This is more than a little
unsettling:
Panama says it has seized a North Korean-flagged ship carrying what appeared to be ballistic missiles and other arms that had set sail from Cuba.
Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli told RPC radio on Monday that the ship had been headed for North Korea.
There were no immediate details on the quantity of arms aboard.
Martinelli said the undeclared military cargo appeared to include missiles and non-conventional arms. He said the ship was violating United Nations resolutions against arms trafficking.
This isn't the first time officials have had suspicions
about this particular boat:
Hugh Griffiths, an arms trafficking expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said the seized ship is called Chong Chon Gang and has been on the institute's suspect list for some time.
He said the ship had been caught before for trafficking narcotics and small arms ammunition. It was stopped in 2010 in the Ukraine and was attacked by pirates 400 miles off the coast of Somalia in 2009.
Griffiths' institute has also been interested in the ship because of a stop it made in 2009 in Tartus — a Syrian port city hosting a Russian naval base.
Stops in the Ukraine, Syria, Somalia and Cuba? This ship seems to be making a lot of stops in countries that aren't very fond of the U.S.