N KOREA LINKED TO DRUG SEIZURE

NORTH Korea, accused of selling weapons and illegal drugs to prop up
its bankrupt regime, was linked today to a big drug seizure in South
Korea.

South Korea police seized 50kg of methamphetamine, a banned stimulant
drug, in a raid Tuesday in the southern city of Busan, investigators
said.

The ship reportedly came from China through North Korea before docking
at the southern port city of Busan.

The United States says illegal drugs are one of North Korea's top
exports, along with missiles, bringing in hundreds of millions of
dollars into state coffers every year.

Nearly 50 per cent of illegal drug imports into Japan originate from
the Stalinist state, according to Japanese officials.

"We have seized a sack of methamphetamine from a China-registered
ship," an investigator in Busan told AFP, adding the drug was
concealed in a container taken off the ship.

He declined to give details but news reports identified the ship as
the Chuxing and said it had called at North Korea's north-eastern port
of Rajin on its way to Busan.

"No arrests have been made so far," the investigator
said.

Another official said the origin of the narcotics had yet to be
determined.

"We need analysis of the drug to check where it came from," he
said.

The raid in Busan, South Korea's largest port, came amid growing
concerns in Asia over North Korea's alleged state-orchestrated drug
smuggling activities.

Japanese officials have announced plans to boost inspections of North
Korean ships calling at Japanese ports.

Australia issued an official protest to North Korea after Australian
special forces seized a North Korean cargo ship in April and arrested
30 crew members, who were then charged with drug smuggling along with
four other persons.

Pyongyang has denied that its communist government was involved in a
shipment after 125 kilograms of heroin believed to be from the ship
were seized.

North Korea has long been accused of selling drugs and weapons to prop
up its failed economy.

In testimony to the US Congress on May 20, two men identified as
high-ranking North Korean defectors said they had been intimately
involved in test-firing Pyongyang's missiles in Iran and a
state-sponsored drugs ring.

One of the defectors alleged that Kim Jong-Il's regime, desperate for
hard currency, produced large quantities of heroin and
methamphetamine.

In November 2001, South Korean authorities in Busan seized 91kg of
methamphetamine believed to have been produced in North Korea.