[CWOJackson]

"...they also need to check every single place in the US that ship has been for about the last year or so and search them."

Not necessary...it is probably a "container" that is hot, not the ship. That container could have been carried on any other ship prior to this trip. What you want to do is identify the container then track it (good luck).

[seeker41]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. authorities are still investigating a freighter on which low traces of radiation were detected, a Coast Guard spokesman said Thursday.

The freighter, which is under Liberian flag, but owned by a German company, remained 6 miles off the coast of New Jersey, where agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Customs Service, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the U.S. Department of Energy were investigating.

"It is probably going to take some time as it is a fairly large ship," an FBI spokesman said.

While checking for stowaways on the "Palermo Senator" on Wednesday at Port Newark, New Jersey, Coast Guard agents detected low levels of radiation and ordered the ship out to sea.

Ole Sweedlund, deputy managing director of the North American arm of shipping giant Hanjin, which chartered the vessel before subletting it to German company DSR/Senator Lines, said there were no radioactive materials listed on the ship's manifest.

"We are working with government authorities to solve the situation and hopefully we will have a resolution within a day or so," Sweedlund told Reuters.

The ship's last port of call was Valencia, Spain. Before that, it stopped at various ports in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. It was scheduled to offload 655 containers in Port Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Officials declined to provide additional details on the cargo and Sweedlund said the containers could contain any type of cargo originated in the Mediterranean, although he could not say for sure that some of it was not loaded elsewhere.

The managing owner of the ship, Reederei F. Laeisz of Reederei F. Laeisz in Rostock, Germany, said in a statement the investigation "is under way and will be completed by Sept. 13, 2002. The charterers of the vessel confirm that no illegal cargo has been loaded."

The Coast Guard raised its safety and security procedures as the United States went on high state of alert for the one- year commemoration of the attacks last year on Washington and New York.

The United States has for months spearheaded a campaign to tighten up security at international ports, as it is worried that one day it could receive a "dirty bomb" -- a crude nuclear device -- concealed in a shipping container and loaded overseas in a port with lax security.