Canada says India using cyber tech to target ‘dissidents abroad’

A Canadian spy agency has accused India of conducting threatening cyber activity against the North American nation and its citizens as the fallout from the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader continues to worsen bilateral relations.

The Communications Security Establishment said India is using technology to track and spy on activists and dissidents “living abroad”.

“As Canada and India potentially may have some tensions, it is possible that we may see India want to flex those cyber threat actions against Canadians,” Caroline Xavier, head of the agency, said on Wednesday.

Ms Xavier said New Delhi is stepping up cyberattacks against Canadian government networks.

Her agency has previously described India as an emerging cyber threat to the country.

The statement comes a day after deputy foreign minister David Morrison reiterated that the Indian home minister Amit Shah sanctioned a wave a violence targeting Sikh separatists across the North American country.

Mr Shah, prime minister Narendra Modi’s chief lieutenant, was identified as the “senior official in India” who “authorised the intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists” in Canada, The Washington Post reported earlier this month based on information supplied by a Canadian source.

Mr Morrison confirmed on Tuesday that he is the source.

“The journalist called me and asked me if it was that person. I confirmed it was that person,” Mr Morrison told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

Relations between India and Canada have gone into a tailspin since Ottawa accused the Indian high commissioner and other top diplomats of being directly involved in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Nijjar, 45, a Sikh activist, was shot dead by masked gunmen in Surrey outside Vancouver in June 2023. He was a face of the Khalistan movement, which seeks to carve out an independent Sikh homeland in western India.

New Delhi had long accused Nijjar, a Canadian citizen born in India, of being involved in terrorism, an allegation he denied.

Canadian police have since charged four Indian nationals living in the North American country with Nijjar’s killing. They are all awaiting trial.

India has denied the Canadian allegations as “preposterous”. It reacted furiously when Ottawa first made the allegation last year by briefly suspending visas for Canadians.

Bilateral ties hit a nadir when Canada expelled six Indian diplomats earlier this month, accusing them of involvement in the killing. New Delhi, in a tit-for-tat move, expelled six Canadian diplomats.

This month, prime minister Justin Trudeau and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police went public with allegations that Indian diplomats were targeting Sikh separatists in the country by sharing information about them with New Delhi.

Top Indian officials, in turn, were giving the information to organised crime groups to extort, intimidate and even murder Canadian Sikh activists, they said.

India is the top source for temporary foreign workers and international students moving to Canada but a backlog of applications has built up since Mr Trudeau’s allegations last year.

Attackers set fire to headquarters of party that backed Hasina

Attackers set fire to the headquarters of a Bangladesh party that supported the country’s ousted leader Sheikh Hasina on Thursday night, media reports said. There was no information if anyone was injured.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on the Jatiya Party offices in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. TV stations and other media said the attackers stormed the party headquarters in Dhaka’s Bijoy Nagar area, clashing with party members who were there and eventually setting the premises on fire.

The extend of the damage was not immediately known. Firefighters rushed to the scene, according to Rashed bin Khaled, an official of the Fire Service and Civil Defense. Bin Khaled, who spoke to The Associated Press by phone, had no other details.

The party is Bangladesh’s third largest and was founded by former military dictator H.M. Ershad in the 1980s.

As the attack was underway, a prominent leader of a student protest movement that led to Hasina’s ouster in August said the Jatiya Party should be “destroyed” for its support of her government.

Hasnat Abdullah, the student leader, claimed in a Facebook post that the Jatiya party was “a national betrayer.”

Abdullah is from the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, which spearheaded the July protests. He also urged students to gather at the Dhaka University and march toward the Jatiya Party headquarters.

Mujibul Haque Chunnu, the party’s secretary general, blamed the students for the attack. “People are watching what they are doing with us,” he said. “It is live in social media … they are doing it publicly, openly.”

Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League party ruled the country for 15 years, since 2009. Her critics said the Jatiya Party had acted to give Hasina’s rule a veneer or democracy as other major political parties did not take part in the elections.

Hasina fled the country to India on 5 August, after the student-led demonstration morphed into an anti-government protest movement. Hundreds of students, security officials and others were killed during the turmoil.

