Reuters breaks news of North Korea weapons ship

Our United Nations Bureau scooped the competition on Feb. 22 when we got a look at a letter from South Africa to the U.N. Security Councils North Korea sanctions committee. The letter described how South African authorities intercepted a French-owned ship carrying North Korean shipping containers with tank components bound for the Congo Republic. Several Security Council diplomats said the seizure was a blatant violation of a Security Council resolution banning the export of weapons by North Korea, an embargo that was imposed by the council shortly after Pyongyangs May 2009 nuclear test. The Reuters report was widely picked up worldwide. Bloomberg was among the news outlets that referred to the Reuters report, giving us credit for the scoop in the headline of a story: North Korea Tank Parts Intercepted By South Africa, Reuters Says. Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal picked up the story, giving Reuters credit. The UN bureau chief for one of Japans biggest newspapers received a call in the middle of the night from Tokyo demanding a prompt matcher for the Reuters story. AFP and other agencies were chasing it the following morning. Once again, Reuters had the swiftest and most comprehensive coverage of an issue that is not only one of the Obama administrations top foreign policy matters, but is also central to the security and risk outlook for the entire Asia Pacific region.