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| China-Japan-Koreas | |
| NORKS Caught Shipping Sand to China | |
| 2020-03-05 | |
| Instead of pounding sand, the NORKS are shipping it for revenue to China. [gCaptain] For several months last year, a steady stream of ships was observed dredging sand in a North Korean bay then transporting loads of it to China, a Washington-based think-tank said on Wednesday. The extraction of sand from North Korea to China would violate a 2017 U.N. Security Council resolution that prohibits North Korea from “supplying, selling, or transferring sand,” the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) said in a report. The group’s researchers tracked the dredging and transport of the sand through commercial satellite imagery and shipping databases. “Between March and August 2019, C4ADS observed a large fleet of vessels originating from Chinese waters traveling to North Korea to dredge and transport sand from Haeju Bay,” the report’s authors wrote, describing unusual ship traffic in a bay less than 30 km (18.6 miles) from neighboring South Korea. China has called for sanctions to be eased on North Korea, but also says it fully enforces the sanctions imposed with its assent by the U.N. Security Council. The United Nations has found that North Korea has repeatedly circumvented restrictions on trade of things like coal and oil, often by conducting ship-to-ship transfers at sea. But the unprecedented scale and coordination of the dredging operation “showcases the boldness and impunity with which sanctions evasion networks operate, even under close scrutiny” C4ADS said in its report. In 2019, Haeju Bay saw at least 1,563 visits by ships, according to Automatic Identification System (AIS) data reviewed by C4ADS. That compares with only 418 visits in the previous two years combined. The AIS data showed many of the ships returning to ports on the Chinese coast. Some of the ships observed in satellite imagery appeared to be operating in convoys or other formations, suggesting they were coordinating their movements. “The activity in Haeju demonstrates scale, and a level of sophistication unlike other known cases of North Korean sanctions evasion at sea,” the group said. Analysts are working on methods to estimate the amount of sand that was exported, and how much that may have been worth to North Korea, one of the report’s authors, Lauren Sung, told Reuters. But the rising value of sand suggests that the operation was lucrative for cash-strapped North Korea. “As the price of sand has risen rapidly in recent years, so has the practice of both licit and illicit sand excavation and trade around the world,” the group said.
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| Posted by:Alaska Paul |
| #13 But this might change |
| Posted by: European Conservative 2020-03-05 21:15 |
| #12 Indeed desert sand is not used for construction. |
| Posted by: European Conservative 2020-03-05 21:11 |
| #11 :-) Thank you all for continuing my education. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2020-03-05 21:07 |
| #10 "This requires an enormous amount of sand" HOW AND WHY CHINA IS BUILDING ISLANDS IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2020-03-05 11:27 |
| #9 as I recall the sand to Saudi Arabia was for road construction the sand in Saudi Arabia was too rounded (I suppose because it was blown around and bumped against other sand) and they needed sand with a dendritic character; the dendritic feature was needed to make cement binder component work |
| Posted by: lord garth 2020-03-05 10:30 |
| #8 We ate sand |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2020-03-05 10:25 |
| #7 Filter media sand for water treatment has specific specs for grading, angularity, degradation and other properties. I have purchased filter media often from a company in Wisconsin but never from North Korea. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2020-03-05 10:25 |
| #6 A lot of fracking sand came from Wisconsin, and maybe some in Minnesota. That'd be ironic. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2020-03-05 09:18 |
| #5 Minnesota was selling sand to Saudi What's next? Ice to the Eskimo? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2020-03-05 08:23 |
| #4 Some sands contain exotic metals. |
| Posted by: gorb 2020-03-05 07:30 |
| #3 Minnesota was selling sand to Saudi Sounds like one helluva salesman. Deserves a fat bonus and a trip for him and his family to Leaders' Circle |
| Posted by: Lex 2020-03-05 07:12 |
| #2 All of the above uses. Several decades ago Minnesota was selling sand to Saudi, water filtration systems. There is also the use in silicon integrated circuit type electronics? |
| Posted by: Woodrow 2020-03-05 06:02 |
| #1 and concrete |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-03-05 05:40 |