The story broke on Monday in the Sudanese press.Sudanese media was a buzz Thursday, with news saying that Darfur authorities had captured a vulture carrying Israeli spy gear.
The suspect bird was found to be tagged with an Israeli GPS chip and a leg band labeled "Israel Nature Service" and "Hebrew University, Jerusalem."
Khartoum's media claimed that the device was capable of taking photos and sending them back to Israel; but Israel's National Parks Service dismissed the allegation, saying that both the band and the GPS chip were nothing more than standard migration trackers.
Tensions between Israel and Sudan have been high since a mysterious airstrike leveled a major weapons manufacturing compound in Khartoum in October. Sudan blamed Israel for the raid. Jerusalem has remained mum on the subject.
The Opposition in Sudan was quick to mock the "spy bird" find: The country's Justice and Equality Movement featured the news on its website, asking: "How is it possible that the regime was able to detect one vulture, but was unable to detect the jets that bombed the arms facility?"
The website further ridiculed the authorities' report of the case, which lauded it as an "unprecedented achievement," saying that all state reports about the bird's seizure failed to mention whether the vulture was captured because the military's radar picked up on its GPS signal, or whether the bird just happened to be flying by.
While I was looking for the story found another where Sudanese authorities say that hemophilia patients in the Sudan were complaining about side effects from an Israeli drug they were taking. It seems that the drug was already expired. A Sudanese minister of consumer products promised to figure out how Israeli medicines entered the country to begin with, blaming it on the "drug mafia."
(h/t EuroGirl)