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Diplomacy
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Microwave weapon suspected of mystery attacks on US diplomats in China and Cuba

Unconventional microwave weapons may be the source of the ailments that have stricken more than three dozen American diplomats and their families

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The entrance of the US Consulate in Guangzhou, China, where some employees reported abnormal sounds and air pressure in a case that recalled the illness that hit American diplomats serving in Cuba. Photo: Reuters
Agence France-Presse

Doctors and scientists increasingly suspect attacks with unconventional microwave weapons as the cause of the mysterious ailments that have stricken more than three dozen American diplomats and their families in Cuba and China, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The victims reported hearing intense high-pitched sounds in their hotel rooms or homes followed by symptoms that included nausea, severe headaches, fatigue, dizziness, sleep problems and hearing loss.

A medical team that examined 21 of those affected in Cuba did not mention microwave weapons as a cause in a study published in March in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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Cuban employees entering the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba, last month. Photo: Reuters
Cuban employees entering the US Embassy in Havana, Cuba, last month. Photo: Reuters

But its lead author, Douglas Smith, the director of the Centre for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Times that microwave weapons are now considered a main suspect and that the team is increasingly sure the diplomats suffered brain injury.

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“Everybody was relatively sceptical at first,” he was quoted as saying, “and everyone now agrees there’s something there.”

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