Search Results for “luxury 1718”

July 19, 2016

Andrei Lankov doesn’t really know if North Korea sanctions are working

It’s no secret that I’ve been a skeptic of “engagement” with Pyongyang from the very beginning, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Andrei Lankov. His Korea Times columns, his book, and his other writings on social, historical, and political matters have been so useful that I often cite them, despite his unrealized predictions or the silly things he occasionally writes. His view of engagement isn’t just the conventional approach of wheeling a catapult up the DMZ and flinging bundles of unmarked...

Appeasement/Sanctions

July 15, 2016

When Kim Jong-un nukes off — and he will — here’s how we should respond (updated)

The U.N. Security Council was already meeting about how to respond to North Korea’s latest missile tests when Pyongyang drew the curtain on its next act of satellite theater at Punggye-ri. Even without the latest sanctions, His Corpulency would probably have carried out another nuke test within the next year, if only to help consolidate his rule, and because the U.S. and South Korea are holding presidential elections. (North Korean dictators prefer to nuke off as new administrations assemble their...

Sanctions

March 10, 2016

Before Josef Schwartz spends an eternity in Hell, would Austria please send him back to prison?

Reading through the new Panel of Experts report, I saw a finding, at Paragraph 108, relating to two 2011 “[s]hipments of spare parts and equipment for submarines and military boats brokered by Green Pine” — a North Korean trading company designated by the U.N. over proliferation concerns — “from Austria to Angola and Viet Nam.” Reading on, I saw that “[t]he consignments were shipped from Vienna by an Austrian national, Josef Schwartz, through his company, Schwartz Motorbootservice.” Remember him? Sure you...

Europe/Luxury Goods

March 2, 2016

The U.N.’s new N. Korea sanctions will change the game … if they’re enforced.

The U.N. Security Council has just approved a new resolution, UNSCR 2270, sanctioning North Korea under Chapter VII and Article 41 of the U.N. Charter. Now that the Security Council has approved the resolution, I’m publishing this post, which I’ve been holding. It’s a strong text — very strong. In reviewing it, it’s useful to begin with my own wish list: Requiring member states to report North Korean property, accounts, and transactions to the U.N. Panel of Experts; Shipping sanctions...

"United" Nations/Sanctions

February 9, 2016

NYT: How China helped N. Korea buy ski lift cable cars, and break U.N. sanctions

Yesterday, I posted about hunger in North Korea, the fact that Kim Jong-un is spending the nation’s lunch money on missiles and ski resorts, and the importance of helping the North Korean people make that connection though a comprehensive information operations strategy. The New York Times has bolstered the evidence of North Korean and Chinese culpability for this tragedy with a detailed report on North Korea’s purchase of the equipment for its ski resort through China. Previously, NK News revealed that the...

China & Korea/Class Warfare/Luxury Goods

January 6, 2016

North Korea says it just tested an H-bomb. Here’s how we should respond.

North Korea has just announced that it tested a hydrogen bomb. The announcement came shortly after the U.S. Geological Survey measured an artificial earthquake in the vicinity of North Korea’s Punggye-ri test site (Google Earth images of the site, and the gulag next to it, here). Events are moving faster than reporters can type right now, but the most comprehensive reports at this moment are at NK News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post....

Proliferation/WMD

November 10, 2015

North Koreans need food & medicine, not Guus Hiddink’s “futsal” stadium

South Koreans remember Dutch soccer coach Guus Hiddink as the man who led their team to a successful performance in the 2002 World Cup. But when the history of a united Korea is written, North Koreans are likely to remember him less fondly. Hiddink has just returned from Pyongyang, where he signed a deal to help Kim Jong-Un build yet another expensive leisure facility that falls low on the average North Korean’s hierarchy of needs — a new “futsal” stadium:...

Class Warfare/Famine & Food Aid/Sports

November 3, 2015

China helps N. Korea nuke up & break sanctions, then says sanctions don’t work.

Two weeks ago, the Obama Administration’s point man on North Korea policy told Congress that sanctions are hurting Pyongyang. I must confess to some skepticism. [Ski lift made in China.] Instead, the evidence suggests that North Korea’s rich are getting richer, and its poor are staying poor. Materially speaking, the capital’s elites have never had it better, and openly buy imported consumer goods with dollars. Marcus Noland also sees evidence that, whatever the official statistics tell us, Pyongyang’s palace economy...

