A North Korean mysterious bulk freighter named Jie Shun was flying Cambodian flags and carrying cargo that was heavily shrouded in tarps. Once seized, under those tarps, a cache of weapons was found and the surprising destination of those weapons was uncovered.
In August, a secret message was passed from Washington to Cairo warning about a mysterious vessel steaming toward the Suez Canal. According to The Washington Post, that’s all it took for authorities in the United States to act and monitor the Jie Shun. The Jie Shun is listed as a cargo ship on vessel tracker and even though it was flying Cambodian colors, it did originate from North Korea.
Customs agents were waiting for the mystery cargo when the ship entered Egyptian waters. They swarmed the vessel and discovered, concealed under bins of iron ore, a cache of more than 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades. It was, as a United Nations report later concluded, the “largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” This cache was worth about $23 million. But who were all of these weapons for?
The Jie Shun’s final secret would take months to resolve and would yield perhaps the biggest surprise of all. The buyers were the Egyptians themselves; longtime US allies.
A United Nations investigation uncovered a complex arrangement in which Egyptian business executives ordered millions of dollars worth of North Korean rockets for the country’s military while also taking pains to keep the transaction hidden, according to U.S. officials and Western diplomats familiar with the findings. The incident, many details of which were never publicly revealed, prompted the latest in a series of intense, if private, U.S. complaints over Egyptian efforts to obtain banned military hardware from Pyongyang, the officials said. –The Washington Post
This discovery also shed a bit more light on a little-understood global arms trade that has become an increasingly vital financial lifeline for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the wake of unprecedented economic sanctions. It appears that North Korea and those who support the rogue nation are unconcerned about the ink on paper that makes up the UN sanctions. Even as the United States and its allies pile on the sanctions, Kim continues to quietly reap profits from selling cheap conventional weapons and military hardware to a list of customers and beneficiaries that has at times included Iran, Burma, Cuba, Syria, Eritrea, and at least two terrorist groups, as well as key U.S. allies such as Egypt, analysts said.
North Korea attempted to hide $23 million in weapons to Egypt under crates of iron ore.
A statement from the Egyptian Embassy in Washington claimed to Egypt is being “transparent” and is in cooperation with U.N. officials in the finding of and destroying the contraband. “Egypt will continue to abide by all Security Council resolutions and will always be in conformity with these resolutions as they restrain military purchases from North Korea,” the statement said. This secret and potential deadly alliance between Egypt and North Korea was disguised quite well.
U.S. officials confirmed that the delivery of the rockets was foiled only when U.S. intelligence agencies spotted the vessel and alerted Egyptian authorities through diplomatic channels. This left Egypt with little choice, and essentially forced them to take action against the cargo ship, said current and former U.S. officials and diplomats briefed on the events. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. and U.N. findings, said the Jie Shun episode was one of a series of clandestine deals that led the Trump administration to freeze or delay nearly $300 million in military aid to Egypt over the summer.
Even the shipper, listed as Dalian Haoda Petroleum Chemical Co., also tried to hide information written on the crates themselves by covering them with large canvas patches. And the Trump administration isn’t playing games with Egypt’s secret allegiance to Kim Jong-Un.
According to officials who spoke to The Washington Post on condition of anonymity, the Jie Shun incident is one of many secretive deals behind the Trump administration’s decision over the summer to freeze nearly $300 million in military aid to Egypt. For its part, Egypt claims to be cooperating with U.N.officials in finding and destroying the weapons.
A statement the Egyptian Embassy in Washington gave to The Washington Post claims it is following all the rules.
One frelling minute. The US of A ships arms all over the world to a lot of countries and it is OK, North Korea ships arms and it is WRONG. WHY???
I take it you don’t like America much.
Because we are the biggest Mo Fka and we make the rules. Answer your DA question boy?
So North Korea shipped 30,000 RPG rounds to Egypt. BFD. What does this have to do with anything remotely SHTF-related?
He who has the might makes the rules. In this case, the United Nations has decided to treat North Korea as a rogue regime whose trade is limited. It is not a question of fairness.
Puerto Rico Union Allegedly Refuses to Deliver US Aid, On Strike Because of Local Law
Head of relief effort says only 20 percent of drivers are showing up to work.
“Relief supplies given to San Juan, Puerto Rico, by the Trump administration are allegedly sitting at the ports, as truck drivers with a local union refuse to deliver the supplies. A local mayor and President Donald Trump have accused San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto of playing politics with the failures in the distribution of supplies.
A CNBC segment reported that 9,500 cargo containers with medicine, food, and other goods are stuck at the port of San Juan. It noted they need the local truck drivers to move the goods if they’re going to receive the next shipment of supplies currently on its way.
CNBC blamed failure to move the supplies on the inability of trucking companies to contact their drivers to get them to go to work and on a lack of fuel for the delivery trucks. Local media have reported a different reason: truck drivers with the Puerto Rican Teamsters Union, Frente Amplio, are allegedly refusing to move the supplies.”
According to the local TV station WAPA, the strike is over a recently passed law: “el proyecto del Senado 525 que da paso a la Ley de Transformación Administrativa de la Comisión de Servicio Público,” also called “el Proyecto del Senado 525.”
(The Epoch Times)
Puerto Rico governor asking truck drivers to help transport food
One week after hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the federal government says more supplies and work crews are on the way. Food, water and fuel are still hard to find.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4jjBHESJtc
*According to Media Matters, “the far-right media made up a Puerto Rican truck strike to absolve Trump over Hurricane Maria response.”
Snopes.com (financed and guided by far left billionaire George Soros) says there is NO truck driver’s strike in Puerto Rico.
Direct link…
https://www.theepochtimes.com/puerto-rico-union-allegedly-refuses-to-deliver-us-aid-on-strike-because-of-local-law_2324073.html
Puerto Rico is a third world banana republic run by professional politicians. The place was already broke and bankrupt before the hurricane(s) got there by a blizzard of corruption and criminality by its ruling political class.
This mayor and her cronies will demand aid until they get enough free stuff for themselves to build one hundred Puerto Ricos, and the place will still look like a dump.
I say, if the people of Puerto Rico need aid, let them lynch their professional politicians first. Then we will talk.
Policing the world ain’t cheap. No arms to Egypt, might be used against the neighbor who considers part of your land theirs. The little sliver of land now occupying the Syrian Golan heights, cleansing the native people of their own land. ISIS the US funded terrorist forces claimed responsibility for the Vegas attack, by that thinking the US carried out the mass murder in Vegas. These criminals are desperate, stay strong America the enemy is within, long known and clearly visible.
I wonder if the Jie Shun could be re-routed to the Port of Tampa. Couple of big gunshows comming up around here. I bet that freighter’d sell out in a weekend. I mean….. nothing says “I’m going wild hog huntin” like a RPG resting on a fella’s shoulder.
Jesus, what a disgrace and a massive cluster…WTF.
Actually, the ship was on its way to drop off its cargo in Las Vegas and got delayed.
I mean, if you’ve got twenty (23) guns, then you want them all, right?
[sarcasm]