Panama stops N.Korean ship over missile material

Panama stops N.Korean ship over missile material
Published July 16, 2013AFP

PANAMA CITY (AFP) – Panama stopped a North Korean vessel that President
Ricardo Martinelli said had sailed from Cuba and tried to illegally
sneak suspected sophisticated missile material through the Panama Canal.

"The world needs to sit up and take note: you cannot go around shipping
undeclared weapons of war through the Panama Canal," Martinelli said,
noting that the ship had been inspected to rule out drugs and was found
to have other cargo of greater concern.

"We had suspected this ship, which was coming from Cuba and headed to
North Korea, might have drugs aboard so it was brought into port for
search and inspection," on the Atlantic coast of the country, the
president said on Radio Panama on Monday.

"When we started to unload the shipment of sugar we located containers
that we believe to be sophisticated missile equipment, and that is not
allowed," Martinelli stressed, describing a dramatic scene in which he
said the ship's captain tried to kill himself.

"The captain has tried to commit suicide, and the crew also rioted,"
when police moved in, Martinelli said. "So we are holding this vessel
for further investigation."

Cuba is the only one-party Communist regime in the Americas, and a rare
ally of also-isolated Pyongyang.

China is the main ally of North Korea, which defiantly carried out its
third nuclear weapons test in February and threatened to attack the
United States, in language that was shrill even by the standards of the
reclusive communist state.

Cuba's coast lies just 90 miles from the United States' southeastern flank.

Back in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of
nuclear war at the height of the Cold War.

US and Soviet leaders had a 13-day political and military standoff in
October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on
Cuban soil.

In the end disaster was avoided when Washington agreed to Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev's offer to remove the missiles in exchange for a US
pledge not to invade Cuba.

Then president John F. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove US
missiles from Turkey

Source: "Panama stops N.Korean ship over missile material | Fox News" -
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/16/panama-stops-nkorean-ship-over-missile-material/