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July 2, 2009

Plan B Watch

Philip Goldberg, the head of President Obama’s new inter agency task force charged with squeezing Kim Jong Il’s palace economy, visits China and Malaysia: The China visit, which State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said will include talks with officials from the foreign and other ministries, makes sense given China is a neighbour of the North, its largest trading partner and a long-time benefactor. It was not immediately clear why Goldberg was going to Kuala Lumpur before returning to Washington on...

Categories Money Laundering/Sanctions
July 1, 2009

Plan B Watch: Treasury Sanctions Iranian, N. Korean Companies for WMD Financing

Treasury has sanctioned an Iranian company under Executive Order 13382 for its dealings with previously sanctioned North Korean entities suspected of involvement in WMD development and proliferation.  It has also designated a new North Korean entity, Namchongang Trading Company.  Treasury’s full announcement itself is interesting and worth reading.  I’ve posted the full text below the jump, interlaced with a few editorial comments of my own.

Categories Axis of Evil/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
June 30, 2009

Kang Nam I Turns Around, Heads North

U.S. officials said Tuesday that a North Korean ship has turned around and is headed back in the direction it came from, after being tracked for more than a week by American Navy vessels on suspicion of carrying illegal weapons. The move keeps the U.S. and the rest of the international community guessing: Where is the Kana Nam going? Does its cargo include materials banned by a new U.N. anti-proliferation resolution?  [AP, Pauline Jelinek] The ship apparently turned around last...

Categories "United" Nations/Proliferation/Sanctions
June 30, 2009

Plan B Watch

A year ago, who would have suspected that we’d be celebrating the replacement of a liberal accommodationist named George W. Bush with a hard line neocon named Barack Obama, who would finally show signs of grasping not just the reality of North Korea’s bad faith, but some of the very best tools for breaking it? Christine Ahn’s misery (and Selig Harrison’s, and Leon Sigal’s) is my pleasure: The Treasury Department’s 2005 blacklisting of Macau’s Banco Delta Asia, which held a...

Categories Money Laundering/Sanctions/Washington Views
June 29, 2009

Obama Forms Team Plan B

The Washington Post is reporting that President Obama is forming an inter-agency team, much like the Illicit Activities Initiative that David Asher headed in G.W. Bush’s first term, to coordinate sanctions against North Korea: The White House is forming an interagency team to coordinate sanctions efforts against North Korea with other nations, senior administration officials said yesterday.  The team will be led by Philip S. Goldberg, a former ambassador to Bolivia who is slated to leave for China in the...

Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Sanctions/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
June 28, 2009

Sam Brownback Strikes Again

Now, he’s holding the nomination of Kurt Campbell to replace Chris Hill as Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.  Recently, Brownback has used the power of the nomination hold to become the congressional oversight over State’s spectacularly unsuccessful North Korea policy that no one on the Foreign Relations Committee is willing to be.  He’s brought a degree of public scrutiny to some of State’s dumbest decisions, and has managed to slow down — but not stop — the...

Categories Diplomacy/Sanctions/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
June 28, 2009

A North Korean Connection to Those Counterfeit Bonds?

It’s very short on specifics, but it’s the first published report affirmatively linking those fake bonds to North Korea: An Italian newspaper reports a recent mysterious case involving US$134.5 billion worth of counterfeit bonds has a North Korea connection. Earlier this month two Japanese nationals were caught in Italy allegedly trying to smuggle the bonds into Switzerland. Il Messaggero says the fake bonds may have been manufactured in North Korea since the two men are North Korean agents and are...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime/Sanctions
June 20, 2009

Sanctions Updates

The United Nations is getting to work on a list of North Korean entities to be sanctioned under UNSCR 1874, as Pentagon officials head to China to press their hosts on implementation and compliance. Off the Chinese coast, the U.S.S. John S. McCain continues to shadow the Kang Nam I and prepares to invoke the awesome mandate of the Security Council’s “pretty please” resolution.  Asked the obvious question, the State Department gives a quintessential State Department answer: “We would hope...

