US arrests FBI "spy"

A veteran agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been arrested in the United States on charges of spying for Russia.

The agent, named as Robert Philip Hanssen, has been in the FBI for twenty-seven years.

He's said to have been detained in a park in the state of Virginia after dropping off a package.

Mr Hanssen is accused of giving information to the Russians since the mid-1980s -- among the secrets he allegedly passed on were America's electronic surveillance procedures.

His earlier work for the FBI included performing similar surveillance on Russian government missions within the United States.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service