North Korea Says Owners of Mudubong Ship Held by Mexico May Sue

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, April 17 --The North Korean mission to the UN held a press conference at its office on Second Avenue on April 8, at which its Deputy Permanent Representative An Myong Hun denounced the continued detention of the Mudubong ship in Mexico.

 Now on April 17, the DPRK Mission has sent out this as a press release:

Pyongyang, April 17 (KCNA) -- The manager of the Mudubong Shipping Co. Ltd. gave the following answer to the question put by KCNA Thursday in connection with the fact that its cargo ship Mudubong has been interned for nine months in Mexico for an unjustifiable reason:
Mudubong, a trading cargo ship of our company, was stranded on coral reef off Tuxpan Port of Mexico on July 14, 2014 to be interned by the Mexican authorities for damaging coral reef. After the accident we indemnified losses under Mexican rules including relief fund... Our company has already suffered huge losses. If safe return of Mudubong, legitimate property of our company, is held in check, we are thinking of taking legal measures to
have damage and losses indemnified. 

  On April 8 An Myong Hun said that in January Mexico was going to release the ship, which ran into a Mexican coral reef (damage to which North Korea paid for) - then reversed its position, saying that a UN Under Secretary General had told them to hold the ship.

  Inner City Press asked An Myong Hun if that UN Under Secretary General was Angela Kane of Disarmament, soon to be replaced by Kim Won-soo (see Inner City Press' scoop, here). An Myong Hun said that the USG was unnamed - but said the United States was behind the continued "illegal" detention of the ship.

   

As Press Excluded from Ban Ki-moon Speech, UNCA Invisible But For New Fake Fliers, Bankrupt

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, January 22 -- On a day when the media was excluded from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's speech to the General Assembly, there was no protest at all from the decaying UN Correspondents Association.

  Instead, while the Ambassadors of the US, China and South Korea were taking Press questions at the Security Council stakeout, UNCA's "leaders" were up in their offices, drafting then posting counterfeit fliers purporting to be from the Free UN Coalition for Access, FUNCA. 

   Rather than defend the rights of journalists, in 2012 UNCA's First Vice President Louis Charbonneau filed a secret complaint with UN Media Accreditation, then expressed support for Voice of America to stealthly request the "review" of the accreditation of Inner City Press.

   Now UNCA is in no position to say anything about the due process rights of journalists. 

  At the North Korea stakeouts, there was little to no presence from the UNCA Executive Committee -- one of whom, Tim Witcher of Agence France-Presse, nonethelesswrote breathlessly of "new sanctions," which not only China but also South Korea disagree with as a description of the resolution.

  Charbonneau, absent from the stakeout and from Ban's press conference, sat somewhere reading or merely being a pass through about KCNA's reports.

 The new president, Pamela Falk of CBS, so intent on being announced as such at Monday's evenings Pakistan peacekeeping reception, did not come on North Korea nor to the Pakistani Permanent Representative's midday stakeout. President for what?

  Apparently UNCA's new idea of advocacy extends only this far: to ensure they can walk up the stairs with Ambassadors. And, it seems, the right to file stealth complaints, and to post counterfeit fliers. 

This can and will be seen and studied as bankruptcy. Watch this site.