Page 3 - Spying

N Korea confirms plan to launch its first military spy satellite in June

North Korea on Tuesday confirmed plans to launch its first military spy satellite in June and described such capacities as crucial for monitoring the United States' reckless military exercises with rival South Korea. The statement came a day after North Korea notified Japanese authorities that it plans to launch the satellite sometime between May 31 and June 11, and that the event may affect waters in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and east of the Philippines' Luzon Island. Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said he ordered Japan's Self Defense Forces to shoot down the satellite or debris, if any entered Japanese territory. In comments published on state media, senior North Korean military official Ri Pyong Chol berated the combined US-South Korean military exercises, which Pyongyang has long described as invasion rehearsals. He said North Korea considers space-based reconnaissance as indispensable to monitor in real time the dangerous military acts of the US and its vassal ..

LIVE updates: Case against Oxfam India for foreign funding violations

Catch live updates from across the globe here

UN protests US spying on Guterres, calls it 'interference' by Washington

The UN has protested to the US against the spying on Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other officials calling it an "interference" by Washington, according to spokesperson Stephane Dujarric

Kim Jong-un says N Korea has finished development of 1st spy satellite

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country has completed the development of its first military spy satellite and ordered officials to go ahead with its launch as planned, state media reported Wednesday. During his visit to the North's aerospace agency Tuesday, Kim stressed it's crucial to acquire a space-based surveillance system in the face of what he called US-led security threats, the Korean Central News Agency said. North Korea says its spate of weapons tests, including its first test-launch of a solid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike the US mainland last week, are a response to joint military exercises between the United States and its regional allies South Korea and Japan. At the National Aerospace Development Administration, Kim said military reconnaissance was crucial for North Korea to effectively use its methods of war deterrence, according to KCNA. Kim said the military reconnaissance satellite No. 1 had been built as of April and order

India confronted Myanmar about Chinese spy post on remote island

In the meetings, representatives from Myanmar's ruling junta denied any Chinese involvement and dismissed India's concerns, according to an official

Suspected 'spy pigeon' to be sent to CFSL for forensic examination

A pigeon fitted with devices, with the police suspecting that the bird was being used for spying, will be sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) for examination, police said. The bird was caught from a fishing boat off the Paradip coast of Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district. Some fishermen found the pigeon perched on their trawler a few days ago. The bird was captured and handed over to the marine police at Paradip on Wednesday. The decision to send the bird to CFSL was taken after the State Forensic Laboratory here failed to elicit any data from a tiny camera like machine and a microchip attached to its legs, the police said. Jagatsinghpur Superintendent of Police Rahul PR said, The words scribbled on the wings of the pigeon and the seized devices will be examined at CFSL, either in Kolkata or Hyderabad. The pigeon was found on the trawler when it was anchored around 35 km off the coast of Konark around 11 days back.

The case of spy pigeons as Odisha Police seizes one off Paradip coast

There were devices fitted on pigeon's leg and coded messages were scribbled on its wings, reports say

Suspected spy pigeon with devices fitted on leg caught in Odisha

A pigeon fitted with devices, which appear to be a camera and a microchip, was caught from a fishing boat off the Paradip coast of Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district, with the police suspecting that the bird was being used for spying. Some fishermen found the pigeon perched on their trawler a few days ago. The bird was captured and handed over to the marine police here on Wednesday. "Our veterinarians will examine the bird. We will seek help of the State Forensic Science Laboratory for examining the devices attached to its legs. It appears that the devices are a camera and a microchip," Jagatsinghpur Superintendent of Police Rahul PR told PTI. It also seems like something has been scribbled on the wings of the bird in a language unknown to the local police. "Experts' help will also be sought to find out what is written," the SP said. Pitambar Behera, an employee of the fishing trawler 'Sarathi', said he saw the pigeon perched on the boat. "Suddenly I noticed that some instruments we

Had Pegasus on my phone, intelligence officers cautioned me: Rahul Gandhi

Talking to students at Cambridge University, Gandhi said that a 'yatra' is a journey or pilgrimage in which people 'shut themselves down so they can listen to others'

Beijing blasts US over response to suspected Chinese spy balloon incursion

China's ceremonial parliament has accused American lawmakers of trampling on the sovereignty of other nations after the U.S. passed a measure condemning a suspected Chinese spy balloon's intrusion into U.S. airspace. The statement issued Thursday by the National People's Congress's Foreign Affairs Committee repeated Beijing's insistence that the balloon was an unmanned civilian weather research airship, a claim the U.S. has dismissed citing its flight route and payload of surveillance equipment. While China at first expressed regret over the Feb. 4 incident, it has toughened its rhetoric in a further sign of how badly relations between the sides have deteriorated in recent years. On Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry said it will take measures against U.S. entities somehow related to the downing of the balloon, without giving details. The resolution earlier passed unanimously by the U.S. House of Representatives deliberately exaggerated the China threat,'" the Foreign Relations Commit

China insists balloon for civilian use, accuses US of exaggerating dispute

The Biden administration offered details including that high-resolution imagery provided by U-2 spy planes flying past the balloon revealed an array of surveillance equipment

US overreacted by using force, says Chinese ministry on 'spy balloon' issue

In a response to the White House's statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the US overreacted by using force and that the narrative is probably part of the information and public opinion.

