China halts rail freight to N Korea

By Anna Fifield in Seoul and Richard McGregor in Beijing

Published: October 18 2007 23:06 | Last updated: October 18 2007 23:06

China suspended key rail freight services into North Korea last week after 1,800 wagons carrying food aid and tradeable goods crossed into Kim Jong-il’s hermit state but were never returned.

Absconding with Chinese wagons would be a strange move for North Korea because Beijing is Pyongyang’s closest political ally and biggest provider of food, goods and oil. Analysts monitoring North Korea said Chinese officials had privately complained to them that the North Koreans were dismantling Chinese wagons and selling them back as scrap metal.

The Chinese railway ministry suspended a number of rail freight services into North Korea on October 11, humanitarian agencies operating in North Korea told the Financial Times. The ministry told international aid agencies that it would not send any more wagons into North Korea until Pyongyang returned the 1,800 Chinese wagons.

Tony Banbury, Asia director for the UN World Food Programme, said that the curtailed service had held up the delivery of 8,000 tonnes of maize and wheat already stockpiled in Dandong, a Chinese border town. “We now have significant amounts of food but we can’t deliver it,” Mr Banbury said.

Reliefweb, a United Nations website for aid agencies, reported that the delivery of food stocks into North Korea had been “critically affected by the cessation of movement of railway wagons from China”.

An official with China’s railway ministry said yesterday that it was not aware of any suspension of freight services into North Korea.

But Fu Xue, of the Dandong Tianda International Freight and Forwarding Company, said there had been delays in the return of wagons but that North Korea had asked for permission from China.

North Korea has frequently failed to pay for goods or to pay back debt. It has also long been accused of relying on currency counterfeiting and drug smuggling to stay afloat.

But purloining Chinese wagons would be a brazen move. China is already thought to be disillusioned by Pyongyang’s refusal to embrace economic reform. It was also angered by North Korea’s decision last year to conduct a nuclear test despite Beijing’s objections.

North Korea has a history of not returning vehicles. In 1998, the late Chung Ju-yung, founder of South Korea’s Hyundai Group, donated 1,001 cows to North Korea to make amends for stealing a cow as he escaped from the north as a boy.

Pyongyang said the cows should be transported on Hyundai trucks. The trucks were never seen again.

FT.com / Asia-Pacific / China - China halts rail freight to N Korea

EXCLUSIVE: The Case for Israel's Strike on Syria

Official: Air Attack Targeted Nascent Nuclear Facility Built With North Korean 'Expertise'

Israeli officials believed that a target their forces bombed inside Syria last month was a nuclear facility, because they had detailed photographs taken by a possible spy inside the complex, ABC News has learned.

The Bush administration has steadfastly refused to say anything about the Israeli raid on Syria, or to confirm what was hit. But ABC News has learned of the apparent mole and other dramatic and secret details about the events leading up to the airstrike, plus the evidence that supported it.

A senior U.S. official told ABC News the Israelis first discovered a suspected Syrian nuclear facility early in the summer, and the Mossad ― Israel's intelligence agency ― managed to either co-opt one of the facility's workers or to insert a spy posing as an employee.

As a result, the Israelis obtained many detailed pictures of the facility from the ground.

Watch the Full Report Tonight on "World News With Charles Gibson"

The official said the suspected nuclear facility was approximately 100 miles from the Iraqi border, deep in the desert along the Euphrates River. It was a place, the official said, "where no one would ever go unless you had a reason to go there."

But the hardest evidence of all was the photographs.

The official described the pictures as showing a big cylindrical structure, with very thick walls all well-reinforced. The photos show rebar hanging out of the cement used to reinforce the structure, which was still under construction.

There was also a secondary structure and a pump station, with trucks around it. But there was no fissionable material found because the facility was not yet operating.

The official said there was a larger structure just north of a small pump station; a nuclear reactor would need a constant source of water to keep it cool.

The official said the facility was a North Korean design in its construction, the technology present and the ability to put it all together.

It was North Korean "expertise," said the official, meaning the Syrians must have had "human" help from North Korea.

A light water reactor designed by North Koreans could be constructed to specifically produce plutonium for nuclear weapons.

