UN Security Council adopts ‘toughest sanctions regime ever’ against North Korea

The four metals generate around $100 million in revenue every year, the Seoul diplomat said. For the remainder of this year, the ceiling is $53.4 million, or one million metric tonnes.

The latest United Nations resolution would be the sixth raft of United Nations sanctions imposed on Pyongyang since its first nuclear test in 2006. That, the United States says, is meant to limit the country’s penchant for using its envoys and embassies to further its nuclear program.

The North’s underground detonation in September defied a previous resolution the council imposed only six months before in response to the North’s fourth nuclear test and another long-range missile test-fire.

China’s position, Geng said last week, is that United Nations sanctions “should not have a negative impact upon the livelihoods in North Korea or humanitarian needs”.

The resolution focuses on cutting the regime’s exports by at least eight-hundred-million USA dollars per year, or about a quarter of the export total. The goal is to place pressure on Pyongyang’s ability to fund its nuclear program.

North Korea has detonated five nuclear weapons in underground tests since 2006 – four while Obama was in office – and conducted a flurry of missile launches for its growing missile arsenal.

The 17-page resolution establishes a procedure under which the United Nations will monitor and report monthly on the amount of coal imported from North Korea by every member state. The North mainly exports coal through Dandong and other Chinese ports for badly needed foreign exchange.

South Korea, who are still technically at war with their northern neighbors, welcomed the sanctions and said it would seek additional sanctions against the North along with Japan and the U.S.

A North Korean flag is pictured at its embassy in Beijing January 6, 2016.

The TJWG plans to use their data to eventually take legal action against the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and his brutal regime.

Japanese Ambassador Koro Bessho said that sanction were created to “change the course of DPRK policy” and hopefully bring North Korea toward global dialogue and back to the negotiation table. Roughly 70 percent of the North’s trade runs through China, including most of its food supplies.

In addition to supporting Iran’s own missile program, Bank Sepah has also been involved, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, in transferring large sums of money from Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization to a North Korean firm associated with the Korea Mining Development Trading Bureau (KOMID), “a North Korean entity designated for providing Iran with missile technology”. But there are things the United States can be doing now, and first among them is working more closely with China to slow North Korea’s progress.

At the Radisson Blu Hotel on Tuesday, South Korean Ambassador to Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Ambassador Nuh Kyu-duk called on the government of Sierra Leone to help ensure stiffer measures against North Korea in their use of nuclear weapons.

What type of negotiations the North Koreans would return to, however, is unclear.

Chinese coal imports from the North have surged in recent months, raising concerns that the deals are generating revenue for Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs. The two countries traded goods worth $525.24 million in October, up 21.1 percent from a year ago. Pyongyang has been under United Nations sanctions since 2006. China backed the fresh sanctions adopted on 30 November. Russia, another permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, is expected to support them.