Later, hundreds more, including Hasina’s supporters, were killed in revenge attacks or in mob violence across the South Asian nation. She now faces arrest warrants for the killings in July and August.

Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi Nobel laurate, took over as head of an interim government backed by the student group and the country’s influential military in August.

However, his administration has struggled to restore order.

Teenager cleared of killing British woman in Australia

A man has been cleared of murdering a British woman who was stabbed to death during a break-in at her home in Australia.

Emma Lovell, 41, was killed in North Lakes, Queensland, on Boxing Day in 2022 while fending off two intruders.

The mother died of a single stab wound to her heart and another man, who cannot be named because he was under 18 at the time of the attack, was jailed for 14 years in May after pleading guilty to her murder.

A second man, who was 17 at the time of the attack and also cannot be named, appeared at Brisbane’s Supreme Court last week.

Justice Michael Copley, who heard the case without a jury, found the man not guilty of murder on Thursday, as well as a malicious act with intent and unlawful wounding.

He found the defendant guilty of burglary and assault.

“I am not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was a party to this murder,” the judge said.

Mrs Lovell had emigrated to Australia from Suffolk in 2011 with her husband Lee, who survived the attack, and their two daughters.

In his sentencing remarks in the original trial, Justice Tom Sullivan said Mrs Lovell was described as “an energetic and beloved mother, wife, daughter, and sister”.

The court heard the couple had attempted to fend off the intruders after they were woken by their dogs barking at about 11.30pm.

Mr Lovell was injured during a “physical struggle directly outside the front door” which then moved to the front lawn, where his wife was fatally stabbed.

Although the defendant was found guilty of burglary, he was cleared of the circumstance of aggravation of being armed with an offensive weapon.

The prosecution argued that the accused “had knowledge at the time of the commission of all of the offences that his co-offender was in possession of a knife”, according to the judgment.

But Justice Copley said he could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant knew his co-offender, “H”, was armed with a knife.

The judge also found he could not be sure to the criminal standard that the man was “a party to this murder”, nor that he was a party to unlawfully wounding Mr Lovell or committing a malicious act with intent.

The defendant was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company after the judge was satisfied that he was present on the lawn when “H” assaulted Mr Lovell “for the purpose of physically participating, if necessary, in the assault”.

Delhi’s air quality worsens as people defy ban on Diwali fireworks

Delhi has once again become the world’s most polluted city following Diwali celebrations as people in the Indian capital continued to burst firecrackers despite a government ban.

After a night of relentless fireworks, the Swiss firm IQAir reported an Air Quality Index, or AQI, of 348 for the city, categorising air quality as “hazardous” for its 33 million residents.

The fireworks happened despite the Delhi government banning the production, sale, and use of firecrackers until New Year’s Day.

This is not the first time Delhi’s residents have defied the ban on burning firecrackers during Diwali. Since its introduction in 2017, the seasonal ban has been widely violated, with many residents citing tradition and cultural significance as reasons for continuing the practice of burning firecrackers.

The challenge of enforcing the ban is compounded by the easy availability of firecrackers in the city.

As dusk fell on Thursday, the noise of firecrackers bursting increased as AQI worsened. The fireworks continued until late into the night.

Yet, Delhi’s environment minister thanked the residents for “largely refraining from bursting firecrackers” on Diwali. “Thanks to the responsible actions of many residents who avoided using firecrackers, we managed to avoid a severe AQI reading,” Gopal Rai said.

Air pollution monitoring stations in RK Puram and Jahangirpuri areas reported dangerous PM2.5 concentrations, reaching 900 micrograms per cubic metre, far above the safe limit of 60 micrograms.

Similarly, Patparganj, Okhla, and Nehru Nagar saw PM2.5 levels in the range of 850–900 micrograms by 10 pm, pushing the AQI into the “hazardous”category.

As the night progressed, the air quality across the city and the broader National Capital Region worsened.

By Friday morning Delhi’s overall AQI had hit 359, making it the most polluted city in the world for the day.

The city woke up to thick smog, reducing visibility and making air heavier to breathe. Poorer areas in the north and east reported AQI levels near or in the “severe” category, making the air extremely unhealthy.

Delhi’s air quality is already poor from October to December and the bursting of firecrackers during Diwali only makes it worse.

