UN adopts sweeping new sanctions on North Korea

[waltky]

Granny thinks he looks like...

... the Pillsbury Doughboy.

[Truth Detector]

I bet the whackos in North Korea are shaking in their little booties over this.

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - Obama just startin' to deal with lil' fatboy Kim...

China criticizes U.S. sanctions against Kim Jong Un
July 7, 2016 -- China voiced its objection to a U.S. Treasury decision to sanction Kim Jong Un as a human rights offender and called the measure a "openly pressurizing" move.

Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Thursday China is opposed to "one country using international law as the basis for placing unilateral sanctions on another country," South Korean newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun reported. Using the issue of human rights to openly pressure another country and creating hostility is a move that China is "consistently opposed" to, Hong said. On Wednesday for the first time the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control placed Kim among a total of 11 individuals under sanctions.

Kim is responsible for the infliction of "intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor and torture," said the Treasury's Acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam J. Szubin. The action is not helpful, according to Hong. "China has consistently argued that human rights issues should be handled through constructive dialogue and cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual respect," Hong said, adding China has been duly carrying out its obligations under United Nations Security Council sanctions Resolution 2270, adopted in March.

China and North Korea have been unable to agree on Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons development, but recent diplomatic overtures have shown Beijing is willing to be flexible and pursue other forms of dialogue. Lee Hee-ok, a political scientist at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea, said the recent meeting between North Korea's vice party chairman Ri Su Yong and Chinese President Xi Jinping included talks of a possible Kim Jong Un visit to China, News 1 reported. North Korea is looking for a way out of isolation in the aftermath of nuclear and missile tests, Lee said.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-Ne...?spt=sec&or=tn

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U.S. official: Blacklisting Kim Jong Un is 'just the start'
July 8, 2016 - Human rights in North Korea are to be more broadly addressed, Tom Malinowski said.

Unprecedented sanctions on Kim Jong Un are "just the start" of a bigger U.S. plan to blacklist other North Korean individuals for human rights violations. Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, told South Korean news agency Yonhap the sanctions announcement made Wednesday marks only the beginning of a larger movement to address human rights issues. "The list is just the start. There are I think many others who could be added to the list. We need to keep on gathering information," Malinowski said.

The U.S. official's remarks come two days after the Treasury Department named Kim a human rights offender, placing him alongside less than a dozen North Korean officials for rights abuses. Anyone who conducts trade with Kim would have their U.S. accounts frozen. North Korea has responded with fiery rhetoric, calling the blacklist an "open declaration of war." Pyongyang has also threatened to abort all diplomatic channels with the United States unless the designation is revoked, according to Yonhap.

But North Korea has made similar threats in the past, Malinowski said. "I think this is the fourth time this year that North Korea has called an action by the U.S. government or the South Korean government a declaration of war. The rhetoric is what we have become used to," the senior diplomat said. "The effect is to show these [rights abusers]: We know who you are, we know your name, we know what you do, and if things change on the Korean peninsula, there will be a very different future for you if you get involved in these cruel acts." In April, Malinowski had said North Koreans linked to human rights abuses will be held responsible in the event that Kim's regime collapses.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-Ne...?spt=sec&or=tn

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Report: North Korean diplomat flees Russia, seeking political asylum
July 8, 2016 -- A North Korean diplomat based in Russia has gone missing, and it is likely he is attempting political asylum with his family.

According to a Pulkovo Airport official in St. Petersburg, the diplomat left the country on a plane bound for Belarus on July 2, Ria Novosti reported. The man was identified by Russian media as Kim Chol Song, a third secretary and trade representative of the North Korean mission in St. Petersburg. Chinese state media, however, has said the man's name is Kim Chol Sam.

The diplomat, his wife and son boarded a Belavia Belarusian Airlines flight. They'd purchased the tickets three hours prior to boarding, according to the report. Fontanka, an online Russian news site, quoted a local investigator who also said the North Korean envoy had left for Belarus to seek asylum in Europe.

