Friday, August 24, 2012

Fox News EXCLUSIVE: U.N. investigation of computer shipment to North Korea and Iran looks to be much less than thorough

by George Russell at Fox News

The United Nations agency that shipped American-made computers and sophisticated servers to North Korea is now attempting to avoid a thorough investigation that includes why the goods were shipped without either notifying United Nations sanctions committees that are trying to block the country’s nuclear weapons program, or the U.S. government.

The  probe, announced on Aug. 9 by the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, was advertised at the time as a “full independent external inquiry” to determine whether WIPO acted in violation of U.N. sanctions against North Korea, which continues to ignore worldwide demands that it curtail its quest for a deliverable nuclear bomb. The shipment by WIPO of Hewlett Packard computers and servers to North Korea was first reported by Fox News.

The U.S. government, in particular, says it wants to know how it happened that neither U.N. sanctions committees nor other member-states of WIPO – including the U.S. -- were informed in advance of the shipment of U.S.-manufactured equipment, which was sent from China to Pyongyang by the United Nations Development Program.

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