Vol. 73/No. 32      August 24, 2009

Indian officials later said they found the vessel was carrying 16,000 tons of sugar bound for the Middle East. The ship was detained shortly after it left a port in the Andaman Islands, a territory of India.

The UN Security Council resolution passed in June widens a 2006 UN ban on North Korean arms imports and exports. It calls for inspecting and destroying “all banned cargo” to and from North Korea “on the high seas, at seaports and airports.” The resolution states that if a ship’s “flag country” refuses to be boarded at sea, it should order the vessel to a nearby port and have the inspection carried out by local authorities.

The Security Council, led by Washington, voted unanimously to approve the sanctions following North Korea’s second nuclear test in late May. The council’s five permanent members: Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States, are the countries that control the world’s largest arsenals of nuclear weapons.

The North Korean captain and 38 crew members of the M V Mu San are being interrogated by Indian officials. After two days of searching and questioning, India’s Navy and Coast Guard handed the ship and crew over to police and intelligence services for further investigation.

“We have been checking the ship for any radioactive material, but I must say we have found nothing like that so far,” said Andaman police official Ashok Chand. “We will continue checking it until we are satisfied there is nothing wrong with the consignment.”

BBC news service reports that the Indian government claims the ship was carrying equipment and material to Burma to help it build a nuclear reactor.

While Washington demands that North Korea halt its development of nuclear technology it maintains nuclear weapons throughout the region. In June U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates ordered the deployment to Hawaii of the SBX sea-based radar system and interceptors designed to destroy incoming missiles in the final stages of their flight path. Antiballistic missiles are already deployed on U.S. warships throughout the Pacific and on bases in Alaska and California.

In June the U.S. warship USS John S. McCain shadowed a North Korean cargo ship in the South China Sea claiming it might be carrying “banned cargo.”
 
 
Related articles:
Korean auto workers end 77-day occupation
Imperialist hands off Korea!  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home