problem, somebody s trying to sell us secrets about you re most sophisticated submarine technology. we know france s upset of th united states with australia, but according to the new york times, france said it wasn t us. but the information that jonathan toebbe and diana toebb we re trying to sell was about the virginia class attack submarine which is our new most modern high-tech submarine or the information was about the nuclear propulsion system which toebbe worked on for the navy. what kind of information bonanz would that be for somebody who is a potential adversary or eve an ally of ours? it s a dealbreaker and any kind of a contract for this is submarine that could carry nuclear weapons, or conventiona weapons, but they key to this kind of nuclear powered submarine is they can be underwater for months, even
the transfers. there were three separate dead drops. it turns out they were communicating with the undercover agency. they thought they were doing these elaborate spy novel dead drops, and it was the fbi setting them up the whole time. well, setting up after they had made the initial offer to the federal government. the mystery here is, who was this? and there are all kinds of theories around. there are a number of governments that use submarine technology. used to be when this started in the 50s, it was the united states and britain. but now of course israel, south korea, turkey. many other nations have submarine technology. and you could imagine why he would have thought they would have been interested in the best nuclear naval reactors. as we looked at his military record, it turns out he spent more than a year as a naval
given where it is positioned, geographically, to have the u.s., u.k. submarine technology, not the french technology, because the french technology was not as sophisticated. wasn t as quiet. perhaps didn t allow for more stealth ways surprising china, they felt like this was also a commercial decision based on on what the french were offering, and then decided it wasn t good enough. it s not what the french were offering. it is actually the contract that was signed a few years ago, when you had a bid for these submarines, you had an open bid, it was a very tough competition at the time, between different bidders, and australians chose the french option. the french carry nuclear propelled submarines, it is under the australian request that they were converted, in this case, into diesel submarines, especially because of strong public opinion that opposed the nuclear option i think at the time. so it is a strange argument that
89.3% of people aged 16 and over have had theirfirstjab. 81.5% are now double vaccinated. in an unprecedented diplomatic move, france has recalled its ambassadors to america and australia, following this week s s surprise announcement of a new security and defence pact between the us, australia and the uk. the move, which took the french, a nato ally, by surprise, also saw australia renege on an agreement to buy submarine technology from france. 0ur north america editorjon sopel is in washington now. the french, not consulted about this trilateral agreement and now expressing extreme irritation, to say the least. to say the very least. it is an extraordinary and i would say unprecedented move for the french to recall their ambassador from the united states. you almost need to