Search Results for “luxury 1718”

August 4, 2015

Switzerland sells luxury watches to Kim Jong-Un, despite U.N. sanctions and food shortages

Throughout North Korea’s Great Famine, as millions of North Koreans either starved to death or watched their loved ones die, suppliers across Europe willingly sold Kim Jong-Il millions of dollars’ worth of luxury cars, yachts, cognac, and Swiss watches. In 2006, the U.N. Security Council recognized the obscenity of this practice by adopting Resolution 1718, which first banned the export of luxury goods to North Korea. Among European nations, probably none has done more than Switzerland to enable the democidal kleptocracy of...

Europe/Luxury Goods

March 18, 2007

Ill-Gotten Gains: Who Still Remembers Resolution 1718?

[Scroll down for updates.] (d) all Member States shall, in accordance with their respective legal processes, freeze immediately the funds, other financial assets and economic resources which are on their territories at the date of the adoption of this resolution or at any time thereafter, that are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the persons or entities designated by the Committee or by the Security Council as being engaged in or providing support for, including through other illicit means,...

"United" Nations/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/WMD

December 5, 2006

Kremlinology, Luxury Goods, and Stolen Rice

I don’t expect Resolution 1718’s luxury goods ban to have much of a short-term impact on North Korea, beyond focusing attention on all of the frivolous things Kim Jong Il would rather buy than rice. For the longer term, however, Korea watcher Ken Gause, in what is probably the definitive work of North Korean Kremlinology (ht) did a pretty good job before-the-fact of explaining the gradual trends we seem to be hoping we can advance (Gause actually spends almost none...

Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/Korean Politics/Kremlinology

October 15, 2006

U.N.S.C.R. 1718: Who Won, Who Lost (Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 13)

John Bolton: Winner. I’d like to hear John Bolton’s critics deny that, as with Resolution 1695, he has wrung far more effectiveness from the U.N. than we had come to expect. Not only should we confirm this man, pronto, we should clone him. Madeleine Albright never got results like these. The United States: Winner. We got everything we really wanted here: help constricting Kim Jong Il’s financial arteries the right to search his ships and planes. an embargo on the...

"United" Nations/Appeasement/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Geopolitics/Japan/Japan & Korea/Money Laundering/U.S. & Korea/WMD

October 14, 2006

U.N. Security Council Resolution Takes Shape Passes Resolution 1718

Update: Too good to be true? Looks like the vote will be delayed … probably so that the Chinese and Russians can water this thing down. —– Update 2: On again. Supposedly, there will be a vote today. —– Updated 3: It passed; analysis below, and the full text at the bottom of this post. Naturally, the North Korean delegate walked out and denounced everyone for being “gangster-like. This is what the psychologists refer to as “projection.” ...

"United" Nations/NK Economics/NK Military/WMD

October 30, 2019

Report: Kim Jong-un starves his people, America blamed, women hardest hit

It has now been five years since a U.N. Commission of Inquiry found exhaustive evidence of Pyongyang’s culpability for “crimes against humanity, arising from ‘policies established at the highest level of State,’” including “the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.” It has been less than a year since Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of witnesses to find that North Korea’s government has built a pervasive culture of rape, where officials prey on women with impunity. But now, a group...

Famine & Food Aid/Propaganda/Useful Idiocy

January 11, 2019

How to make Kaesong a safety valve for sanctions and a(nother) test of engagement

Fifteen years after the opening of Kaesong and more than twelve years after the approval of UNSCR 1718, Seoul has finally gotten around to reading the resolution that Kaesong violated for a decade. As I’ve harped on during that entire period, paragraph 8(d) required Seoul to “ensure” that its bulk dollar transfers to Pyongyang, which it deceptively called “wages,” were not diverted for nukes, missiles, or luxury goods. No matter how obnoxiously I would present that question to the South...

Kaesong

November 19, 2018

How engaging the wrong North Koreans set back openness, reform & peace

South Korea’s social-nationalist government, joined by too many Western academics of the sort who bask in its generosity and fear the withdrawal of it, has re-embraced the “Sunshine” hypothesis. This hypothesis equates nearly all economic “engagement” with North Korea’s military-industrial complex — also known as “the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” — with economic openness, and economic openness with political openness, disarmament, prosperity, and peace. The Western exemplar of no-questions-asked engagement is the NGO and media darling known as Choson...

North-South/Sunshine

March 5, 2018

Hey, I’ve got an idea! Let’s board, search & sink their smuggling ships & show it on TV.

LAST WEEK, REUTERS REPORTED THAT THE WHITE HOUSE is considering a proposal to board and search North Korean merchant ships for contraband on the high seas. This is one of the few forceful options against Pyongyang I could get behind. Unlike “bloody nose” proposals (which sound like they’re an urban myth anyway) and preemptive strike proposals (which exist, at least on the op-ed pages) the boarding of North Korean smuggling ships at sea is unlikely to trigger a sudden use-it-or-lose-it...