Although the city faces moderately poor air quality due to emissions from a large number of old and poorly maintained vehicles, along with releases from industries, throughout the year, cooler temperatures and stagnant air conditions in the winter months trap pollutants closer to the ground, leading to severe smog episodes.

To make matters worse, farmers burn stocks of stubble in nearby agricultural regions during this period. In spite of government policies to incentivise farmers against burning stubble, there has been only a small decrease in farm fires over the last few years.

In response to the escalating pollution crisis, the Delhi government activated stage 2 of the Graded Response Action Plan which includes measures such as halting construction activities and restricting the use of diesel generators.

Mr Rai said mobile smog guns were deployed across the city, actively spraying water on roads to minimise dust and mitigate pollution levels.

Authorities have also intensified monitoring and enforcement efforts to ensure compliance with pollution control measures.

Delhi’s toxic air is especially damaging to children, the elderly, and those with respiratory conditions. They face increased risks of ailments like asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory infections from breathing the polluted air.

A study published in June found that air pollution has killed 135 million people in the last four decades around the world, with India and China accounting for the bulk of the fatalities.

Almost entire herd of elephants killed in India – and nobody knows why

Ten elephants of a herd of 13 died over three days in a tiger reserve in central India, leaving authorities puzzled as to the reason.

The tuskers in the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh state began dying on Tuesday.

A park guard spotted several elephants in visible distress about 2km from their regular camp and alerted his superiors, who sent out veterinary teams immediately.

The vets found four elephants had died. They provided medical attention to the rest of the herd, but four more died Wednesday night, and another pair on Thursday.

Authorities said they were awaiting postmortem reports to understand the cause of the mass death.

The three surviving members of the herd were under observation, NDTV reported.

Teams from the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests had landed in Bandhavgarh to conduct an independent inquiry. They were expected to file a preliminary report in the next 10 days.

The investigation would seek to find out if the mass death was accidental or intentional.

“There is an investigation into whether this was a case of poisoning,” an unnamed official told the Indian Express. “There are some signs but we can only say for sure when the postmortem report comes in.”

PK Verma, deputy director of the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, pointed at a local crop, a grain called Kodo, which might pose a risk to elephants under certain conditions.

“While we are examining various leads, there’s a possibility that Kodo, which can be toxic to elephants, may have contributed,” he explained.

In the wake of the deaths, park authorities destroyed Kodo crops in the area as a precaution, ploughing and burning the standing grain.

A team of veterinarians was conducting a separate investigation.

“There is now a large team of doctors who are looking into the case. We are mainly treating them for toxic infection. The medicines are registered intravenously. Several villagers have been questioned on the use of pesticides in the kodo millet plants. The villagers have claimed that the act was not intentional. The investigation is underway,” a wildlife official was quoted as saying by the Express.

“The experts have informed us that there have been past instances of elephants dying due to ingesting kodo millets and there have also been cases of successful treatment.”

The investigating teams, involving over 100 forest officials accompanied by a dog squad, were conducting checks of nearby water sources, examining the herd’s movement patterns, and assessing crops within a 5km radius of where the tuskers were found. They were collecting soil samples and plant exhibits from the vicinity as well.

The investigation though was getting hampered by the presence of a larger and more aggressive herd of elephants as well as three tigers in the area.

Bandhavgarh’s elephant population flourished in recent years, even attracting migrating tuskers from neighbouring Chhattisgarh state. Known for its ideal habitat, the reserve’s reputation as a sanctuary for elephants now stands overshadowed by the tragedy, raising concerns about wildlife management and protection protocols in the area.

Thom Yorke walks offstage after being confronted by Gaza protester

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke walked offstage after being heckled by a pro-Palestine protester during a solo show in Melbourne.

Footage filmed by a member of the audience shows a man in the crowd yelling at Yorke about the “Israeli genocide of Gaza” and the death toll, half of whom he said “were children”.

Yorke could be seen standing and listening before he told the heckler to “hop up on stage” to make his remarks.

“Don’t stand there like a coward, come here and say it,” he said. “You want to piss on everybody’s night? OK, you do it, see you later.”

He then removed his guitar and briefly walked off stage.

