California coastline stripped of plants prized in Asia

Yahoo – AFP, Jocelyne ZABLIT, May 14, 2018

The Dudleya plant, such as this one shown by a California Department of Fish and
Wildlife officer, is said to be highly prized in China because of its resemblance
to the lotus flower (AFP Photo/Handout)

Los Angeles (AFP) - The tip came from a woman standing in line at a post office in a small town in northern California.

A customer was shipping dozens of boxes to China, and the caller suspected they were filled with abalone, a highly-prized shellfish listed as an endangered species.

But fish and wildlife officers who responded to the call instead uncovered an international smuggling ring that has been stripping the bluffs along the northern California coastline of Dudleya succulent plants and shipping them to countries in Asia where they are used for decoration.

"The poachers literally fly into the US just to get these plants so they can ship them to Korea, China or Japan," said Captain Patrick Foy, of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. "They are ripping them out of the ground and selling them between $40 and $50 dollars a piece."

The plant, which grows in bud-like circles and resembles an artichoke, is called Dudleya farinosa and is native to the rugged coastlines of Oregon and northern California.

Foy said several suspects from Asia have been arrested in recent months in connection with the heists, including two Koreans and one Chinese national who were nabbed on April 4.

The trio had entered the country as tourists and were detained as they were about to ship 1,334 of the plants overseas. An additional 1,000 Dudleya were later found in their hotel room.

'They favor remote locations'

The three men -- Tae Hun Kim, 52, and Tae Hyun Kim, 46, both of North Korea, and Liu Fengxia, 37, of China -- are scheduled to appear in a California court on May 16, charged with several felony and misdemeanor counts. If convicted, they face up to nine years in prison and steep fines.

At least two other similar cases are pending.

Two unidentified men stand beside a load of Dudleya succulent plants, allegedly stolen

 by international poachers from remote cliffside locations along the northern California 

coast (AFP Photo/California Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Foy said he believes poachers in the last year have quietly been slipping into the country, targeting remote areas along the coast and digging up "thousands and thousands" of Dudleya before stuffing them into boxes with crumpled up newspaper and putting them in the mail.

"They go in at night or during the day... and seem to favor locations that are not well traveled -- places where you can park your car and walk half a mile and not be seen by a lot of people," he added.

"These are people who are taking every plant that they can find and they are shipping them by the hundreds of boxes at a time."

Authorities said they fear the plant, also known as "bluff lettuce," could end up on the endangered species list if the poaching continues and are warning of the detrimental effect on the environment.

"They are ripping the plants out of their habitats and they are trampling other plants while they are doing it," said botanist Stephen McCabe, emeritus director of research at the University of California Santa Cruz Arboretum.

"It's just disgusting that they are going into the wild and stripping whole cliffs."

The Dudleya, which can continue to grow for years once potted, is said to be highly prized in China because of its resemblance to the lotus flower.

Foy said that while he understands the attraction, he was baffled as to why collectors were not simply buying similar-looking plants.

"Why these ones are so much extra special, frankly I have no idea," he said. "There are perfectly other nice succulent plants out there that can be purchased for five dollars at a nursery."

UN slaps global port ban on ships for North Korea sanctions violations

Yahoo – AFP, Philippe RATER, 10 October 2017

The UN has slapped a global port ban on four vessels found violating sanctions
against North Korea

The UN has slapped a global port ban on four vessels found violating sanctions against North Korea, the head of an expert panel said on Monday in what he described as an unprecedented move.

The United States led a drive at the Security Council to impose two recent sets of sanctions to punish Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile tests.

"There are four vessels that have been designated by the committee. The designation doesn't mean an assets freeze or travel ban. But it's a port ban," said Hugh Griffiths, coordinator of a UN Security Council panel on North Korea sanctions, adding the ships were found "transporting prohibited goods."

"It's a pretty swift and decisive action by the committee," he said, adding that the ban went into effect on October 5.

Griffiths was speaking at the conclusion of the second UN meeting on enforcing North Korea sanctions.