Anju Links

November 2, 2015

Tourists put $43M in Kim Jong-Un’s pockets last year

Despite a string of high-profile arrests of foreign tourists recently, Darwin’s light continues to draw slummers — and record hauls of their money — into Pyongyang: North Korea earned tens of millions of dollars from foreign tourists in 2014, around half of the hard currency it won from the lucrative inter-Korean industrial park, a researcher said Sunday. North Korea’s income from foreign tourists is estimated at US$30.6 million to $43.6 million last year, considering about 95,000 Chinese tourists and 5,000...

Engagement/Foreigners in N. Korea

November 1, 2015

Sam Pa, 88 Queensway, KKG & Bureau 39: A case study in how China helps N. Korea evade sanctions

Last week, I highlighted Andrea Berger’s excellent post at 38 North, calling for the U.N. Security Council to sanction North Korea’s third-party enablers. Berger named some of those enablers, but I’d like to name another one of the most important ones — the Hong Kong-based 88 Queensway Group, headed by one Sam Pa, also known by his birth name “Xu Jinghua” or any of “at least eight aliases,” each with its own matching passport. According to multiple news reports, Pa has extensive connections to Chinese politicians, and with its intelligence services....

Anju Links/China/Money Laundering/Sanctions

October 7, 2015

Sens. Gardner, Rubio & Risch to introduce new North Korea sanctions bill (updated)

The new bill was revealed in this column by Josh Rogin, and includes a link to the full text. The bill, which still has no number, will be the Senate’s second version of the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, following the introduction by Senators Menendez and Graham of S. 1747 in July. Both bills follow the lead of Ed Royce and Elliot Engel, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who introduced H.R. 757 in January. H.R. 757,...

Anju Links/Sanctions

October 1, 2015

@GloriaSteinem @ChristineAhn & @WomenCrossDMZ: When will you call on Kim Jong-Un end the rape & murder of women prisoners?

The European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea’s new report on forced labor is rightfully attracting media attention for calling out 18 countries — Algeria, Angola, China, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Malta, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Poland, Qatar, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates — for using North Korean slave labor. (In fairness, they might have included South Korea on the list, too.) What reporters should not overlook, however, is the section of the report on slave...

Human Trafficking/The Camps/Useful Idiocy

July 6, 2015

EU blocking of Korea National Insurance Corp. hints at key shift in N. Korea sanctions enforcement

The European Union’s administrative body, the European Commission or EC, has added seven additional designations to its regulation on “restrictive measures” against North Korea. The new designees include the Korea National Insurance Corporation, or KNIC, and six of its officials. There are several good reasons why the EC could have designated KNIC, but didn’t (the reason it did use is more interesting, but we’ll get to that later). First, KNIC has been linked to Pyongyang’s luxury goods imports, which have been banned since...

Europe/Sanctions/Shipping sanctions

May 18, 2015

GAO: State Dep’t must step up diplomacy to enforce N. Korea sanctions

The General Accountability Office has released a new report on the enforcement of sanctions against North Korea. The report, requested by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, will probably influence the contours of the Senate’s version of the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act. You can read the full report here and a summary here, and listen to a podcast here. The report correctly points to a key flaw in the enforcement of the sanctions that exist now — a lack of financial intelligence....

"United" Nations/Sanctions/U.S. Law

April 7, 2015

Why people call Christine Ahn “pro-North Korean”

Last night, CNN became the first news organization to do its due diligence on Christine Ahn, the organizer of the “Women Cross DMZ” march, and to call Gloria Steinem on this questionable association (Steinem stands by Ahn). CNN aired interviews with Greg Scarlatoiu of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and Korea scholar and former CIA Analyst Sue Terry. CNN’s report is a case study on how quickly a little scrutiny turns fame into infamy. CNN deserves praise for...

Useful Idiocy

February 27, 2015

So, what “appropriate measures” did the feds take against Dennis Rodman for violating N. Korea sanctions?

The newest U.N. Panel of Experts report* on North Korea sanctions enforcement contains this buried treasure: The first question this raises is what those appropriate measures were. The use of passive voice conceals whether the feds took any measures at all. The second question is why there should be a “lack of information” from Rodman, when the Commerce and Treasury Departments have subpoena powers and an obligation to cooperate with U.N. authorities enforcing North Korea sanctions. The law applies to...

Luxury Goods/Sanctions/Useful Idiocy

November 8, 2014

How to write like an expert on sanctions: Step 1, read the sanctions.

I don’t doubt that Stanford scholar Yong Suk Lee’s minor premise—that Pyongyang shifts economic pain to the proles and peasants—is correct. To extend this into a convincing policy argument, however, that Pyongyang would only shift the pain of sanctions to the North Korean people, requires a more convincing case for his major premise–that the deprivation of the North Korean people is a function of sanctions, rather than state policies that willfully impose that deprivation. It’s a case that Lee fails to make, in part because...