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Front - March. 24, 2006 The North Korean freighter Pong Su is engulfed in flames after it was bombed by Australian F-111 fighters off the coast of Sydney on Thursday. The 3,500-ton ship had been impounded in Sydney Harbor since April 2003 after allegedly being spotted unloading a 150 kg shipment of heroin at a secluded beach there. Four sailors on the Pong Su accused of aiding and abetting heroin smuggling were acquitted and released earlier this month, but Canberra decided to sink the ship as a ‘message’ to drug smugglers./AFP

THE North Korean freighter used to smuggle 150kg of heroin into Australia three years ago now rests on the ocean's bottom, after being destroyed by a pair of laser-guided bombs. Four F-111 strike bombers flying from RAAF Amberley in Queensland proved dead on target as the 3500-tonne freighter drifted 140km off Jervis Bay this morning. Two 800kg precision guided bombs struck the Pong Su's hull with massive blasts, showering debris over a wide area. The vessel sank quickly into deep water. The Pong Su was seized off the New South Wales coast in April 2003 after a four-day chase involving...

/start my translation A close confidant of Kim Jong-Il defects to U.S. /snip Kil Jae-Gyung, a close confidant of the General Secretary of N. Korean Worker's Party, Kim Jong-Il, defected to U.S. recently. His position is a deputy depratment chief of General Secretariat's Clerk's Office, the S. Korean equivalent of the Office of Presidential Secretaries. A diplomatic source in Seoul disclosed on 17th (of May, 2003), "Deputy Department Chief Kil Jae-Gyung and two others requested a political asylum to U.S. while staying at a third country. They are now at a safe location." The source added, "We cannot disclose their...

A CARGO vessel thought to be the mother ship of an international drugs-smuggling operation was escorted in to Sydney last night after being boarded by the Royal Australian Navy in a high-seas raid. Police, navy personnel and customs officials went on board the North Korean- registered Pong Su about 70 miles off the central New South Wales coast after a chase through stormy seas to international waters. Surveillance teams were alerted last Wednesday, when 50 kilograms (110lb) of high-grade heroin believed to have come from Golden Triangle in South-East Asia was found on a beach at Lorne, on the coast...