A source close to the matter said the four ships were found carrying coal, seafood and iron ore, exports banned by a UN resolution imposed in August.

The ban was expanded last month to include textiles and North Korean guest workers and also capped oil exports.

North Korean diplomats were present at the meeting but did not speak, according to diplomats.

According to a source, the listed ships were the Petrel 8, Hao Fan 6, Tong San 2 and Jie Shun. According to the MarineTraffic website, the first three fly the flags of Comoros, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and North Korea. The Jie Shun is not listed on the site.

'Enforcement crucial'

"It is crucial that resolutions are fully enforced," Inigo Lambertini, Italy's deputy representative to the UN said.

"Sanctions are not the final objective. Just a means. But of course, to be effective, sanctions must be applied by everybody," he added.

North Korea's UN envoy last week accused the US of working to block economic development and denounced sanctions imposed on poor countries as a bid to "destroy modern civilization."

Ambassador Ja Song Nam said North Korea will withstand the blow of sanctions and continue "along the road of building the socialist power by dint of the spirit of self-reliance and self-development."

The latest set of sanctions were in response to Pyongyang's sixth nuclear test -- the largest yet -- and the firing of two missiles over Japan.

North Korea's main economic partner China has signed up to the measures, as has Russia.

But the US has not ruled out the use of force to compel Pyongyang to halt its missile and nuclear tests, and President Donald Trump has threatened to destroy the country.

On Saturday, he said that diplomatic efforts have consistently failed and "only one thing will work," in what appeared to be a repetition of previous threats of force.

Five N. Koreans sail across tense border to S. Korea

Yahoo – AFP, July 1, 2017

South Korean ships patrol the disputed waters of the Yellow Sea (AFP Photo/
KIM JAE-HWAN)

Five North Koreans in a small boat crossed the sea border into South Korean waters Saturday, a Coast Guard official said, in an apparent bid to defect to the South.

The five people, including four men and one woman, have expressed their wish to live in the South as defectors, the Yonhap news agency reported.

"Coast guards guided the boat to safety at (the eastern port of) Mukho," a South Korean coast guard official told AFP.

Government authorities were questioning the five North Koreans, he added.

The incident came after a North Korean fishing boat with eight people on board developed an engine trouble and drifted into South Korean waters off the country's eastern coast late last month.

Days later, South Korea repatriated all the eight, as they had requested.

Early last month, two people out of four crew members on another North Korean fishing boat which drifted to the South refused to return home. They were allowed resettle in the South.

There has also been a spate of overland border crossings in June.

Two North Korean soldiers walked across the heavily fortified border and a civilian swam across a river to defect to the South.

Over the decades since the peninsula was divided, dozens of North Korean soldiers have fled to the South through the Demilitarised Zone, which extends for two kilometers either side of the actual border.

A North Korean soldier defected to the South in September last year, and a teenage North Korean soldier defected in June 2015.

In 2012 a North Korean soldier walked unchecked through rows of electrified fencing and surveillance cameras, prompting Seoul to sack three field commanders for a security lapse.

More than 30,000 North Korean civilians have fled their homeland but it is very rare for them to cross the closely guarded inter-Korean border, which is fortified with minefields and barbed wire.

Most flee across the porous frontier with neighbouring China.

South Korea vows to get tough with illegal Chinese fishing

Yahoo – AFP, Jung Ha-Won, 7 May 2015

A South Korean coastguard cutter arrives at the country's northernmost

island of Baengnyeong (AFP Photo/Danny Kim)

South Korean fishermen who work the flashpoint maritime border with North Korea tend to be a resilient bunch, but these days a larger, more powerful neighbour is making them lose sleep.

"North Korea is nothing compared to the Chinese fishing ships," said Choi Won-Jin, who has fished the crab-rich waters around his home island of Daecheong for decades.

Daecheong is one of five "frontline" islands whose proximity to the disputed border with North Korea means they are manned by thousands of South Korean soldiers and bristling with artillery units and bomb shelters.

