Hamburg - Der US-Geheimdienst NSA hat nicht nur die Europäische Union, sondern auch die Zentrale der Vereinten Nationen abgehört. Das geht aus geheimen Unterlagen der NSA hervor, die der SPIEGEL ausgewertet hat. 
 
 Demnach ist es der NSA im Sommer 2012 gelungen, in die interne Videokonferenzanlage der Völkergemeinschaft einzudringen und die Verschlüsselung zu knacken. Dies habe für "eine dramatische Verbesserung der Daten aus Video-Telekonferenzen und der Fähigkeit, diesen Datenverkehr zu entschlüsseln" gesorgt, heißt es in einem geheimen NSA-Dokument. "Der Datenverkehr liefert uns die internen Video-Telekonferenzen der Uno (yay!)". Innerhalb von knapp drei Wochen sei die Zahl der entschlüsselten Kommunikationen von 12 auf 458 angestiegen. 
 
 In einem Fall habe die NSA zudem den chinesischen Geheimdienst dabei ertappt, ebenfalls zu spionieren. Daraufhin haben die NSA abgefangen, was zuvor die Chinesen abgehört hatten. Die Spionageaktionen sind illegal, in einem bis heute gültigen Abkommen mit der Uno hat sich die USA verpflichtet, keine verdeckten Aktionen zu unternehmen. 
 
 Aus den internen Dokumenten geht zudem hervor, dass die NSA die EU auch nach deren Umzug in die neuen Botschaftsräume im September 2012 noch ausspioniert hat. Unter den Dokumenten, die der Whistleblower Edward Snowden von Rechnern der NSA kopiert hat, befinden sich Lagepläne der EU-Botschaft an der 3rd Avenue in New York, die die Lage der Büros, aber auch der IT-Infrastruktur und der Server betreffen. Dem neuen EU-Gebäude gab der US-Geheimdienst den Codenamen "Apalachee". Die EU-Botschaft in Washington wurde intern "Magothy" genannt. 
 
 Auswärtiges Amt: "keine eigenen Erkenntnisse" 
 
 Auf drei Wegen attackierte die NSA nach eigenen Angaben die europäischen Dependancen: jeweils per Wanze sowie durch Kopieren der Festplatten in New York und das Infiltrieren des Computernetzwerks in Washington. Dabei machte sich die NSA zunutze, dass die Computer der beiden EU-Botschaften über ein sogenanntes Virtuelles Privates Netzwerk (VPN) miteinander verbunden sind. "Wenn wir den Zugang zu einer Seite verlieren, können wir ihn unmittelbar zurückerhalten, wenn wir über das VPN der anderen Seite kommen", konstatieren die NSA-Techniker in einer internen Präsentation. "Wir haben das mehrere Male genutzt, als wir bei ,Magothy' rausgeschmissen wurden." 
 
 Das Auswärtige Amt in Berlin besitzt nach eigenen Angaben keine Informationen über eine mögliche Ausspähung der Vereinten Nationen und von Botschaften durch den US-Geheimdienst NSA. "Wir haben keine eigenen Erkenntnisse", sagte ein Sprecher am Sonntag. 
 
 Laut den internen Dokumenten unterhält die NSA zudem in mehr als 80 Botschaften und Konsulaten weltweit ein eigenes Abhörprogramm, das intern "Special Collection Service" genannt wird und oft ohne das Wissen des Gastlands betrieben wird. Einen entsprechenden Lauschposten soll die NSA demnach in Frankfurt, einen weiteren in Wien unterhalten. 
 
 Die Existenz der Lauscheinheiten in Botschaften und Konsulaten sei unter allen Umständen geheim zu halten, heißt es in dem Material. Wenn sie bekannt würden, würde das "den Beziehungen zum jeweiligen Gastland schweren Schaden zufügen", so ein NSA-Dokument. ||||| BERLIN — Continuing revelations, based on documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, of sweeping American digital surveillance around the world are rattling the close ties between the United States and Germany. 
 
 In a country scarred by Nazi and Communist pasts, the issue is prompting not just a debate about privacy and data protection, but also demands from German officials that the Berlin-Washington security partnership be put on a new footing. 
 
 The latest of the Snowden revelations came on Sunday, when the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel published a report, citing documents Mr. Snowden obtained while he worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency, that said the agency had succeeded in tapping into videoconferences at the United Nations in New York, into the European Union’s mission to the United Nations, and into other diplomatic missions around the world. 
 
 Evidence that the United States has been spying extensively on its allies as well as on its enemies has been among the most significant revelations from Mr. Snowden, along with widespread government surveillance of the telephone and digital communications of American citizens without warrants. 
 