When the Israelis came to the CIA with the pictures, the U.S. then got the site's coordinates and backed it up with very detailed satellite imagery of its own, and pinpointed "drop points" to determine what would be needed to target it.

The Israelis urged the U.S. government to destroy the complex, and the U.S. started looking at options about how to destroy the facility: Targeters were assembled, and officials contemplated a special forces raid using helicopters, which would mean inserting forces to collect data and then blow the site up.

That option would have been very daring, the official says, because of the distance from the border and the amount of explosives it would take to take down the facility.

The options were considered, but according to the official, word came back from the White House that the United States was not interested in carrying out the raid.

But as ABC News reported in July, the Israelis made the decision to take the facility out themselves, though the U.S. urged them not to. The Bush administration, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates leading the way, said the Israelis and the U.S. should "confront not attack."

The official said the facility had been there at least eight months before the strike, but because of the lack of fissionable material, the United States hesitated on the attack because it couldn't be absolutely proved that it was a nuclear site.

But the official told ABC News, "It was unmistakable what it was going to be. There is no doubt in my mind."

ABC News: EXCLUSIVE: Israel's Case for Syria Strike: Inside Man Cased Facility

きっと帰ってくる 松本京子さん失踪、あす30年

　北朝鮮による拉致被害者と認定された鳥取県米子市、松本京子さん＝当時(29)＝が失跡して二十一日で丸三十年を迎える。昨年十一月に政府が拉致事件と断定したことで全容解明への期待が高まったが、これまでのところ進展はない。しかし兄、孟さん(60)は「三十年は長かったが、これからはそんなことはない」と自らを奮い立たせ、問題解決に取り組んでいる。

京子さんが拉致認定されてから、孟さんは家族会の会合や内閣府からの情報提供がある度に上京するようになった。各地から講演会への招請も相次いでいる。「忙しいが、裏を返せばありがたい話。これまでいろんな人に支えてもらったので協力しないと」と言い切った。
■希望を胸に

　昨年十一月の拉致認定は家族にとって大きな希望になった。家族会に入ったことでほかのメンバーから情報が入るようになった。県内では、帰国後の支援体制を準備するための協議会も発足した。「拉致」の疑いを口にすることもためらわれ、相談する当てもなくむなしく過ごした二十九年間との決別だった。

　それだけに安倍首相の退陣は衝撃的だった。就任早々に拉致問題対策本部を設置し、経済制裁を発動するなど素早い対応に期待は高まったが、裏切られた格好に。それでも「拉致が確実視されているのに認定されない人もいる。妹が帰国できれば命の恩人は安倍さん」と深く感謝している。

　一方、最近の情勢変化には神経をとがらせている。朝鮮半島の非核化をめぐって米朝両国は協調路線に転じたことから、家族会はテロ支援国家指定継続を求めるため訪米を予定。韓国大統領選の行方も拉致問題に大きく影響するとして訪韓も計画している。孟さんもこうした活動にかかわらざるを得ないという。

　その家族会も長年代表を務めてきた横田滋さんが退任を表明。福田政権は北朝鮮との対話路線を打ち出しており戦略の練り直しを迫られている。
■待つ母の思い

　母、三江さん(84)は「どうにもこうにも、息をしているうちに帰ってくれれば」と祈るような気持ちでいる。自室に写真を飾り、片時も京子さんのことを忘れたことはない。今年も好物だったたくあんを漬けるつもりだ。畑でダイコンを育てるほど元気だが、最近は物忘れも多くなってきた。京子さんが就職してからこまめに整理していたアルバムを見ると、せきを切ったように思い出話が出てくるのだが…。「三十年の月日は怖い」と孟さんは漏らした。

　時折、京子さんの友人が三江さんを気遣って訪れ、畑で一緒に弁当を食べていくこともあるという。孟さんは「妹はいい友達をもった」と目を細めた。

　家族会メンバーも特定失踪者の家族も高齢化が目立つ。孟さんも「本当に手遅れになってしまう」と焦る気持ちを漏らしたが、問題が解決する条件は整ってきたとみている。「来年の桜の花が咲くころにはきっと何かが見えてくる」と自らに言い聞かせるようにうなずいた。

きっと帰ってくる　松本京子さん失踪、あす30年 - NetNihonkai-日本海新聞