The flight the North Koreans boarded left at 7:45 p.m. from Pulkovo Airport, and arrived in Minsk at 9:13 p.m., Fontanka reported. Another North Korean trade representative in St. Petersburg, presumably a colleague of Kim's, told police the missing man left the diplomatic compound in a government vehicle on July 1. When the diplomat became incommunicado, the trade representative reported the incident that then led to the investigations, Yonhap reported.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-Ne...?spt=sec&or=tn

[waltky]

About face for lil' Kim...

North Korea wants to talk denuclearization, U.S. analyst says
July 15, 2016 -- A former U.S. government official who negotiated with North Korea in the Clinton administration says Pyongyang raised the possibility of denuclearization last week – but that the statement may have been ignored in Washington.

Robert Carlin, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, wrote on 38 North, a Johns Hopkins University website dedicated to North Korea issues, that Pyongyang placed the ball in motion to restart talks on denuclearization. "[The] statement made clear what the North Koreans have been hinting at for some time – yes, they were willing to talk about denuclearization," Carlin wrote in the article published on Tuesday. The analyst was referring to a statement issued on July 6 on KCNA that included five proposed requirements that could lead to the termination of its nuclear weapons program. "If the United States and South Korea authorities take the slightest interest in the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula our principled requirements must be accepted," the statement on KCNA read.

Granny says make `em get on dey's knees an beg pretty please

According to Carlin, Pyongyang is transitioning toward defining denuclearization in terms that "potentially brings the discussion back down to earth, reintroducing concepts both Seoul and Washington had previously accepted" in 1992. The North Korean statement issued last week claimed the United States has nuclear weapons in South Korea, which invited a response from Seoul dismissing the claim as an attempt to mislead and undermine national security, South Korean newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun reported.

But Carlin said North Korea also intended to define denuclearization as a task for both sides on the peninsula. "For Pyongyang that definition provides a better, more realistic, more salable, and more defensible starting point – that is, if there is to be "denuclearization," it will pertain very specifically to the Korean peninsula," Carlin wrote, adding the term denuclearization is an "accordion" that will end up being "expanded or contracted" during potential negotiations. "The key point now is that someone in Pyongyang has apparently decided that the North's approach over the past several years has not given it the flexibility it needed to deal with the issue, whereas a more realistic concept, based on ground already plowed, might do that," the analyst said.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-Ne...?spt=sec&or=tn

[donttread]

Almost none do....

Remember the college kid who got arrested?

[Ransom]

How about the following sanction taken by America.
Citizens don't $#@!ing go to North Korea, you $#@!ing idiots they hate you. If you go there, when something bad happens you are 100% on your $#@!ing own.

Just like Kayla Mueller huh? Any of the other Doctors Without Borders personnel, you idiots. Why go there and attempt to set up safe zones, or fight AIDS or malaria? Why go there in any kind of humanitarian effort at all.....if you're a Catholic Priest or Nun and you happen to be a US citizen, you have no protections abroad.....they hate you in some places.

Donttread....perhaps the most isolationist individual I've ever experienced, it's like he's not aware of anything whatsoever outside his little world. As naïve as the moth fluttering my back porch light.

[waltky]

China finally co-operating on No. Korean sanctions...

China Says it Will Stop Importing North Korean Coal, Iron Ore and Fish
Monday 14th August, 2017 - China says it will stop importing North Korean coal, iron ore, fish and other goods in September as it implements UN sanctions.

The UN Security Council, including China, backed a new resolution last weekend imposing fresh sanctions on the rogue state in retaliation for its controversial nuclear programme. The sanctions aim to block $1bn worth of North Korean exports - about a third of its total exports. The Chinese government said the imports will stop on 5 September.

It came as US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford said military options were being prepared against the North if diplomatic and economic sanctions failed. The office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Mr Dunford made the comments in a 50-minute meeting to discuss North Korean provocation. Last week, the US commander-in-chief Donald Trump said he was ready to unleash "fire and fury" if North Korea continued to threaten the United States.

