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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Seoul tells how North got toxic chemical |
| 2004-09-25 |
| SEOUL - North Korea imported 107 tons of a toxic chemical that can be used to make sarin nerve gas from South Korea via China last year, South Korean officials said on Friday. South Korea has expressed concern that some of its "strategic goods," materials that can be used for military and terrorist purposes, have recently ended up in the possession of countries like North Korea and Libya, and has said it is tightening control of exports of such items. In the latest case to be reported, a South Korean company was found to have sold 107 tons of sodium cyanide to a Chinese company from June to September last year. The cargo was then shipped from China to North Korea, the South Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said. All of these deadly games will continue until China is slapped down hard. The communist Chinese government pulls many of the strings in the terrorist web. Their proliferation of missile and nuclear technology costs the outside world BILLIONS of dollars in corrective military action. It's time for politicians to take stock of just how many domestic jobs could be created if we halted trade with China and thereby reduced our number of costly military deployments. We should starve them to such an extent that they can no longer afford to give away any weapons technology whose dispersal we effectively finance with our enormous trade deficits. The chemical was shipped without a South Korean export permit. The head of the South Korean company was prosecuted and received a suspended prison sentence of one and a half years for violating trade law, according to a statement issued by the ministry. The ministry did not identify the names of the traders involved. Separately, South Korea is investigating a report that a Malaysian company exported 40 tons of sodium cyanide, including 15 tons originating in South Korea, to North Korea in August. Sodium cyanide is used to make fertilizers and in industrial plating. But it also can be treated with acids to manufacture sarin, a deadly nerve agent. Although it was unclear why North Korea wanted the chemical, the North does have a large stockpile of chemical and biological weapons, according to U.S. and South Korean officials. North Korea must be denied any dual-use raw materials like sodium cyanide. Give them the fertilizers for free, but halt all exports of WMD ingredients to their country. But North Korea is striving to increase its fertilizer production to increase agricultural yields and allay chronic food shortages. Last week, Thai officials confirmed that North Korea attempted last year to import 70 tons of sodium cyanide that had originated in South Korea from Thailand. South Korea persuaded Thailand to stop the shipment. In line with a U.S.-led global campaign to limit international trading in materials that can be used to produce weapons of mass destruction, South Korea has been bolstering its watch on exports of strategic goods. In February, Seoul said prosecutors were investigating a company accused of selling nine balancing machines to Libya from February 1999 to June 2002 without proper clearance. The machines can used to balance centrifuges, a key tool in enriching uranium to make bombs. Lybia needs to cough up those balancing machines. Where are they? |
| Posted by:Zenster |