Word: cargo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Reports this week reminded the world of a fitting - if slightly bewildering - relationship: a decrepit and slow North Korean cargo ship, reportedly laden with arms, is on its way to Burma, a country ruled by a similarly obstinate and oppressive military junta. A watchful U.S. missile destroyer is following, close on its heels. (Read "Time to Face Facts on Our North Korea Ignorance...
...freighter, inching along at a paltry 10 knots an hour. By Thursday, it was believed to be chugging through Chinese or Taiwanese waters, having left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago, and headed, according to the South Korean press, to the Burmese port of Thilawa. Its cargo is unknown; Burma's state newspaper claims authorities expect the arrival of a "rice-bearing" North Korean vessel, though most news reports suspect the Kang Nam 1 bears a load of small arms and other conventional weapons. North Korea, whose people have lived on the verge of famine for decades...
...North Korean ships lack the ability to travel long distances, meaning they pull into harbors relatively frequently for fuel and supplies. "There are many countries in the region that we believe would be cooperative with us in trying to persuade the North Koreans to allow us to inspect their cargo once they were to take a port call for refueling," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said on June 16. He added that the U.S. and its allies have sufficient naval power in the region to monitor North Korean shipping without dispatching additional vessels...
...shipping-industry insider notes that any evaluation of transport prices must include not only demand (how much cargo there is to be hauled), but also supply (the quantity of carrier capacity). The steady boom of world trade over the past decade prompted a major shipbuilding spree, with many vessels slated for completion in the coming months and years. "There are new and larger ships on order," notes the source. "I fear that overall rates will not be as responsive to the recovery as a whole." In other words, just as skyrocketing prices in raw-material transport don't guarantee...
...sophistication of today's airplanes, if a fire starts onboard somewhere, behind panels, the only detectors you've got in a large part of the airplane are the cabin crews' noses. There are areas where they've got smoke detectors - in the lavatories and in the cargo holds - but if one starts in an electrical circuit behind the cabin wall next to you, sitting there by the window, you don't know about it, because there are no smoke detectors there." (Read about the deadly 1998 Swissair crash...