Arms Trafficking/Shipping sanctions

November 27, 2017

Treasury Dep’t hits Sun Sidong, N. Korea’s maritime smuggling & mineral exports

Here at OFK, we’ve chronicled a curious fact that few professional foreign policy scholars have noticed: China is opposed to unilateral sanctions, except when it isn’t. Last week — barely a week after President Trump returned from Beijing — he gave Xi Jinping something to oppose. OFAC designated Dandong Kehua Economy & Trade Co., Ltd., Dandong Xianghe Trading Co., Ltd., and Dandong Hongda Trade Co. Ltd. pursuant to E.O. 13810. Between January 1, 2013 and August 31, 2017, these three...

Arms Trafficking/Money Laundering/Shipping sanctions

November 17, 2017

Singapore’s trade ban with North Korea yields more questions than answers

At first glance, this looks like the State Department’s biggest coup yet in its campaign of progressive diplomacy against Pyongyang. “Singapore will prohibit all commercially traded goods from, or to, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK),” the city-state’s customs said in the notice sent to traders and declaring agents last Tuesday, referring to the country by its official name. The suspension would take effect from Nov. 8, Fauziah A. Sani, head of trade strategy and security for the director-general...

Luxury Goods/Money Laundering/Sanctions/Southeast Asia

February 27, 2017

Malaysia’s lax enforcement of North Korea sanctions has finally come home

Over the weekend, Malaysian authorities painstakingly decontaminated a terminal of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport where North Korean agents – including a diplomat – carried out a lethal attack with the nerve agent VX, a substance so deadly that a tiny droplet can kill an adult. The authorities are clearly concerned that the use of a persistent chemical weapon of mass destruction in a crowded airport terminal will cause panic among Malaysian citizens and members of the traveling public, as...

Arms Trafficking/Money Laundering/Sanctions/Shipping sanctions/Southeast Asia

North Korea Sanctions & Policy Enhancement Act FAQ

What does the NKSPEA do? The North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, or NKSPEA, was signed into law by President Obama in February 2016, after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test. The NKSPEA uses targeted financial and economic sanctions to isolate Kim Jong Un and his top officials from the assets they maintain in foreign banks, and from the hard currency that sustains their rule. These assets are derived in part from illicit activities and proliferation, and are used to...

Understanding North Korea sanctions: Third country Sanctions Laws

Introduction Background U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions U.S. sanctions laws U.S. sanctions Executive Orders U.S. sanctions regulations & general licenses Other significant U.S. statutes Third-country sanctions authorities U.N. member state implementation reports Canada Japan: Updates: 1/2013 | 4/2013 | 4/2013 | 8/2013 | 3/2015 | 12/2016 Hong Kong: Sanctions regulation, 2014 | SDN list, 2013 Nigeria: Bank advisory Singapore: Background | FAQ | Sanctions programs | Sanctions Regulations (2010 | 2016) Australia: Summary & links to sanctions regulations | SDN List, 2016 | Offenses & penalties New Zealand: 2006 regulations...

Understanding North Korea sanctions: U.N. Security Council Resolutions

Introduction Background U.N. Security Council sanctions resolutions: 1695 | 1718 | 1874 | 2087 | 2094 | 2270 | 2321 Broadly summarized, the resolutions — require North Korea to cease all activity related to the development of ballistic missiles, or its nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons programs, and to completely dismantle those programs; prohibit the transfer of goods or technology to or from North Korea that are related to, or could contribute to, North Korea’s WMD programs; prohibit scientific cooperation with, or...

Understanding North Korea sanctions: An explainer, links & authorities

Introduction: Why I created this page Background Until February of 2016, U.N. sanctions against North Korea were strong on paper but poorly enforced, and U.S. sanctions against North Korea were (contrary to the assumptions of many journalists and academics) comparatively weak — weaker than our sanctions against Belarus and Zimbabwe. Sanctions against North Korea strengthened considerably in 2016 with the passage in February of the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, and the U.N. Security Council’s approval of Resolution...

August 18, 2016

North Korean diplomats behaving badly, Part 2

On balance, I suppose Kim Jong-un probably prefers to see his foreign emissaries expelled than boarding KAL flights to Seoul. Still, since we last took inventory of Pyongyang’s distressed diplomatic corps in March, several more North Korean diplomats have been kicked out and sent home, and His Corpulency is apparently displeased. Pakistan In 2014, I wrote about North Koreans who were bootlegging alcohol in Muslim countries, quite possibly the only illicit North Korean activity that also provides a useful service to...

NK Crime/Sanctions

August 11, 2016

Angola is playing fast and loose with North Korea sanctions

Like its neighbor, Namibia, Angola aligned with the Soviet block during the Cold War. The Angolan government and the Namibian rebel movement, the South West Africa Peoples’ Organization or SWAPO, received military assistance from Cuba, which had up to 60,000 soldiers near Angola’s border with Namibia during a vicious set of guerrilla wars in the 1990s. The Soviet Union is gone, but historic alliances can be persistent things, especially when those alliances also come with financial ties. This has certainly...

Africa/Arms Trafficking/Sanctions

Search Results for: luxury 1718