Tensions have increased over fears North Korea is close to achieving its goal of putting the mainland US within range of a nuclear weapon. North Korea has threatened to fire intermediate missiles into waters off the coast of the US overseas territory of Guam. It plans to time its launch to coincide with annual drills involving US and South Korean forces, taking place later this month. The North's state news agency said about 3.5 million students and workers have volunteered to fight alongside the military to defend their country from the US.

China, meanwhile, has appointed a new special envoy for the North Korean issue. China is North Korea's closest ally, but it has been angered by its repeated missile and nuclear tests. President Xi has urged Washington and Pyongyang to avoid words or actions that could worsen the situation. President Trump has called for China to do more to stop the North's nuclear ambitions. The South Korean president called for a peaceful solution, saying that there must not be another war on the Korean Peninsula.

http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/2...n-ore-and-fish

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China Banning Coal, Iron, Seafood Imports From North Korea
Monday 14th August, 2017 - China announced Monday it is banning imports of coal, iron ore, seafood and other products from North Korea in line with new United Nations sanctions approved earlier this month.

Chinese leaders had pledged to fully enforce the sanctions, which China and the other members of the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted in response to North Korean ballistic missile tests. The sanctions could block as much as $1 billion in North Korean exports. China's Commerce Ministry said the new trade ban will be fully in place by September 5.

U.S. President Donald Trump and other members of his administration have urged China to use its position as North Korea's most important ally to pressure the country to give up its nuclear weapons program.

China has said it complies with U.N. resolutions, and on Monday the Chinese foreign ministry reiterated calls for restraint and the need to find a political resolution to the situation.

http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/2...om-north-korea

[MisterVeritis]

He said the sanctions were a declaration of war.

I said the same thing.

[waltky]

Merkel offers to broker No. Korean nuclear deal...

North Korea warns U.S. will pay due price for spearheading U.N. sanctions
September 10, 2017 - North Korea warned on Monday the United States would pay a “due price” for spearheading a U.N. Security Council resolution against its latest nuclear test, as Washington presses for a vote on a draft resolution imposing more sanctions on Pyongyang.

South Korean officials have said after the North’s sixth nuclear test on Sept. 3, which it said was of an advanced hydrogen bomb, that it could launch another intercontinental ballistic missile in defiance of international pressure. The United States wants the Security Council to impose an oil embargo on the North, halt its key export of textiles and subject leader Kim Jong Un to financial and travel ban, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters.

The North’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said the United States was “going frantic” to manipulate the Security Council over Pyongyang’s nuclear test, which it said was part of “legitimate self-defensive measures.” “In case the U.S. eventually does rig up the illegal and unlawful ‘resolution’ on harsher sanctions, the DPRK shall make absolutely sure that the U.S. pays due price,” the spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

DPRK is short for the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “The world will witness how the DPRK tames the U.S. gangsters by taking a series of actions tougher than they have ever envisaged,” the unnamed spokesman said. “The DPRK has developed and perfected the super-powerful thermo-nuclear weapon as a means to deter the ever-increasing hostile moves and nuclear threat of the U.S. and defuse the danger of nuclear war looming over the Korean peninsula and the region.”

There was no independent verification of the North’s claim to have conducted a hydrogen bomb test, but some experts said there was enough strong evidence to suggest Pyongyang had either developed a hydrogen bomb or was getting close. KCNA said on Sunday that Kim threw a banquet to laud the scientists and top military and party officials who contributed to the nuclear bomb test, topped with an art performance and a photo session with the leader himself.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-no...-idUSKCN1BL01H

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Merkel offers German role in Iran-style nuclear talks with North Korea
Sunday 10 September 2017 - Chancellor says deal with Tehran could be a blueprint for a process in which Germany and Europe would play a very active part

Angela Merkel has offered German participation in any future nuclear talks with North Korea and suggested that the 2015 agreement with Iran could serve as a model for negotiations. The chancellor’s intervention reflects growing alarm in Europe that Donald Trump is worsening one nuclear crisis by repeated threats to use military force against North Korea, and seeking to trigger a second one by torpedoing the Iran deal to which Germany, France and the UK are among the signatories. "If our participation in talks is desired, I will immediately say yes,” Merkel told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in an interview published on Sunday.

