Three months after the White House successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea over that country's nuclear test, the Bush administration "allowed" Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from Pyongyang in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, the New York Times reported April 8, citing unnamed US officials. The US allowed the arms delivery to go through in January, as Ethiopian troops were in the midst of an offensive against Islamist militias in Somalia. The account said the US was trying to "wean" Ethiopia off its longstanding reliance on North Korea for cheap Soviet-era military equipment.

See our last posts on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, and North Korea.