A South Korean coastguard vessel patrols

 near the country's northernmost island of 

Baengnyeong (AFP Photo/Danny Kim)

But all that weaponry has failed to guard against what Choi sees as the biggest threat to the livelihood of the islands' fishing communities -- the "invasion" of Chinese trawlers.

According to official estimates, more than 1,000 Chinese fishing ships illegally accessed exclusive South Korean waters around Daecheong last year, with only four coastguard ships on hand to pose a deterrent.

The numbers have been growing every year as China's increasing affluence and appetite for seafood pushes more fishermen to venture beyond its overfished waters.

Smaller, wooden Chinese ships sneaking into South Korean waters were once tolerated in an area where the top priority has always been guarding against potential incursions from North Korea.

'Nothing left'

But in recent years, the small boats have given way to larger steel trawlers who engage in bottom trawling -- dragging a large, weighted net across the sea floor -- and sweep up "everything in their path," Choi told AFP.

"By the time they are gone, we have nothing left. It's all gone, including our fishing pots," he said.

Around 2,200 Chinese vessels have been stopped and fined by South Korea for illegal fishing in the past four years, and the number of arrested fishermen jumped from two in 2010 to 66 in 2013.

There were only five arrests in 2014, but coastguard officials said that was largely due to all resources being diverted to the lengthy rescue and recovery operation that followed the Sewol ferry disaster in April that year.

Chinese captains are well-organised, said coastguard commando Lee Kyung-Hak, and frequently chain their ships together "like a big floating city" in the event of a confrontation.

Crew members often arm themselves with steel pipes and knives, and have been known to throw burning gas canisters at officers trying to board their ships.

Overwhelming numbers

"We are trying our best to drive them off our territory... but the sheer number of them sometimes feels overwhelming," Lee told AFP.

Under growing domestic pressure to crack down harder on the Chinese fishing 

vessels, South Korean officials have signalled a tougher line with the start of this 

year's fishing season in April (AFP Photo/Danny Kim)

A recent study estimated that 675,000 tonnes of fisheries products were illegally taken from South Korean waters in 2012 by China -- with a value of around 1.3 trillion won ($1.2 billion).

"If anything, the situation has worsened since then," said Lee Kwang-Nam, head of the Fisheries Policy Institute in Seoul who authored the 2014 study.

According to Lee, the undermanned coastguard only manages to seize or arrest less than one percent of Chinese poachers.

"Our fisheries resources are relatively well-preserved thanks to strict regulations... but may face serious shortages if this pace keeps up," he told AFP.

Under growing domestic pressure to crack down harder on the Chinese fishing vessels, South Korean officials have signalled a tougher line with the start of this year's fishing season in April.

"We were greatly outnumbered and overwhelmed by them last year... but we've had enough," said Yun Byoung-Doo, the chief of the Incheon coastguard which guards the Yellow Sea border islands.

Yun said the coastguard would use firearms, including handguns and onboard cannon more actively "if deemed necessary."

China says be 'reasonable'

Beijing's foreign ministry, when contacted by AFP, did not directly comment on Seoul's toughened stance against illegal fishing, but urged it to "enforce the law in a reasonable way, and ensure the safety and lawful rights and interests" of Chinese fishermen.

"China will continue to strengthen the education and guidance for its fishermen," it said in a statement faxed to AFP.

China's increasing affluence and appetite

 for seafood pushes more fishermen to 

venture beyond its overfished waters

 (AFP Photo/Danny Kim)

Two Chinese fishermen have been killed in violent clashes with the South Korean coastguard since 2012, prompting angry protests from Beijing.

Seoul insists the violence is initiated by the Chinese crews and point to the stabbing death of a South Korean coastguard member in 2011 by a Chinese fisherman.

South Korean fishing vessels have not been blameless themselves when it comes to illegal fishing in waters as far away as the seas off West Africa.

But the government has moved to eradicate the practice and South Korea was taken off the US list of countries engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in February, and then from the EU list last month.

The fishermen of Daecheong island hope the government can be equally effective in curbing the illegal activities of the Chinese trawler fleets.

"This is one of the biggest crises I've ever seen on this island," said Kim Neung-Ho, whose father and grandfather also made their living in the waters off Daecheong.

