April 2018

www.theasianindependent.co.uk
China plans to use
AI, drones to
protect Great Wall
Beijing, China plans to use artificial
intelligence (AI) and drones to
protect the Great Wall.Under an
agreement between the government
and the US tech giant Intel, the
world’s second largest manufacturer
of semiconductors and microprocessors
and the China Foundation For
Cultural Heritage Conservation will
explore ways to collaborate in the
inspection, repair and preservation of
the Great Wall, Xinhua news agency
reported. To begin with, Intel drones
will collect images from sections of
the monument and use 3D modelling
to identify damaged areas.
“The use of the latest technologies,
will provide a new perspective of the
protection of the Great Wall, and show
us the great potential of science and
technology in cultural heritage protection,”
said Li Xiaojie, director of the
China Foundation For Cultural
Heritage Conservation. The Great
Wall, a symbol of China, is actually
not just one wall, but many interconnected
walls built between the third
century B.C. and the Ming Dynasty
(1384-1644). With a length of over
8,000 km, the Great Wall — made up
of numerous walls, connected to each
other and built during different
Chinese dynasties — is under threat
from water and wind erosion as well
as human activities in its vicinity,
making its restoration difficult, owing
to its enormous size.
WORLD
India, China ready to re-set ties
as Modi meets Xi in Wuhan
April 2018
21
Golden State Killer : DNA search for California
serial killer led to wrong man in 2017
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA :
Investigators hunting down the socalled
Golden State Killer used information
from genetic websites last year
that led to the wrong man, court
records obtained on Friday by The
Associated Press showed.
An Oregon police officer working
at the request of California investigators
persuaded a judge in March 2017
to order a 73-year-old man in a nursing
home to provide a DNA sample.
The Oregon City man is in declining
health and was unable to answer
questions on Friday about the case.
The case of mistaken identity was
discovered as authorities hailed a
novel use of DNA technology that led
this week to the arrest of former
police officer Joseph DeAngelo at his
house outside Sacramento on murder
charges. Critics of the investigative
approach, however, warned it could
jeopardise privacy rights.
Mr. DeAngelo is suspected of
being the sadistic attacker who killed
13 people and raped nearly 50 women
during the 1970s and ‘80s.
“We have the law to suggest that he
is innocent until he’s proven guilty
and that’s what I’m going to ask
everyone to remember,” Mr.
DeAngelo’s public defender Diane
Howard said outside court. “I feel like
he’s been tried in the press already.”
Investigators were able to make the
arrest this week after matching crimescene
DNA with genetic material
stored in an online database by a distant
relative. They relied on a different
website than they had in the Oregon
search, and they did not seek a warrant
for Mr. DeAngelo’s DNA.
Instead, they waited for him to discard
items and then swabbed the
objects for DNA, which proved a conclusive
match to evidence that had
been preserved more than 30 years.
Database tapped
Also on Friday, the co-founder of
the genealogy website used by authorities
to help identify Mr. DeAngelo
said he had no idea its database was
tapped in pursuit of the suspect who
eluded law enforcement for four
decades. Authorities never
approached Florida-based GEDmatch
about the investigation that led to Mr.
DeAngelo, and co-founder Curtis
Rogers said law enforcement’s use of
the site raised privacy concerns that
were echoed by civil liberties groups.
The free genealogy website, which
pools DNA profiles that people
upload and share publicly to find relatives,
said it has always informed
users its database can be used for
other purposes. But Mr. Rogers said
the company does not “hand out
data.” Officials did not need a court
order to access GEDmatch’s large
database of genetic blueprints, Mr.
Holes said. Major commercial DNA
companies say they do not give law
enforcement access to their genetic
data without a court order. Civil libertarians
said the practice raises legal
and privacy concerns for the millions
of people who submit their DNA to
such sites to discover their heritage.
Privacy laws aren’t strong enough
to keep police from accessing ancestry
sites, which have fewer protections
than regulated databanks of convicts’
DNA, said Steve Mercer, chief
attorney for the forensic division of
the Maryland Office of the Public
Defender. “People who submit DNA
for ancestors testing are unwittingly
becoming genetic informants on their
innocent family,” Mr. Mercer said.
