April 22, 2008

Chinese Weapons Ship To Head Home?

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A series of updates to my earlier post about the plight of the An Yue Jiang, a Chinese cargo vessel currently searching for a suitable African port to offload a shipment of bullets, rockets, and mortars bound for Zimbabwe:

  • Der Spiegel reports that the ship’s captain made haste to leave the port of Durban in South Africa last week, in part, because a court order had been issued that would have allowed Germany’s state development bank, KfW, to seize the shipment in recovery of unpaid debts owed by Robert Mugabe’s government.
  • The Associated Press says that U.S. intelligence agencies are tracking the ship and that American diplomats have requested the governments of South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, and Angola to turn the ship away. A senior State Department diplomat has been dispatched to Africa to underscore U.S. concern.
  • Agence France-Presse quotes a shipping agent as saying that the An Yue Jiang is now heading for Luanda, Angola. But the BBC and the Associated Press report that the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the cargo ship’s owners are considering recalling the vessel and canceling the delivery.
  • Meanwhile, Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is calling for U.N. intervention to stem the gathering post-election violence in his country, where Mugabe’s military is “terrorizing the people.”
    •

    UPDATE (1:00pm, EST): McClatchy says the ship is headed back to China.

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    DEMOCRACY DOES NOT EXIST...

    without free and fair elections, a vigorous free press, and engaged citizens to reclaim power from those who abuse it.

    In this election year unlike any other—against a backdrop of a pandemic, an economic crisis, racial reckoning, and so much daily crazy—Mother Jones' journalism is driven by one simple question: Will America will move closer to, or further from, justice and equity in the years to come?

    If you're able to, please join us in this mission with a donation today. Our reporting right now is focused on voting rights and election security, corruption, disinformation, racial and gender equity, and the climate crisis. We can’t do it without the support of readers like you, and we need to give it everything we've got between now and November. Thank you.

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