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CNN Live At Daybreak

International News Desk

Aired December 11, 2002 - 05:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Of course we're going to be following those war games where John is, in Qatar, as well as several other international stories throughout the day here on CNN.
So let's see what's going on.

And, you know, David Clinch, our senior international editor, is here.

And let's talk more about that ship that was intercepted by the Spanish.

DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Yes. It's a fascinating story and one which, again, CNN is uniquely placed to cover. I mean it's, we are everywhere on this story today. We don't know yet if it's got anything to do necessarily with Iraq or the war on terror as such. But we're prepared to cover those if we do find out that there is a connection.

We do know that there is a Spanish connection. Spanish ships were the first ones to intercept it. We hope to take a press conference live from Spain within the next hour or so and see what they're saying.

COSTELLO: And there were many strange things about this ship that I want to get into a little bit. Like there was no registration number.

CLINCH: Right.

COSTELLO: The ship wasn't registered anywhere.

CLINCH: Right.

COSTELLO: The name So San...

CLINCH: It immediately showed up on the Spanish database as a ship which needed to be examined because of exactly those things and why it was suspicious. But then they, the Spanish also immediately brought in the Americans to help them and the Americans and Spanish together found the SCUDs.

A little bit awkward for the Spanish, because that's not really why their ships are there. They're there to prevent Iraq sending oil out and also really primarily for the war on terror. So we'll listen to see what the Spanish have to say. We also know it's about Yemen in the sense that Washington sources are telling us that they believe that they were destined for Yemen. Not a big surprise. The Americans have asked the Yemenese not to import from North Korea but, you know, they have North Korean SCUDs already. They want more. It's hard to prevent them doing that necessarily, although, again, they had promised that they wouldn't do it.

It's preliminary, though, about North Korea. It seems to me at the moment that the story on the U.S. confrontation, I think you can call it now, with North Korea, has gone another step in that if the United States is intercepting ships with North Korean missiles on board, and it's not really illegal for North Korea to export these missiles, it's not illegal for Yemen to buy them.

COSTELLO: Right.

CLINCH: But the Americans obviously very interested in shutting down the North Koreans' proliferation of the weapons and also -- and this is key -- the money. This makes a lot of money for North Korea and they want to shut that off.

COSTELLO: And what might the United States use as a weapon against North Korea? It might not give them -- I know that there are sanctions right now as far as oil is concerned and they may impose more sanctions.

CLINCH: Right. We've stopped oil shipments to North Korea. Now they're stopping the money flow. They want them to stop their nuclear weapons program and that's what this is about, as well as other things, but that's one of the main stories that we have today.

COSTELLO: Got you.

David Clinch, I will let you get back to work.

And you'll join us again in the next hour.

CLINCH: I'm not sure. I think we, if we take that press conference we may not have time.

COSTELLO: That's all right.

CLINCH: See you tomorrow.

COSTELLO: The press conference from Spain.

Thank you, David.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 11, 2002 - 05:36   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Of course we're going to be following those war games where John is, in Qatar, as well as several other international stories throughout the day here on CNN.
So let's see what's going on.

And, you know, David Clinch, our senior international editor, is here.

And let's talk more about that ship that was intercepted by the Spanish.

DAVID CLINCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Yes. It's a fascinating story and one which, again, CNN is uniquely placed to cover. I mean it's, we are everywhere on this story today. We don't know yet if it's got anything to do necessarily with Iraq or the war on terror as such. But we're prepared to cover those if we do find out that there is a connection.

We do know that there is a Spanish connection. Spanish ships were the first ones to intercept it. We hope to take a press conference live from Spain within the next hour or so and see what they're saying.

COSTELLO: And there were many strange things about this ship that I want to get into a little bit. Like there was no registration number.

CLINCH: Right.

COSTELLO: The ship wasn't registered anywhere.

CLINCH: Right.

COSTELLO: The name So San...

CLINCH: It immediately showed up on the Spanish database as a ship which needed to be examined because of exactly those things and why it was suspicious. But then they, the Spanish also immediately brought in the Americans to help them and the Americans and Spanish together found the SCUDs.

A little bit awkward for the Spanish, because that's not really why their ships are there. They're there to prevent Iraq sending oil out and also really primarily for the war on terror. So we'll listen to see what the Spanish have to say. We also know it's about Yemen in the sense that Washington sources are telling us that they believe that they were destined for Yemen. Not a big surprise. The Americans have asked the Yemenese not to import from North Korea but, you know, they have North Korean SCUDs already. They want more. It's hard to prevent them doing that necessarily, although, again, they had promised that they wouldn't do it.

It's preliminary, though, about North Korea. It seems to me at the moment that the story on the U.S. confrontation, I think you can call it now, with North Korea, has gone another step in that if the United States is intercepting ships with North Korean missiles on board, and it's not really illegal for North Korea to export these missiles, it's not illegal for Yemen to buy them.

COSTELLO: Right.

CLINCH: But the Americans obviously very interested in shutting down the North Koreans' proliferation of the weapons and also -- and this is key -- the money. This makes a lot of money for North Korea and they want to shut that off.

COSTELLO: And what might the United States use as a weapon against North Korea? It might not give them -- I know that there are sanctions right now as far as oil is concerned and they may impose more sanctions.

CLINCH: Right. We've stopped oil shipments to North Korea. Now they're stopping the money flow. They want them to stop their nuclear weapons program and that's what this is about, as well as other things, but that's one of the main stories that we have today.

COSTELLO: Got you.

David Clinch, I will let you get back to work.

And you'll join us again in the next hour.

CLINCH: I'm not sure. I think we, if we take that press conference we may not have time.

COSTELLO: That's all right.

CLINCH: See you tomorrow.

COSTELLO: The press conference from Spain.

Thank you, David.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com