{"id":6930,"date":"2019-01-09T11:18:03","date_gmt":"2019-01-09T07:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=6930"},"modified":"2019-01-09T11:18:03","modified_gmt":"2019-01-09T07:18:03","slug":"suspicious-packages-found-at-consulates-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2019\/01\/09\/suspicious-packages-found-at-consulates-in-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Suspicious packages&#8217; found at consulates in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Australian police are investigating suspicious packages found at foreign consulates in Canberra and Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p>Melbourne&#8217;s Metropolitan Fire Brigade said it had been called to &#8220;a number of incidents&#8221; across the city.<\/p>\n<p>Consulates of the UK, Switzerland, US and Pakistan are among those affected, as well as reportedly several others.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The packages are being examined by attending emergency services. The circumstances are being investigated,&#8221; the Australian Federal Police said.<\/p>\n<p>State police in Melbourne said the incidents were believed to be &#8220;targeted and not impacting the general community&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Emergency workers had been seen at consulates belonging to India, South Korea, New Zealand, Greece, Italy and France according to Australian broadcaster ABC News.<\/p>\n<p>A British High Commission official said: &#8220;We are liaising closely with the [federal police] and the local authorities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All our staff are safe and accounted for.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/B041\/production\/_105112154_australia_suspicious_package_map640_v2-nc.png\" alt=\"Map showing consulates in Melbourne\" width=\"640\" height=\"420\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p><strong>1.<\/strong>\u00a0New Zealand Consulate General;\u00a0<strong>2.<\/strong>\u00a0Consulate General of Pakistan;\u00a0<strong>3.<\/strong>\u00a0Honorary Consulate General of France;\u00a0<strong>4.<\/strong>\u00a0Greek Consulate General;\u00a0<strong>5.<\/strong>\u00a0Consulate General of Italy;\u00a0<strong>6.<\/strong>\u00a0US Consulate General Melbourne;\u00a0<strong>7.<\/strong>\u00a0Consulate of Switzerland<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/13E83\/production\/_103693518_086b2036-0a30-4a6f-a4a0-94c46832b58f.jpg\" alt=\"Presentational grey line\" width=\"640\" height=\"2\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p>The Swiss consulate in Melbourne was sent a small envelope containing a substance labelled &#8220;asbestos&#8221;, said Peter Erb, the husband of honorary consul Manuela Erb.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We immediately put the envelope in another bag and rang the emergency service and they came and took it away,&#8221; he told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We do know now that the item was not likely a bio-hazard.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The US consulate in Melbourne had also notified authorities about a suspicious package, a spokesman told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, suspicious parcels containing a white substance were sent to Argentina&#8217;s consulate in Sydney. They were later found to be non-toxic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australian police are investigating suspicious packages found at foreign consulates in Canberra and Melbourne. Melbourne&#8217;s Metropolitan Fire Brigade said it had been called to &#8220;a number of incidents&#8221; across the city. Consulates of the UK, Switzerland, US and Pakistan are among those affected, as well as reportedly several others. &#8220;The packages are being examined by &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6932,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6930\/revisions\/6932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}