North Korea Newsletter 324 (July 31, 2014)
2014/07/31 10:12
NEWS IN BRIEF
UNSC to call meeting on N. Korea's missile launches: sources
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- The United Nations Security Council will soon meet to deal with North Korea's recent spate of missile and rocket launches, government sources said on July 30.
The 15-member Security Council is expected to meet on Aug. 5, when it will hear details from a sanctions committee about the enforcement of U.N. resolutions which ban the North's nuclear and missile programs, according to sources.
The committee, which reports to the Security Council every 90 days, was established in 2006 after the North's first nuclear test.
The move comes as North Korea has beefed up its provocative acts in recent weeks by firing off short-range missiles and rockets, raising tension on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has threatened to conduct its fourth nuclear test after detonating nuclear bombs in 2009 and 2013.
The Security Council condemned North Korea's short-range missile launches on July 17, saying that such moves are in clear violation of U.N. resolutions.
It was an unusual move as short-range missile launches by North Korea have been mainly handled by the Security Council sanctions committee on the North.
But Pyongyang fired a short-range missile into the East Sea two days later, snubbing the Security Council's denouncement.
The move was the 15th time that the North has launched rockets this year, and the sixth ballistic missile launch in 2014.
The sanctions committee said on July 28 that it blacklisted the operator of a North Korean ship that was seized by Panama last year for carrying Soviet-era arms in violation of a U.N. arms embargo against the North.
The vessel, the Chong Chon Gang, was seized in July 2013 near the Panama Canal when it was found to be carrying arms from Cuba under piles of sugar.
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N. Korea halts operations of Soviet fighters after series of crashes
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Three North Korean MiG-19 fighters have crashed this year, leading to the suspension of flight drills involving the aircraft, South Korea's military sources said on July 30.
The supersonic MiG-19 aircraft is a Soviet second-generation fighter developed in 1953. Some 400 MiG variants are still in service in the communist North, accounting for about half of its fighters.
"At least three of the MiG-19s crashed during training missions -- one earlier this year, the others last month and earlier this month -- apparently due to their aged fuselages," a source said, declining to be identified.
"In the latest case, the plane crashed right after taking off at the North's air base in Goksan, Pyongan Province, which led Pyongyang to stop drills involving the model," he added.
Other details about the accidents, including casualties, were not available.
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U.S. House passes tougher sanctions bill on N. Korea
WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The U.S. House of Representatives on July 28 passed a bill calling for strengthening financial sanctions on North Korea and holding officials of the totalitarian nation accountable for human rights abuses.
The legislation -- H.R. 1771 or the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act -- was unanimously approved in a plenary session of the House, Congressional officials said. The bill, introduced last year by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), chairman of the House foreign relations committee, won approval from the committee in May.
The bill needs to pass the Senate in order to become a law.
Royce said in May that the bill would deprive North Korean leader Kim Jong-un of his ability to build nuclear weapons, and to repress and abuse the North Korean people. The congressman also said at the time that the bill is aimed at applying the same type of strong pressure the U.S. applied when it targeted a bank in Macau in 2005.
The legislation denies sanctioned North Koreans and their enablers access to all U.S. property and the U.S. financial system, and allows the U.S. government to sanction third-country persons and banks that facilitate North Korean proliferation, smuggling, money laundering and human rights abuses, according to the committee.
It also calls for sanctioning banks and foreign governments that facilitate the financial restrictions of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2094, which was adopted to punish Pyongyang after the regime carried out its third nuclear test last year.
Other measures in the bill include blocking and seizing any assets connected with North Korea's proliferation, illicit activities and human rights violations, and requiring enhanced inspections for ships and aircraft arriving from ports and airports that fail to inspect North Korean cargo carefully.
Still, it is unclear how effective the bill will be in pressuring North Korea, a country that has lived for decades under an array of international sanctions imposed for its pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, as well as its human rights violations.
It also remains to be seen whether the legislation will be able to win Senate approval in time as the mid-term election set for November is expected to overshadow other political issues in the coming months.
The bill will be automatically scrapped unless it is handled before the term of the current Congress expires on Jan. 3.
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