Members of the audience could be heard booing, with another fan shouting: “Shut the f*** up, man.”

Yorke returned shortly after the incident to play Radiohead’s 1997 song “Karma Police.”

The Independent has contacted Yorke’s representative for comment.

One concert-goer, Elly Brus, told the BBC that the heckler was escorted away by security but continued to engage with people outside the venue.

The incident took place near the end of the show at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, one of two concerts being held in Melbourne as part of Yorke’s Everything tour.

The shows feature a career-spanning setlist of solo material and songs by his bands Radiohead and The Smile.

Yorke is next scheduled to perform at the Sydney Opera House forecourt on Friday 1 November and Saturday 2 November.

Yorke and his Radiohead bandmates have come under scrutiny in the past over their decision to continue performing in Israel.

The band’s history with the country goes back to their debut single, “Creep”, which received widespread airplay on Israeli radio stations after initially failing to make an impact elsewhere.

They played Tel Aviv in 2017, in defiance of the pro-Palestine campaign by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Responding to criticism from British director and BDS supporter Ken Loach, who wrote an op-ed for The Independent urging Radiohead to join the boycott, Yorke said: “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing the government.

“We’ve played in Israel for over 20 years through a succession of governments, some more liberal than others. As we have in America. We don’t endorse [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu any more than [Donald] Trump, but we still play in America.”

More than 43,160 people have been killed in Gaza – including thousands of women, children and infants – since Israel launched its campaign to destroy Hamas, in response to the group’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 others taken hostage.

Earlier this year, pro-Palestinian activists accused Yorke’s bandmate, Jonny Greenwood, of “artwashing” when he performed alongside Israeli-Arabic musician Dudu Tassa in Tel Aviv.

Greenwood, 52, who is married to the Israeli visual artist Sharona Katan, condemned what he deemed to be “the silencing of this, or any, artistic effort made by Israel Jews” by “those who are trying to shut us down, or who are now attempting to ascribe a sinister ulterior motive to the band’s existence”.

In his statement shared on 4 June, he continued by saying that “no art is as ‘important’ as stopping all the death and suffering around us. How can it be? But doing nothing seems a worse option. And silencing Israeli artists for being born Jewish in Israel doesn’t seem like any way to reach an understanding between the two sides of this apparently endless conflict.”

US presses China to rein in North Korea and Russia as tensions rise

The US and South Korea have called on China to use its influence over Russia and North Korea to prevent escalation after Pyongyang sent thousands of troops to Russia to aid Moscow‘s war against Ukraine. Beijing has so far stayed quiet.

In a rare meeting earlier this week, three top US diplomats met with China’s ambassador to the United States to emphasise US concerns and urge China to use its sway with North Korea to try to curtail the cooperation, according to a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Thursday that the sides had “a robust conversation just this week” and that China knows US expectations that “they’ll use the influence that they have to work to curb these activities”.

“But I think this is a demand signal that’s coming not just from us, but from countries around the world,” he said at a news conference in Washington with defence secretary Lloyd Austin and their South Korean counterparts.

The US says 8,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia near Ukraine’s border and are preparing to help the Kremlin fight against Ukrainian troops in the coming days.

Beijing has forged a “no limits” partnership with Moscow, and while it has been a major ally for Pyongyang, experts say Beijing might not approve of the closer military partnership between Russia and North Korea because it sees it as destabilising in the region.

When asked about a meeting between US and Chinese diplomats, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said at a briefing on Wednesday in Beijing that he had “no information to provide”.

He added that China’s stances on Ukraine and on the Korean Peninsula have been consistent. China has called for a ceasefire and urged peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. And it has long advocated for a peaceful and stable Korean Peninsula.

The Russia-North Korea partnership runs contrary to Beijing’s goal for a peaceful Korean Peninsula, said Shi Yinhong, an international relations expert at China’s Renmin University.

Beijing is “aware of the complexity and danger of the situation,” Mr Shi said, noting that the “fact that China hasn’t said anything yet on the military alliance agreement between North Korea and Russia indicates that China strongly disagrees with it”.

