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Pacific News Minute: U.S. Blacklists Singapore Firm for Support of North Korean Arms Traffic

Roger W / Flickr
Roger W / Flickr

The treasury department has issued sanctions against a shipping company based in Singapore for allegedly assisting North Korean weapons traffic, which is banned by both the United States and the United Nations.  As we hear from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute, the charges date back to an infamous incident two years ago.

On the fifteenth if July, 2013, a freighter called the Chong Chon Gang passed through the Panama Canal and into the Pacific and for the second time in a matter of weeks, vanished from AIS, the Automatic Identification System.  When suspicious Panamanian authorities stopped the North Korean vessel, its captain first refused permission to board, then reportedly attempted suicide.

Beneath a cargo of ten thousand pounds of sugar, inspectors found tons of Cuban made weapons, 15 aircraft engines, and two elderly MIG 21 fighter jets.  Afterwards, Cuban officials said the equipment was being sent to North Korea for repairs, presumably in exchange for the sugar. North Korea was uncharacteristically quiet, except to call for the release of the crew.

The North Korean Ship was operated by a company called Ocean Maritime Management.  According to the treasury department, the purchase, repair, certification and crewing of OMMC vessels was arranged by Singapore's Senat Shipping.  All U.S. Assets of the company and its president Leonard Lai are now frozen, all US citizens are prohibited from doing business with them.  Leonard Lai protested the order, saying that Senat had stopped working with the North Korean company and had done nothing illegal.

Over 36 years with National Public Radio, Neal Conan worked as a correspondent based in New York, Washington, and London; covered wars in the Middle East and Northern Ireland; Olympic Games in Lake Placid and Sarajevo; and a presidential impeachment. He served, at various times, as editor, producer, and executive producer of All Things Considered and may be best known as the long-time host of Talk of the Nation. Now a macadamia nut farmer on Hawaiʻi Island, his "Pacific News Minute" can be heard on HPR Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
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