While people may not realise police
can use public genealogy websites to
solve crimes, it is probably legal, said
Erin Murphy, a DNA expert and professor
at New York University School
of Law. “It seems crazy to say a police
officer investigating a very serious
crime can’t do something your cousin
can do,” Ms. Murphy said. “If an ordinary
person can do this, why can’t a
cop? On the other hand, if an ordinary
person had done this, we might think
they shouldn’t.”
Wuhan (China) India and China will
look to re-set their strained ties as Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi
Jinping meet each other at a two-day informal
summit in the central Chinese city of
Wuhan starting on Friday.
The Asian giants, who fought a brief war
in 1962 and have a history of mutual distrust,
nearly came to an armed conflict near
their border in 2017, taking their ties to a
new low. However, the “one of its kind”
rendezvous between Modi and Xi at the
heart of China is a sign enough that the two
countries were willing for a new start in
their tense relationship. The Xi-Modi meeting
will be different from the past ones as
the talks will not be choreographed but freewheeling
with only one Mandarin-speaking
Indian interpreter present. The meeting is an
offshoot of Xi-Modi parleys just after the
resolution of the Doklam crisis on the sidelines
of BRICS Summit at Xiamen in China.
“The idea germinated at the Xiamen summit,”
said an official. The two leaders will
meet not once or twice but “several” times
during the two days and will have heart-toheart
conversations, Chinese and Indian
officials say. According to informed
sources, Modi and Xi might amble down the
East Lake in Wuhan or take a boat ride by
the historic villa of Mao Zedong.
Though there is no formal agenda of the
meet and both will not issue any joint statement,
thorny issues like border dispute will
come up during their chat. “You can imagine
the importance Xi provides to India as
this is the first time he is having such a
meeting with any foreign leader. They will
chat on all outstanding issues,” a Chinese
government official told IANS. India and
China have a longstanding dispute over
their 3,500-km long winding border, which
ties them down. Of the 14 neighbours,
China is yet to settle its boundary dispute
only with India and Bhutan. New Delhi is
against Beijing’s grand Belt and Road project
whose artery cuts through Pakistancontrolled
Kashmir. India’s stance on the
Belt and Road matters to China as the
opposition by New Delhi could well hamper
the project. Another sticking point is
Beijing’s opposition to New Delhi’s application
to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group
and its plea at the UN to declare the
Pakistan-based Masood Azhar as an international
terrorist.
China’s foray into the India Ocean also
worries India. India’s inclination to be the
part of Quad — an emerging bloc of the
US, Japan and Australia apparently to
counter China in the Indo-Pacific — worries
Beijing. As both sides have decided
not make public the outcome of the twoday
meet, a Chinese top official said both
leaders may arrive at some important consensus
to resolve their outstanding issues.
The Chinese side has said both the leaders
will also talk beyond the bilateral relations.
US trade protectionist policy will figure in
the talks.
Kim steps onto S.
Korean soil, talks begin
Goyang, South Korea, Kim Jong-un became the first North
Korean leader on Friday to set foot in South Korea by crossing the
military line, ahead of the historical inter-Korean talks.
The formal talks between Kim and South Korean President
Moon Jae-in began here in the Panmunjom border village in the
third-ever inter-Korean summit, media reported.
In a moment rich with symbolism and pomp, Moon and Kim
shook hands at the border, as both hoped for “frank” discussion
that will cover nuclear weapons and a possible peace treaty.
Much of what they will talk about is likely to have been agreed
in advance, but many analysts remain sceptical about the North’s
sincerity in offering to give up nuclear weapons, the BBC said.
Kim was accorded a ceremonial welcome before launching the
talks on peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula, Xinhua
news agency reported. The talks are being held at a conference
room on the second floor of the Peace House, a South Korean
building in Panmunjom village that divides the two Koreas.
Standing on the two sides of the military demarcation line
(MDL), marked only by a low concrete slab, Moon and Kim shook
hands with beaming smiles on their faces for their first meeting.
The MDL came up post the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in an
armistice. After walking across the MDL into the South Korean
side, Kim invited Moon to briefly cross the border into the northern
side. It was an apparently unscripted moment during a highly
choreographed sequence of events, the BBC report added.
They returned to the southern side of Panmunjom holding
hands, marking a historic moment in more than a decade.