Hong Kong has detained a North Korean cargo vessel for possible safety violations, media reports said yesterday.
The rusting, 2,035-tonne general cargo vessel Kang Nam I was suspected of breaching 25 regulations after entering Hong Kong on Sunday.
London-based shipping publication Lloyd's List said the ship was being held under the terms of local shipping regulations, rather than those of UN sanctions imposed on North Korea after it conducted its first atom bomb test on Oct. 9.
The government's Customs and Marine Departments would not comment when contacted.
Lloyd's cited acting assistant director at the Marine Department, Lee Kai-leung, as saying that 12 safety concerns were "detainable deficiencies mainly on life-saving and fire-fighting appliances as well as navigational equipment including out-dated and obsolete charts."
Hong Kong's English-language daily the South China Morning Post reported that the 22-man vessel was not carrying any cargo when it arrived and had come to load up with scrap metal.
The newspaper cited Hong Kong's marine chief Roger Tupper as confirming the detention.
Tupper was quoted as telling the Post that eight other North Korean ships had been similarly stopped this year.
"Hong Kong is a major hub port and North Korean vessels do sometimes visit," he said. "It is not unreasonable they are subject to routine Port State Control inspections."
The reports said that the ship had arrived from Shanghai and that it was due to return home to Nampo, near Pyongyang, via Taiwan.
They said the captain, who would not give his name, had told reporters that he was unaware of Pyongyang's first-ever atom bomb test, nor of the subsequent UN sanctions.
The clampdown was put in place to prevent Kim Jong-il from transferring or importing nuclear technology and to end the trade in contraband, such as drugs and illicit cigarettes, that is believed to help fund the North's nuclear program.
The sanctions are part of a huge global diplomatic effort since the test to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
As shark attack survivor Mel Ismail fought the predator that severed his leg, he noticed something odd. “I saw its eye ... a big black eye,” Ismail said. “But it was winking back at me — I was trying to get my fingers in its eye and just pushing its eye as I was being dragged.” When the shark swam off, he managed to struggle back to shore, the surfer and professional firefighter said in an Australian Broadcasting Corp interview broadcast on Thursday. He was surfing at Glenfield Beach near Geraldton on Australia’s west coast when he was attacked on Sept. 14. He
VIOLENT STANDOFFS: The government said 215 students have been injured since the start of the movement last month, including a teenager who lost a hand on Monday Thousands of demonstrators yesterday massed under heavy police surveillance in Paris and cities across France, as unions and teachers joined high-school students who for days have been demanding better conditions in protests punctuated by violent clashes. Students have blocked the entrances to hundreds of high schools for 15-to-17-year-olds since late last month, complaining of missing teachers, overloaded schedules, dilapidated classrooms and buildings that cannot cope with rising temperatures. In the Paris suburb of Creteil, where the protests started last month, students piled barriers outside the Saint-Exupery high school. “We are here to make our voice heard, all too often forgotten,” student Abderrahmane Abdelkader
A Tuvalu government adviser yesterday said it felt like Australia had “taken over” the tiny country’s sovereignty during a visit by leaders to the Pacific island. The official — a senior government adviser who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the media — said they were disappointed in Australia’s handling of the visit. The comments came during a visit by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other leaders to Tuvalu, which has become a symbol of the existential threat posed by rising seas and is a key partner in Canberra’s Pacific strategy. “Just because we signed the
Halfway around the world from Russia, in a Caribbean tourism hot spot, men young and old are being lured by Moscow with tantalizing job offers, only to find themselves en route to the front lines in Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv have recruited thousands of foreign nationals into their armies since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Moscow is accused, in some cases, of using fake job ads to hoodwink men from deprived backgrounds in Africa, Asia and Latin America into traveling to Russia and then forcing them to fight on arrival. From countries such as India, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, Colombia and
RSS