Monthly Archive: May, 2020

Feds unseal 14-count indictment against 33 agents of sanctioned North Korean bank

The U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia has done it again. Today, its prosecutors unsealed indictments against 28 North Korean and 5 Chinese representatives of North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank (FTB) who are or were posted in China, Russia, Libya, Thailand, Kuwait, and Austria. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) designated the FTB for proliferation financing in 2013. The North Korea Sanctions Regulations later put additional restrictions on dealings with the North Korean financial industry....

Tim Shorrock spreads disinformation about biological warfare in Korea. That makes him a disinformant.

If you’re unfamiliar with self-described Marxist and journalist Tim Shorrock, consider yourself fortunate. But if you’re on Twitter and you’re interested in Korea, you’ve probably run across his tweets. You might even have been blocked by him. And while the world is wide enough for all sorts of kooky viewpoints (as Mao said, “Let a hundred flowers bloom,” as he pulled the cord and started his lawnmower), Shorrock was one of the first “journalists” to whom Moon Jae-in gave an...

OFAC’s new North Korea (sort of) designations

Today, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control published a colossal list of amendments to the North Korea designations on its list of Specially Designated Nationals—its sanctions blacklist for the financial industry. The amendments are requirements under the new Otto Warmbier North Korea Nuclear Sanctions and Enforcement Act, the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, and the regulations promulgated under those authorities. Today’s announcement is an encouraging sign that the administration is feeling more pressure to enforce these...