India investigates 'unnatural' death of five tigers
State forest minister Eshwar Khandre said the "unnatural" deaths were "extremely tragic and distressing" and that an investigation team had been formed.
Local media reports said forest officials suspected poisoning.
The tigress had reportedly killed a cow days earlier, and poison may have been laced into the carcass, which her cubs also fed on, according to The Times of India.
"If there has been any negligence, or if the tigers died due to any reason, I have ordered criminal action against those responsible," Khandre said.
Sustained conservation efforts have led to a steady rebound of the big cats' numbers in India.
According to the latest census, there are over 3,600 of them in the wild in India -- 75 percent of the global tiger population.
But shrinking habitats and expanding human settlements have also fuelled conflict. More than 600 people were killed in tiger attacks over the past decade, according to official figures.
sai/pjm/dhc
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
TechCrunch
a minute ago
- TechCrunch
Hackers breach and expose a major North Korean spying operation
Hackers claim to have compromised the computer of a North Korean government hacker and leaked its contents online, offering a rare window into a hacking operation by the notoriously secretive nation. The two hackers, who go by Saber and cyb0rg, published a report about the breach in the latest issue of Phrack magazine, a legendary cybersecurity e-zine that was first published in 1985. The latest issue was distributed at the Def Con hackers conference in Las Vegas last week. In the article, the two hackers wrote that they were able to compromise a workstation containing a virtual machine and a virtual private server belonging to the hacker, whom they call 'Kim.' The hackers claim Kim works for the North Korean government espionage group known as Kimsuky, also known as APT43 and Thallium. The hackers leaked the stolen data to DDoSecrets, a nonprofit collective that stores leaked datasets in the public interest. Kimsuky is a prolific advanced persistent threat group, or APT, widely believed to be working inside North Korea's government, targeting journalists, government agencies in South Korea and elsewhere, and other targets that could be of interest for North Korea's intelligence apparatus. As is usual with North Korea, Kimsuky also conducts operations more akin to a cybercriminal group, for example stealing and laundering cryptocurrencies to fund North Korea's nuclear weapons program. This hack gives an almost-unprecedented look inside the operation of Kimsuky, given that the two hackers compromised one of the group's members, rather than investigating a data breach as cybersecurity researchers and companies typically have to rely on. 'It shows a glimpse how openly 'Kimsuky' cooperates with Chinese [government hackers] and shares their tools and techniques,' the hackers wrote. An illustration of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, which was included in the phrack article (Image: Saber and cyb0rg/Phrack) Obviously, what Saber and cyb0rg did is technically a crime, although they will likely never be prosecuted for it, considering North Korea is sanctioned up to its eyeballs. The two hackers clearly believe Kimsuky members deserve to be exposed and embarrassed. 'Kimsuky, you're not a hacker. You are driven by financial greed, to enrich your leaders, and to fulfill their political agenda. You steal from others and favour your own. You value yourself above the others: You are morally perverted,' the two wrote in Phrack. 'You hack for all the wrong reasons.' Saber and cyb0rg claim to have found evidence of Kimsuky compromising several South Korean government networks and companies, email addresses, and hacking tools used by the Kimsuky group, internal manuals, passwords, and more data. Emails sent to the addresses allegedly belonging to the hackers, which were listed in the research, went unanswered. The hackers wrote that they were able to identify Kim as a North Korean government hacker, thanks to 'artifacts and hints' that pointed in that direction, including files configurations and domains previously attributed to the North Korean hacking group Kimsuky. The hackers also noted Kim's 'strict office hours, always connecting at around 09:00 and disconnecting by 17:00 Pyongyang time.'