 The Der Spiegel article on Sunday was not the first to reveal American eavesdropping at the United Nations, which many diplomats have assumed for years was taking place. But it added extensive new detail to what had previously been reported, and it may compound the frictions developing between the United States and its allies over the issue — especially with Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel is in the midst of an election campaign. 
 
 Top German officials traveled to Washington this month to press an unusual demand: to negotiate a new formal agreement with the United States that neither side will spy on the other. 
 
 The initiative was confirmed in two sittings of the German parliamentary committee in charge of overseeing the country’s intelligence agencies. Ronald Pofalla, who runs Ms. Merkel’s Chancellery, told the committee on Aug. 12 that the two countries were working on just such an agreement. He gave no details, and none leaked out afterward in German media reports. 
 
 Neither side will say anything official about the proposed accord. Observers on both sides of the Atlantic say that even if such an agreement proves to be feasible, it will probably have to wait until after the German elections on Sept. 22. 
 
 It was not known whether Der Spiegel planned to publish further revelations from Snowden documents before then. Opinion polls in Germany suggest that Ms. Merkel’s strong standing with voters has not been damaged by the issue, nor has it displaced the weather or vacations as topics of summer conversation here. 
 
 But in the eyes of a skeptical, privacy-minded German public, at least, Der Spiegel’s report may have undercut the significance of the proposed accord by noting that the eavesdropping described in the Snowden documents would have violated agreements that the United States has made. 
 
 The report said that the N.S.A. succeeded last year in cracking an encrypted video teleconferencing system at the United Nations, and even stumbled across Chinese spies who were apparently invading the same communications system. The magazine also published a floor plan, evidently from N.S.A. files, of the third floor of the European mission to the United Nations on Third Avenue in New York, showing the locations of offices and computer servers. Der Spiegel suggested that the spying on allies and the United Nations made President Obama’s defense of surveillance programs as a counterterrorism effort seem misleading at best. 
 
 For the German government, the whole affair is frustrating. One senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity argued that Ms. Merkel had generally done a good job of keeping foreign affairs and controversy out of domestic politics, only to have Mr. Snowden’s revelations capture world attention just as she was preparing to receive Mr. Obama in Berlin in June, depart on vacation in July and open the final stage of her election campaign in August. ||||| A picture of Edward Snowden, a contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA), is seen on a computer screen displaying a page of a Chinese news website, in Beijing in this June 13, 2013 photo illustration. 
 
 MOSCOW Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden got stuck in the transit zone of a Moscow airport because Havana said it would not let him fly from Russia to Cuba, a Russian newspaper reported on Monday. 
 
 Snowden, who is wanted in the United States for leaking details of U.S. government surveillance programs, had planned to fly to Havana from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport a day after arriving from Hong Kong on June 23. 
 
 But Snowden, who eventually accepted a year's asylum in Russia after spending nearly six weeks at Sheremetyevo, did not show up for the flight although he had been allocated a seat. 
 
 Citing several sources, including one close to the U.S. State Department, Kommersant newspaper said the reason was that at the last minute Cuba told officials to stop Snowden from boarding the Aeroflot flight. 
 
 It said Cuba had changed its mind after pressure by the United States, which wants to try Snowden on espionage charges. 
 
 Kommersant also said Snowden had spent a couple of days in the Russian consulate in Hong Kong to declare his intention of flying to Latin America via Moscow. 
 
 "His choice of route and his plea to help were a complete surprise to us. We did not invite him," Kommersant quoted a Russian state source as saying. 
 
 Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Allowing Snowden to land would have put Cuba's relations with the United States at risk. 
 
 Ties between the United States and Russia were strained when Moscow granted Snowden asylum. Following the disagreement over Snowden, U.S. President Barack Obama postponed a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin planned for next month. 
 
 (Reporting by Katya Golubkova, editing by Elizabeth Piper and Timothy Heritage)
– In what could prove to be the most damaging Snowden leak yet, the National Security Agency bugged the United Nations headquarters in New York, as well as at least 80 embassies and consulates around the globe, according to der Spiegel. The agency's experts cracked the code last year, with one of them reporting "the data traffic gives us internal video teleconferences of the United Nations (yay!)," the German magazine reports, citing documents obtained by the NSA leaker. During the surveillance—which violated US agreements with the UN—the NSA snoops discovered some Chinese spies were also listening in. The bugging program the agency calls its "Special Collection Service" also targeted the European Union's UN mission and the International Atomic Energy Agency, reports der Spiegel, which says "the surveillance is intensive and well organized and has little or nothing to do with warding off terrorists." American snooping on the United Nations has been reported before, the New York Times notes, but the Snowden files provide much more information on the program and are likely to do more damage to US relations with allies including Germany. In other Snowden news, Reuters reports that it was Cuba's refusal to let the NSA leaker in that left him stranded for six weeks in the Moscow airport.