞的相關單位都在姑息養奸阿)

“Austria is still a favorite place for agents. They're frequently known to the authorities, but rarely hindered. Everything is handled courteously and diplomatically.(官官相護的文化在西方也是存在的) There's a long tradition in that,” said Siegfried Beer, director of the Austrian Centre for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies (ACIPSS), at the University of Graz.

For Peter Pilz, defence expert for the opposition Green party, “some regimes such as Russia and Iran enjoy a freedom to do as they please in Vienna that they would never enjoy elsewhere.” “Quite simply, the Austrian authorities don't want to jeopardize their country's economic interests,” the parliamentarian told AFP.

Vienna, whose geographical position makes it a point of contact between East and West and North and South, has one of the highest densities of spies in the world, experts say. Politician Pilz asserted that Vienna is also “a hub where it's very easy to buy arms or hide or launder money.”(驚嘆!!維也納是洗錢和軍火商的集散地) According to some estimates, Russia has at least 500 secret service agents in Vienna, many of whom monitor Chechen exiles.