Categories "United" Nations/China/Proliferation/Sanctions
June 18, 2009

Collision Course? U.S. Navy Tracking N. Korean Ship

Less than a week after the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, the U.S. Navy is tracking a North Korean ship off the coast of China.  The ship is suspected of carrying prohibited cargo: Officials said the U.S. is monitoring the voyage of the North Korean-flagged Kang Nam, which left port in North Korea on Wednesday. On Thursday, it was traveling in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of China, two officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss...

Categories Proliferation/Sanctions
June 18, 2009

Breaking News: Treasury Issues Money Laundering Alert Against North Korea

This is going to be a big deal.  By the time I have time to update this post, the world financial system will have started purging itself of its links to North Korea.  More later. Update:   Call it Plan B light, and quite possibly a prelude to better things, but this by itself will have a significant effect. Why, you ask?  After all, this alert doesn’t freeze anything.  It’s merely a warning: The U.N. Security Council’s adoption of specific...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Sanctions
June 17, 2009

Take the Money and Run

Like I said:  the North Koreans snore though all those threats from Perry, Gingrich, and Eagleburger, but Stuart Levey scares the bejeezus out of them: North Korea is rushing to withdraw money from its overseas bank accounts after the United Nations imposed financial and other sanctions for its nuclear test, a report said. South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, quoting sources in Beijing, said the North had begun withdrawing funds from accounts in Macau and elsewhere for fear they would be...

Categories Japan/Money Laundering/Sanctions
June 12, 2009

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 (Updated with Analysis)

For better or for worse, they passed it. As with UNSCR 1695 and 1718 before it, this will be as effective as the implementation. Much has been said about how China undermined both of those resolutions, and that is true, but too little has been said about how much the U.S. State Department also did to undermine them for the sake of a failure called Agreed Framework II. The good news is that this time, there are some early and...

Categories "United" Nations/Sanctions
June 10, 2009

Sun Rises, Flowers Bloom, U.N. Fails to Pass Effective N. Korea Resolution

[Update:   I should clarify that this isn’t final and passed by the Security Council. This is leaked draft language from the agreed text.] My hopes that a long negotiation would mean tougher language were not realized.  China was more determined to shield North Korea from consequences than we were determined to impose them. Excerpts below the fold, with many thanks to a reader and friend. How is this weak?  In a nutshell, the language on sanctions and interdiction is...

Categories Missiles/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
June 10, 2009

S. Korea and Japan Join Sanctions Effort Against North Korea

Kyodo News and Yonhap are reporting that we’re close to announcing a deal on sanctions at the U.N. Security Council.  I’m hopeful that the length of the negotiation means that we’ve insisted on something reasonably tough on paper; less so that the Chinese and the Russians will cooperate in practice.  I tend to view claims that China has lost patience with North Korea at last as so much Chinese disinformation, meant to mask China’s premeditated enabling of North Korea’s misdeeds...

Categories "United" Nations/China/Money Laundering/Sanctions
June 7, 2009

Is Barack Obama Finding His Inner Churchill?

[Update: Clinton hints at putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and calls the charges against Laura Ling and Euna Lee “absolutely without merit or foundation.” Does that mean Clinton’s best information is that they were inside China?] I continue to be gleefully amazed by the toughness and seriousness of Obama’s words on North Korea. Now let’s see if they translate into effective action. In his young presidency, Obama has already jettisoned some of the...

Categories "United" Nations/Ling/Lee Incident/Sanctions/Washington Views
June 5, 2009

Obama Gears Up for “Plan B;” John Kerry Blocks Terror Re-Listing

I really don’t know what to make of this.  A young, inexperienced president, one whom the North Koreans arguably endorsed, comes into office showing every sign of being easier meat than Lance Bass in Riker’s Island.  The North Koreans, true to Joe Biden’s prophetic gaffe, and with their exquisite sensitivity to American weakness, don’t even let the man get inaugurated before they begin the noisy repudiation of every agreed framework, U.N. resolution, and armistice they can stuff into a shredder....

Categories "United" Nations/China/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime/NK Economics/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Politics