Free Republic

A North Korean delegation led by the cabinet minister for international trade is visiting Iran, the North’s official media says in a rare public report of an exchange between the two countries believed to have secret military ties. The minister for external economic relations, Yun Jong Ho, left Pyongyang on Tuesday by air leading a ministry delegation to visit Iran, the North’s KCNA news agency says. It gives no other detail. North Korea and Iran have long been suspected of cooperating on ballistic missile programs, possibly exchanging technical expertise and components that went into their manufacture.

The weapons laden plane seized in Bangkok en route from North Korea at the weekend has been linked to two renowned East European arms traffickers by a respected Swedish think-tank in the latest twist in the mysterious saga. The Ilyushin-76 aircraft, which was found to be carrying 35 tons of weapons including rockets and grenades, was most recently registered under a company called Beibars, linked to Serbian arms dealer Tomislav Dmanjanovic. It had previously been registered with three companies identified by the US Department of the Treasury as firms controlled by the notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, according to...

God Bless those enterprising, digging Japanese journalists and their film crews.A hot one in North Korean black weapons smuggling case was captured for all of Japan to see last night at the 11 p.m. TV news on NNN Network.The pushy and curious Japanese journalists and cameramen with their long lenses (and fluent Farsi and Korean speaking investing staff in Tokyo), discovered some VERY interesting things about the North Korean aircraft stopped this week in Thailand with Ukranian crew flying weapons in violation of US sanctions. The flight crew has been very tight lipped, but the Japanese journalists nevertheless caught some...