She pointed to the example of the agreement sealed in Vienna in July 2015 by Iran, the five permanent members of the UN security council and Germany, describing it as “a long but important time of diplomacy” that ultimately had a good end. “I could imagine such a format being used to end the North Korea conflict. Europe and especially Germany should be prepared to play a very active part in that,” Merkel said. In exchange for sanctions relief under the Vienna deal, Iran accepted strict limits on its nuclear programme as a reassurance to the international community that it could never build a bomb. North Korea, on the other hand, is believed to already have a nuclear arsenal which it insists is not up for negotiation.

Kim Jong-un hosted an elaborate banquet in Pyongyang over the weekend for military leaders, scientists and technicians to celebrate the country’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test. The regime says the underground blast on 3 September was a two-stage thermonuclear device, or hydrogen bomb. The state news agency, KCNA, published photographs on Sunday showing Kim beaming with two of the scientific minds behind the country’s surprisingly fast progress - Ri Hong Sop, the head of the country’s nuclear weapons institute, and Hong Sung Mu, the deputy director of the ruling party’s munitions industry department. The UN security council will convene on Monday to consider a US resolution that would impose an embargo on oil exports to North Korea and technical imports from the embattled state, as well as a partial naval blockade giving UN member states the right to board and inspect ships suspected of sanctions-busting.

China and Russia are expected to try to water down the resolution, while European council members are nervous that the Trump administration could consequently abandon the council as a forum for dealing with the North Korea crisis if it does not get its way. “I think the Europeans worry about the US going off the deep end,” said Richard Gowan, a UN expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. European anxiety has already been aroused by Trump’s repeated emphasis on a possible military solution of last resort to contain North Korea, which many analysts fear increases the chance of miscalculation and a preemptive strike by either side.

MORE

Related:

North Korea defector 'proud' of nukes, says Kim would rather die than give up
Sept. 8, 2017 - This is the first of a series chronicling the changing views of North Korean defectors at a time of heightened tensions .

A North Korean defector told UPI in an interview in Seoul that he hates Kim Jong Un -- but he hates his new life in South Korea more. The former deputy chief at Pyongyang's Ministry of People's Security, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he is proud of North Korea's nuclear weapons. The country conducted its sixth nuclear test on Sunday. While he did not express a desire to return, the man said he has become disillusioned with South Korea after resettling in 2012. He joins a growing plurality of views as more North Koreans resettle in the South and share more insights into the workings of the Kim regime. The middle-age defector said Pyongyang's elites remain loyal to Kim because they "reap benefits" from the state. He still has family with elite status in the North, including a son serving in the North Korean army.

Some of the most public defectors -- Shin Dong-hyuk, Kang Chol-hwan and Lee Hyun-seo, among others, have spoken out about human rights abuses, economic deprivation and increasing troubles the regime faces as it struggles to stay in power. Others decry discrimination against defectors in South Korea and the stark cultural differences they find there. Five years into his resettlement, the defector says the social environment is so different from the North that calls for unification no longer ring true for him. "It's better there is no unification," he said. "If unification takes place now, only civil war and chaos would erupt," as South Korea is not ready to deal with a flood of refugees coming to Seoul in the event of the Kim regime's collapse. He said discrimination is an obstacle and his fellow defectors struggle in menial jobs.

People take a look at radiation levels at the state-run Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety in Gangneung, on South Korea's eastern coast, on Monday, the day after North Korea detonated a hydrogen bomb.