"At this point we're not really counting on them all going away, because that's just impossible," Kim told AFP.

"We just hope that there will be fewer of them. Just a little fewer," he said.

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North Korean cargo ship sinks off coast of South Korea

South Korean rescuers search for missing sailors after bodies of two are found along with three survivors

theguardian.com, Associated Press in Seoul, Friday 4 April 2014

South Korean container ship: the Mongolian-flagged North Korean ship was
 carrying 16 crew when it sent a distress signal. Photograph: Jung Yeon-Je/
AFP/Getty Images

The bodies of two North Korean sailors and three survivors have been found off the coast of South Korea after their cargo ship sank. South Korean rescuers are searching for 11 others still missing.

The Mongolian-flagged ship was carrying 16 North Korean crew members when it sent a distress signal in international waters about 80 miles (130km) south of the southern port city of Yeosu, South Korea's coastguard said in a statement.

Three people were rescued and told investigators they escaped from the ship as it was tilting with its freight being pushed to one side.

South Korean coastguard officers said high waves and strong winds were reported in the area where the 4,300-ton ship sank. It was carrying iron ore to China from the North Korean port city of Chongjin.

The South Korean coastguard said it had mobilised 13 vessels and six aircraft to search for the missing crew. Bad weather was still hampering rescue operations, according to the coastguard officers.

It was not immediately known how South Korea would handle the rescued North Korean sailors. Seoul usually repatriates North Korean sailors found drifting in South Korean waters if they want to return home.

All three rescued sailors were taken to a hospital on the southern South Korean island of Jeju and none of them was in a life-threatening condition, the coastguard statement said.

The Korean peninsula remains in a technical state of war as the 1950-53 Korean war ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. On Monday, the rival Koreas fired hundreds of artillery shells into each other's waters.

North Koreans 'free Chinese fishing crew'

BBC News, 21 May 2013

Korea crisis

• No talks
• What is China's role?
• Key figures
• Missile defences

A Chinese fishing crew seized by North Koreans two weeks ago has been freed along with their boat, reports say.

The 16-man crew was taken captive by unidentified North Koreans in the Yellow Sea on 5 May.

China said on Monday it had been negotiating with Pyongyang for their release since 10 May.

All were "safe on their way back", China's Xinhua news agency reported. Boat owner Yu Xuejun told Reuters news agency no ransom had been paid.

He had earlier said that the North Koreans were demanding a 600,000 yuan ($100,000; £66,000) ransom, and that he had received eight calls demanding payment.

"There were no conditions and they didn't take any money," he told Reuters. "They just released them all. I received the call from the ship captain this morning at 03:50 telling me that they had already been released."

Last year, in a similar incident, 29 Chinese fishermen and three vessels were seized by unidentified North Koreans.

They were freed after two weeks and it was not clear whether a ransom had been paid, nor whether the captors had been the North Korean authorities or autonomous kidnappers.

China is North Korea's biggest trading partner and closest ally. But ties between the two have chilled in recent months, in the wake of North Korea's third nuclear test on 12 February.

Beijing backed expanded sanctions against Pyongyang in response to the underground test, and some of its banks have suspended trading with North Korea's key foreign exchange bank.

Overall tensions on the peninsula remain high following the nuclear test, with operations at the joint inter-Korean Kaesong industrial complex suspended.

In recent days North Korea has fired six short range missiles off its east coast, as part of what it says are military exercises.

DPRK accuses Japan of illegal whaling

English.news.cn 2011-02-01

PYONGYANG, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Tuesday accused Japan of illegally hunting whales, the official news agency KCNA reported.

According to the KCNA, Japanese boats have continued whaling in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans with nearly 1,000 whales caught every year allegedly for scientific research.

Japan's illegal hunting of whales has put the remaining species of whales in danger of extermination in the world, the report said.

Japan refused to stop catching whales just for commercial profits, which has brought enormous benefits to the country from the whale marketing, it added.

"It is natural that Japan is criticized by the international community for killing whales to rake in money," the report said.