Dennis Wilder, senior fellow for the Initiative for US-China Dialogue on global issues at Georgetown University, called Beijing’s “radio silence” on North Korea’s move “staggering”. He said Beijing must find a balance between supporting Moscow and not angering the West, and that Chinese president Xi Jinping might “for his own sake ignore the whole thing”.

Mr Xi has built a personal relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and “he cannot see Putin fail,” Mr Wilder said this week at a panel discussion hosted by the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.

At the same time, Mr Xi cannot anger the Europeans and Americans when his country’s economy is struggling, Mr Wilder added. “So he’s not going to say anything publicly about this.”

Mr Austin said on Thursday that China “should be asking Russia some hard questions at this point and whether it intends to broaden this conflict by this kind of behavior”.

Deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Dan Kritenbrink and assistant secretary of state for European Affairs James O’Brien met with Chinese envoy Xie Feng in Washington on Tuesday, according to the State Department official, who would not detail the Chinese response.

Lu Chao, director of the Institute of American and East Asian Studies at Liaoning University in China’s northeastern province of Liaoning, said the US should not expect China to manage North Korea.

“As for the issue of the Korean Peninsula, China is a friend of both North Korea and South Korea. It is not the case that China is responsible to manage North Korea and the US is responsible for managing South Korea,” Mr Lu said. “I hope the US government could understand China’s stance.”

Mr Lu also said the troop deployment is “a matter between Russia and North Korea,” while China’s attitude remains unchanged that the conflict should not be escalated but be resolved with a political solution.

North Korea conducts longest test of intercontinental missile yet

North Korea tested an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday amid Western concerns about Pyongyang receiving weapons technology from Russia in return for allegedly sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine.

Pyongyang confirmed the launch, the first in nearly a year, a few hours after neighbours South Korea and Japan detected the firing of what they suspected was a new, more agile weapon capable of targeting mainland US, in a bid to grab American attention ahead of next week’s presidential election.

The test was ordered by leader Kim Jong-un and the missile flew longer than ever before, the country’s official news agency KCNA reported.

South Korea said it was the longest ballistic missile test by the North with a flight time of 87 minutes. The missile took off on a sharply lofted trajectory from near Pyongyang and splashed down about 200km west of Japan’s Okushiri island, off Hokkaido.

Japan said the missile climbed high into the atmosphere and flew a distance of 1,000km, reportedly setting new records of the country’s missile capabilities.

Mr Kim was present for the test and called it a warning to enemies “threatening the country’s security”.

“The test fire is an appropriate military action that fully meets the purpose of informing the rivals,” the North Korean leader was quoted as saying by KCNA.

The test was conducted after the US claimed that North Korea had sent over 10,000 soldiers to Russia and about 3,000 of them were close to the frontline in Ukraine.

It came just hours after US defence secretary Lloyd Austin and his South Korean counterpart Kim Yong-hyun met in Washington and condemned the North’s alleged troop deployment in Russia.

The lofted trajectory of the missile flying at a sharply raised angle was intended to test its thrust and stability over much shorter distances relative to the designed range, partly for safety and partly to avoid the political fallout of sending a weapon far into the Pacific.

“I affirm that the DPRK will never change its line of bolstering up its nuclear forces,” Mr Kim said in comments reported by KCNA, referring to the country by its formal name of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The US criticised the test as “a flagrant violation” of multiple UN Security Council resolutions that “needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilising the security situation in the region”.

US national security council spokesman Sean Savett said Washington would take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and its South Korean and Japanese allies.

North Korea was sanctioned by the security council in 2006 and the measures were steadily strengthened over the years with the aim of halting its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

South Korea and Japan denounced the launch as a threat to international peace and said they were coordinating with the US. The South’s joint chiefs of staff spokesperson Lee Sung Joon said the test was possibly timed to the American election in an attempt to strengthen Pyongyang’s future bargaining power.

Mr Lee said South Korea and the US planned to conduct “sufficient bilateral military exercises, and trilateral ones involving Japan, in response to North Korean threats”.

North Korea’s last intercontinental ballistic missile, Hwasong-18, was tested in December 2023. Fuelled by solid propellant and fired from a road launcher, it shot up at a sharply raised angle and flew for 73 minutes, translating to a potential range of almost 15,000km on a normal trajectory.