It is frosty indifference that is the greatest barrier to adjustment, he said, suggesting the real "nuclear" catastrophe on the peninsula has already happened with the nuclearization of Korean lives. South Koreans "take no interest in your life," he said. "There is not one person who wants to be your friend. In apartment buildings here, they do not even know who their next-door neighbors are." By contrast, in North Korean apartment communities, families "gather on the rooftop to play together, drink soju together and eat," he said. "In South Korea you cannot have that kind of enjoyment. South Koreans only seek you out when they need you." He also criticized South Korea's politics. "South Korea has no ideology of its own," he said. "I came hoping to contribute to the healing of a divided country...but after living here I think it's accurate to say South Koreans are [American] puppets," he added, using the term commonly used to refer to South Korea in North Korea propaganda.

He also said South Koreans fear being at odds with the United States. "That's why Americans don't even regard [South] Koreans as human beings, or Asians in general," he said.Days before, news reports of the rally of white nationalist and other right-wing groups in Charlottesville, Va., was a top news story in Korea. "North Koreans have more pride than South Koreans," he said. "They have reason to say they want to go back to the North." Defectors, however, rarely opt to return because of the risks of punishment. Claims of rape and torture have come to light in memoirs, testimonies before the United Nations and countless press conferences in Seoul and Washington, D.C. But even those claims, he said, are not entirely reflective of North Korean reality. "There's too much focus on North Korea's human rights abuses, too little on how it is a society constructed for the people," he said, adding the defectors who expose human rights violations represent the worst of North Korean society. "If you only bring together people who spent time in prison, all you get is the gutter," he said, adding that many defector testimonies in United Nations Commission of Inquiry reports are "lies." "They should all be put away."

MORE

[waltky]

China enforces sanctions against No. Korea...

China limits oil trade to North Korea and bans textile trade
23 Sept.`17 - China has moved to limit North Korea's oil supply and will stop buying textiles from the politically isolated nation, it said on Saturday.

China is North Korea's most important trading partner, and one of its only sources of hard currency. The ban on textiles trade will hurt Pyongyang's income, while China's oil exports are the country's main source of petroleum products. The tougher stance follows North Korea's latest nuclear test this month. The United Nations agreed fresh sanctions - including the textiles and petroleum restrictions - in response. A statement from China's commerce ministry said restrictions on refined petroleum products would apply from 1 October, and on liquefied natural gas immediately.

A limited amount, allowed under the UN resolution, would still be exported to North Korea. The current volume of trade between the two countries - and how much the new limits reduce it by - is not yet clear. But the ban on textiles - Pyongyang's second-biggest export - is expected to cost the country more than $700m (£530m) a year. China and Russia had initially opposed a proposal from the United States to completely ban oil exports, but later agreed to the reduced measures. North Korea has little energy production of its own, but does refine some petroleum products from crude oil it imports - which is not included in the new ban.

Petrol prices are on the rise in Pyongyang

The AFP news agency reports that petrol prices in Pyongyang have risen by about 20% in the past two months. "It was $1.90 yesterday, today it is $2," a petrol station employee told the agency. "I expect the price will go up in the future." North Korea also produces coal, some $1.2bn of which was exported to China in 2016, but China had already strictly limited its imports of North Korean coal earlier this year. North Korea's foreign minister is expected to speak at the United Nations General Assembly later on Saturday, amid an escalating war of words between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump. The North Korean leader earlier labelled Mr Trump "mentally deranged" and a "dotard" while Mr Trump labelled Mr Kim a "madman" in response. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said the row was "like when children in a kindergarten start fighting and no-one can stop them". Mr Lavrov said a pause was needed, "to calm down the hotheads".

The pair were at odds over President Trump's speech at the United Nations General Assembly, in which he threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea if forced to do so in defence of the US or its allies. He also mocked Kim Jong-un with a disparaging nickname, saying: "Rocket man is on a suicide mission." But the North Korean leader said remarks by the "deranged" US president convinced him he is right to develop weapons for North Korea. In an unprecedented personal statement, Mr Kim said Mr Trump would "pay dearly" for his speech, which he labelled "unprecedented rude nonsense". He said Mr Trump had insulted his country in the eyes of the world, and threatened to "surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire." Experts say this is the first time a North Korean leader has made a direct address to an international audience - and it merits serious and thorough consideration.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41370722