INDIA
Suspected spy pigeon held
Police on Friday said they have detained a pigeon near the heavily militarized border with Pakistan on suspicion that it was being used for espionage. Police said they had X-rayed the bird to see whether it was carrying anything suspicious after a villager spotted a stamp under its feathers that bore Urdu script and the name of a Pakistani district. “We sent the bird to a polyclinic where X-ray scans were done to see if there is any spy camera, transmitter or hidden chip,” senior police superintendent Rakesh Kaushal told reporters by telephone. “Until now, there is no evidence to suggest that it is a spy bird, but as long as we are not able to decipher what is written in Urdu, we cannot be absolutely sure.” Kaushal said police alerted intelligence services about the pigeon found in Punjab.
UNITED STATES
Apple I worth US$200,000
A recycling center in the Silicon Valley is looking for a woman who dropped off an old Apple computer that turned out to be a collectible worth US$200,000. The computer was inside boxes of electronics that she had cleaned out from her garage after her husband died, Clean Bay Area vice president Victor Gichun said. She did not want a tax receipt or leave her contact information, and it was not until a few weeks later that workers opened the boxes to discover an Apple I computer. The San Jose Mercury News reports that it was one of about 200 first-generation desktop computers assembled by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne in 1976. “We really could not believe our eyes. We thought it was fake,” Gichun told KNTV-TV. The recycling firm sold the Apple I for US$200,000 to a private collection, and because the company gives 50 percent of items sold back to the original owner, Gichun said he wants to split the proceeds with the mystery donor. He said he remembers what she looks like and is asking her to come back to claim her US$100,000 check.
ARGENTINA
Meteorite heist interrupted
Police detained four people suspected of trying to steal more than a tonne of protected meteorites, authorities said on Saturday. Three Argentine nationals and a Paraguayan were held over the unusual alleged heist near General Pinedo, in the northern province of Chaco, national police said. Police said they found 215 large chunks of meteorites stashed under the seats of a vehicle during a random truck stop. One area of Chaco, Campo del Cielo (“Heavenly Field”), was pelted by a major meteor shower about 4,000 years ago, scientists say.
BANGLADESH
Islamic State suspect held
Police arrested a suspected member of the Islamic State group in Dhaka, a senior officer said yesterday, following the detention days earlier of two other suspects, including an IT manager at a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Co. The suspect picked up on Saturday night was a coordinator for the extremist group in the nation, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Detective and Criminal Intelligence Division Deputy Commissioner Shaikh Nazmul Alam told Reuters. “We arrested him with hundreds of training related videos for extremists, and also a large number of books on al-Qaeda and the Islamic State translated into Bangla,” Alam said. Police said the detained man was Abdullah al-Galib, a former member of Hizbut Tahrir, and a follower of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, two militant Muslim groups in Bangladesh. “We have been following him for a long time and arrested him yesterday night from Banani, a posh area of the city,” Alam said.
An Australian university student who has never visited China and has only a modest social media following would seem an unlikely target for the Chinese government. However, when a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman personally denounced Drew Pavlou at a news conference, it was just the next phase in an extraordinary campaign against the 21-year-old that has fueled concerns over China’s targeting of critics overseas. Pavlou first placed himself in the superpower’s sights when in July last year he organized a small sit-in at the University of Queensland, where he studies, to protest against various Chinese government policies. Since then, the Global
‘ASKED TO MOVE OUT’: Indonesian coast guard personnel argued with a Chinese vessel over territorial claims after it entered the country’s exclusive economic zone An Indonesian patrol ship confronted a Chinese coast guard vessel that spent almost three days in waters where Indonesia claims economic rights and that are near the southernmost part of China’s disputed claims to the South China Sea. The Indonesian Maritime Security Agency on Friday night detected Chinese ship 5204 entering Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in what Indonesia calls the North Natuna Sea. The agency sent a patrol ship that closed within 1km of the Chinese coast guard vessel and they communicated to affirm their position and their nation’s claims to the area, Indonesian Maritime Security Agency head Aan Kurnia said. “We
BEFORE WINTER COMES: Snow cuts off roads into Ladakh for four months or more each year, so the crunch is on to get food, tents and high-altitude equipment to Leh From deploying mules to large transport aircraft, the Indian military has activated its entire logistics network to transport supplies to thousands of troops for a harsh winter along a bitterly disputed Himalayan border with China. In the past few months, one of India’s biggest military logistics exercises in years has brought vast quantities of ammunition, equipment, fuel, winter supplies and food into Ladakh, a region bordering Tibet that India administers as a union territory, officials said. The move was triggered by a border standoff with China in the snow deserts of Ladakh that began in May and escalated in June into hand-to-hand
Since her personal telephone number was posted online, Hong Kong democracy advocate and Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions chairperson Carol Ng has received menacing calls from strangers and been bombarded with messages calling her a “cockroach.” She is not alone. A sophisticated and shady Web site called HK Leaks has ramped up its “doxxing” — where people’s personal details are published online — of Hong Kong democracy advocates, targeting those it says have broken Hong Kong’s National Security Law. Promoted by groups linked to the Chinese Chinese Communist Party and hosted on Russia-based servers, HK Leaks has become the most prominent “doxxing”
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