Chinese spy balloon capable of gathering intelligence, claim US officials

FBI is analysing recovered parts of the suspected Chinese spy balloon, shot down on February 4, part of a fleet that had flown over "more than 40 countries across five continents", a US officials.

China conducted spy balloon programme for several years: Pentagon

The Chinese balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast was part of a large surveillance programme that China has been conducting for "several years", the Pentagon said Wednesday. When similar balloons passed over US territory on four occasions during the Trump and Biden administrations, the US did not immediately identify them as Chinese surveillance balloons, said Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary. But he said "subsequent intelligence analysis" allowed the US to confirm they were part of a Chinese spying effort and learn "a lot more" about the programme. He refused to provide any new details about those previous balloons. When pressed, Ryder would only say that the balloons flew over "sites that would be of interest to the Chinese". One of the possible incidents was last February. Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, the adjutant general in Hawaii, tweeted about a balloon over Kauai a year ago. He said US Indo-Pacific Command "detected a high-altitude object floating in t

Was the Chinese balloon indeed a spy at work or was it just hot air?

Balloons are 18th century tech; Chinese satellites allow for surveillance with far higher levels of efficiency

US moves to recover Chinese balloon as pressure mounts on President Biden

The balloon, said to be the size of at least two school buses, and its sensors are lying in 50 feet (15 meters) of water and scattered over a seven-mile (11-kilometer) area off Myrtle Beach

US trying to recover parts of Chinese spy balloon after shooting it down

After shooting down a Chinese surveillance balloon in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday afternoon, the Pentagon said it has launched a mission to recover all the equipment from the debris. At the direction of President Joe Biden, the US military at 2.39 pm EST shot down the Chinese surveillance balloon in the Atlantic Ocean, some six miles away from the US shores in South Carolina, with no damage to the life and properties of Americans, a senior defence official told reporters. Fighter aircraft from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia inspired a single missile into the balloon causing it to crash into the ocean within the US territorial airspace, said the official, adding that as of now there are no indications that any people including US military personnel, civilian aircraft or maritime vessels were harmed in any way. I told them to shoot it down, Biden told reporters in Hagerstown, Maryland. On Wednesday, when I was briefed on the balloon, I ordered t

China says it is looking into report of spy balloon over US, urges calm

China said Friday it was looking into reports that a Chinese spy satellite has been flying in US airspace and urged calm. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning also said she had no information about whether a planned trip to China by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken would proceed next week as scheduled. China is a responsible country and has always strictly abided by international laws, and China has no intention to violate the territory and airspace of any sovereign countries. As for the balloon, as I've mentioned just now, we are looking into and verifying the situation and hope that both sides can handle this together calmly and carefully," Mao said at a daily briefing. Mao said that politicians and the public should withhold judgment before we have a clear understanding of the facts. Blinken had been due to arrive in China on Friday, becoming the highest ranking US official to visit since the COVID-19 pandemic began. He would arrive amid a sharp downturn in relations betw

Iran hangs former defence ministry official Ali Akbari in spy claim

Iran said Saturday it executed a former high-ranking defence ministry official and dual Iranian-British national, despite international warnings not to carry out the death sentence. The execution further escalated tensions with the West amid the nationwide anti-government protests shaking the Islamic Republic. The hanging of Ali Reza Akbari, a close ally of top security official Ali Shamkhani, suggests an ongoing power struggle within Iran's theocracy as it tries to contain the demonstrations over the September death of Mahsa Amini. It also harkened back to the mass purges of the military that immediately followed Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Akbari's hanging drew immediate anger from London, which along with the US and others has sanctioned Iran over the protests and its supplying Russia with the bomb-carrying drones now targeting Ukraine. This was a callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people, British Prime

EU moves closer to new data transfer deal over spying concerns with US

The European Union moved closer to a clinching a revamped deal over transatlantic data transfers aimed at resolving concerns about U.S. spying with a draft decision that confirms comparable safeguards to those in the EU, which has stringent privacy rules. The EU's executive Commission released its draft decision approving the pact Tuesday, which follows a breakthrough preliminary agreement in March between Brussels and Washington to resolve a yearslong battle over the privacy of EU citizens' data that businesses routinely store in the U.S. That breakthrough was hailed by business groups, which said it will provide certainty to thousands of companies, including tech giants like Google and Facebook, sending data between Europe, which has stricter data privacy regulations, and the comparatively lax U.S., which lacks a comprehensive federal privacy law. Frictions over the transfers had raised the prospect that companies might need to keep European data out of the U.S. We are now confid