For anyone wondering how the regime continues to supply itself with military components despite the UN’s shipping sanctions and China’s apparent motivation to actually enforce them, this may be the answer:
Among the North Korea-linked ships still on the U.N. blacklist, some are making fresh maneuvers that appear aimed at camouflaging their identities. The North Korean vessel the Dawnlight, which the U.S. has designated since last year, was flagged to Mongolia. In January it was renamed the Firstgleam and acquired by Sinotug Shipping Limited, a company set up just this past September in the Marshall Islands.
The U.N., having apparently missed the update, blacklisted this ship on March 2 under its old name of Dawnlight. A day later, despite a provision calling for member states to deflag North Korean ships, the Firstgleam was reflagged to Tanzania, according to Lloyds. As of this week, the ship, which the U.N. and U.S.-sanctions lists still refer to as the Mongolia-flagged Dawnlight, was signaling a position close to Japan. [Wall Street Journal]
One Free Korea has a really good read over at his site on this topic. It seems to me that the shipping sanctions are working to an extent, but they need to be tightened to ensure military components are not getting into North Korea to assist their missile and nuclear programs.
