Israeli Vulture Accused of Espionage by Saudi Arabia

Not a geopolitical allegory, but a thing that actually happened: The government of Saudi Arabia has reportedly “detained” a griffon vulture tagged by an Israeli university with a GPS device on accusations that it was “part of a Zionist plot” to spy on the country.

The BBC reports:

Israeli officials told Ma’ariv they were “stunned” by the allegations and concerned that the bird could meet a horrible punishment in the notoriously severe Saudi justice system.

“The device does nothing more than receive and store basic data about the bird’s whereabouts, and about his altitude and speed,” a bird specialist at Israel’s Park and Nature Authority told the newspaper.

(BBC via Boing Boing. title pic via Wikipedia)