New York Times
32 minutes ago
- New York Times
South Korea's Ex-First Lady Is Arrested on Corruption Charges
Kim Keon Hee, the wife of Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea's impeached and ousted president, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of bribery, stock manipulation and political influence-peddling. She is the first former lady to be put behind bars in the country's history. Mr. Yoon, who was driven from office after his failed attempt to place South Korea under martial law in December, is already in jail and standing trial on insurrection charges. Four other former presidents of South Korea had been imprisoned before, but this is the first time that both a former president and his wife have been jailed in the country. When Ms. Kim presented herself for questioning by a special counsel last week, she apologized for 'causing concern to the people' and said she was 'a nobody.' But she has been at the center of a slew of corruption scandals that have plagued her husband's government and undermined his popularity. Ms. Kim has not directly commented on the accusations against her. But her lawyers have denied them, vowing to prove her innocence in court. While Mr. Yoon was in power, government prosecutors did not press any charges against Ms. Kim. When the opposition-controlled National Assembly passed bills calling for an independent prosecutor to investigate the allegations against his wife, Mr. Yoon called them politically inspired and vetoed them. President Lee Jae Myung, who replaced Mr. Yoon after the June 3 election, signed just such a bill and appointed a special counsel. The prosecutor grilled Ms. Kim for 11 hours last Wednesday and later asked a court for a warrant to arrest her. As soon as the warrant was issued late on Tuesday, Ms. Kim was formally arrested. She did not answer questions from journalists when she arrived at the court earlier in the day to attend a hearing on the warrant. The special counsel accused Ms. Kim of making hundreds of thousands of dollars through stock-price manipulation. Although the alleged crime took place when Mr. Yoon was a prosecutor and before he was elected, the scandal continued to overshadow his presidency. She was also accused of illegally helping a politician get the governing party's nomination in a parliamentary by-election in June 2022. The charges against her also included receiving a diamond necklace and two Chanel bags as bribes from a senior official of the Unification Church after Mr. Yoon's election. The official, who has since left the church, is also under arrest. The church, formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, said it had nothing to do with whatever might have taken place between Ms. Kim and the official. The special prosecutor's office could file more charges against Ms. Kim, as it was investigating other corruption allegations. On Tuesday, the office said that a 60 million won ($43,200) Van Cleef pendant that Ms. Kim wore when she accompanied Mr. Yoon on his trip to the NATO summit in 2022 had been a gift from a South Korean businessman. Ms. Kim lied, the office said, when she said the pendant was a cheap fake. It said it was investigating whether the necklace, which was not listed in the Yoons' financial disclosure as required by law, had been a bribe. Mr. Yoon, a former prosecutor, became a national figure by investigating high-profile corruption cases that involved former presidents and business tycoons. But his political career has been dogged by scandals involving his wife and mother-in-law. (In 2023, Ms. Kim's mother, Choi Eun-soon, was sentenced to one year in prison after she was convicted of forging her bank records to make a real-estate deal.) During Mr. Yoon's election campaign, Ms. Kim apologized for inflating her résumé to promote her art exhibition business. At the time, she promised to be a responsible first lady should her husband be elected. But spy-cam footage later showed her accepting a $2,200 Dior pouch from a visitor to her private office after Mr. Yoon's inauguration. A reporter also released an audio file of conversations he had had with Ms. Kim before Mr. Yoon's election in which she called her husband 'a fool' who 'farts' and 'can't do anything without me.' Ms. Kim was considered so influential over her husband's government that South Koreans have joked that she was 'V.I.P. No. 1' in his government, while Mr. Yoon was 'V.I.P. No. 2.' Mr. Yoon's time in office was also marred by a bitter confrontation with the opposition, fueled by its demand for investigation into his wife's activities. As the pressure mounted last October, he vowed to 'take the stones' on her behalf. When he declared martial law two months later, he said he was taking the measure to fight a 'monster' and 'anti-state forces' in the National Assembly.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
South Korean court orders arrest of wife of jailed ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol
A South Korean court has ordered the arrest of the wife of jailed former president Yoon Suk Yeol as investigators seek to charge her over various suspected crimes, including bribery, stock manipulation and meddling in the selection of a candidate. In granting a special prosecutor's request for an arrest warrant close to midnight, the Seoul Central District Court said Kim Keon Hee posed a risk of destroying evidence. The investigation into Ms Kim is one of three special prosecutor inquiries launched under Seoul's new liberal government targeting the presidency of Yoon, a conservative who was removed from office in April and rearrested last month over his brief imposition of martial law in December. While Yoon's self-inflicted downfall extended a decades-long run of South Korean presidencies ending badly, he and Ms Kim are the first presidential couple to be simultaneously arrested over criminal allegations. Yoon's surprising yet poorly planned power grab on December 3 came amid a seemingly routine standoff with the liberals, who he described as 'anti-state' forces abusing their legislative majority to block his agenda. Some political opponents have questioned whether Yoon's actions were at least partly motivated by growing allegations against his wife, which hurt his approval ratings and gave political ammunition to his rivals. Ms Kim did not speak to reporters as she arrived at the Seoul court on Tuesday for an hours-long hearing on the warrant request. She will be held at a detention centre in southern Seoul, separate from the facility holding Yoon. The investigation team led by special prosecutor Min Joong-ki, who was appointed in June by new liberal president Lee Jae Myung, questioned Ms Kim for about seven hours on Wednesday last week before deciding to seek her arrest. Ms Kim spoke briefly to reporters as she appeared for last week's questioning, issuing a vague apology for causing public concern but also hinting that she would deny the allegations against her, portraying herself as 'someone insignificant'. Investigators suspect that Ms Kim and Yoon exerted undue influence on the conservative People Power Party to nominate a specific candidate in a 2022 legislative by-election, allegedly at the request of election broker Myung Tae-kyun. Mr Myung faces accusations of conducting free opinion surveys for Yoon using manipulated data that possibly helped him win the party's presidential primaries before his election as president. Ms Kim is separately linked to multiple corruption allegations, including claims that she received luxury gifts via a fortune teller acting as an intermediary for a Unification Church official seeking business favours, and possible involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme tied to a local BMW dealership company. While in office, Yoon repeatedly dismissed calls to investigate his wife, denouncing them as baseless political attacks.
