The UN Security Council was to meet yesterday to vote on whether to impose new sanctions on North Korea, including sharply cutting limits on its imports of refined oil, forcing all North Koreans working overseas to return home within 12 months and cracking down on the country’s shipping.
The draft resolution circulated to all 15 council members on Thursday would not go as far as the toughest-ever sanctions that have been sought by US President Donald Trump’s administration, such as prohibiting all oil imports and freezing international assets of North Korea’s government and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The resolution would cap North Korea’s crude oil imports at 4 million barrels each year and limit its imports of refined oil products, including diesel and kerosene, to 500,000 barrels each year. That would be a nearly 90 percent cut in imported fuels that are key to North Korea’s economy.
Photo: EPA
The draft, obtained by The Associated Press, would prohibit the export of food products, machinery, electrical equipment, earth and stones, wood and vessels from North Korea. And it would also ban all countries from exporting industrial equipment, machinery, transportation vehicles and industrial metals to the country.
The proposed sanctions are the council’s response to North Korea’s test on Nov. 29 of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile yet, which the North Korean government said is capable of hitting anywhere on the US mainland.
It was North Korea’s 20th launch of a ballistic missile this year and added to fears that the North might soon have a nuclear arsenal that can viably target the US mainland.
The US drafted the resolution and reportedly negotiated it with China before circulating the final text to the rest of the council.
The last sanctions were adopted on Sept. 11 in response to North Korea’s sixth and strongest nuclear test explosion eight days earlier.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said that the US administration believed the new sanctions imposed at that time combined with previous measures would ban more than 90 percent of North Korea’s exports reported last year.
The existing sanctions prohibited North Korea from importing all natural gas liquids and condensates. They also banned all textile exports and prohibited any country from authorizing new work permits for North Korean workers — two key sources of hard currency for the northeast Asian nation.
The US Mission to the UN said then that a cut-off on new work permits would eventually cost North Korea about US$500 million each year once work permits expire.
The US estimated that about 93,000 North Koreans are working abroad, a US official said.
The resolution to be voted on this morning would ban North Koreans from working abroad and expresses concern that the foreign earnings from these workers are being used to support the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The resolution would require all countries to send North Korean workers and safety monitors home within 12 months.
The draft resolution “notes with great concern” that North Korea is illegally exporting coal and other prohibited items “through deceptive maritime practices and obtaining petroleum illegally through ship-to-ship transfers.”
The proposed resolution would authorize UN member states to seize, inspect and impound any ship in their ports or territorial waters suspected of being involved in these illegal activities. It would also order all countries to prohibit companies from providing insurance or reinsurance to North Korean-affiliated vessels.
The draft would also order all countries to deregister any vessel suspected of being involved in the transport or transfer of banned items and it would ban the supply of used vessels to North Korea.
The resolution proposed adding 19 individuals to the UN sanctions blacklist.
Seventeen of those who would face travel bans and asset freezes if the resolution were to be adopted were foreign bank representatives. The other two were Kim Jong-sik, identified as a leading official guiding North Korea’s development of weapons of mass destruction, and Ri Pyong-chul, an alternate member of the Political Bureau of the Workers’ Party of Korea and first vice director of the North Korean Munitions Industry Department.
Like the previous sanctions resolution, the new draft said the council regrets North Korea’s “massive diversion of its scarce resources toward its development of nuclear weapons and a number of expensive ballistic missile programs.”
It said that 41 percent of the population is undernourished.
The proposed resolution called for a resumption of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program aimed at the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
It reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability in northeast Asia and “expresses its commitment to a peace, diplomatic and political solution to the situation ... through dialogue.”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was