WASHINGTON – The Obama administration aion kinah on Monday widened the scope of U.S. financial penalties against North Korea, escalating pressure on the Pyongyang regime to give up aion accounts its nuclear weapons.
The Treasury Department announced it is freezing the assets of several aoc cd key individuals, companies and organizations allegedly linked to Pyongyang's nuclear program or to management of a vast network of ff14 gold illicit economic activities such as narcotics trafficking and money laundering.
Targeted entities include one variously known as Office cheap ff14 gold 39 or Bureau 39, believed to control organizations inside North Korea and abroad that raise money for senior North Korean leaders. wow time card The enigmatic office produces, smuggles and distributes narcotics, the Treasury Department said, and handles the import of luxury cheap wow power leveling goods intended for Kim Jong Il, the top leader.
Treasury said that last year wow game time card Office 39 was involved in a failed attempt to buy, through China, two Italian-made luxury yachts worth more than $15 million for use by Kim.
sto gold In a report earlier this year, the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute said Office 39 is involved in the manufacture and distribution ff14 gil of illegal drugs, the counterfeiting of U.S. currency, and the manufacture and distribution of counterfeit cigarettes.
"The crimes organized by Office 39 are ff14 gold committed beyond the borders of North Korea by the final fantasy 14 gil regime itself, not solely for the personal enrichment of the leadership, but to prop up its armed forces and to fund its military programs," the institute's report said.
Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department's undersecretary final fantasy xiv gold for terrorism and financial intelligence, told reporters that additional U.S. sanctions would be announced in the warhammer gold weeks ahead.
"The destructive course the North Korean government is charting is facilitated by a lifeline" of illicit activities, Levey world of warcraft cd key told reporters. "The North Korean government helps maintain its authority by placating privileged elites with money and perks such as luxury goods world of warcraft time card like jewelry, luxury cars and yachts."
In a new step designed to curb such behavior, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that penalizes certain North Korean activities said to violate U.N. Security cheap aion kina Council resolutions.
Reuters
In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama cheap wow gold said these activities include arms sales, aion kina money laundering, the counterfeiting of goods and currency, bulk cash smuggling and drug trafficking.
Obama identified three North Korean entities — including ffxiv gold Office 39 — and one individual, Lt. Gen. Kim Yong Chol, commander of the intelligence organization involved in conventional ff14 gold arms trade. Any of their assets in the U.S. are now blocked, and Americans are prohibited from doing final fantasy xiv gold business with them.
Under an existing executive order, the administration on Monday froze the assets of three other gw2 gold individuals and five other North Korean organizations. Two of those individuals are associated with the nuclear program: Ri Hong Sop, believed to be a former head of the Yongbyon nuclear complex, and Ri Je Son, believed to be guild wars 2 gold director general of the General Bureau of Atomic Energy.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had announced the buy ff14 gold administration's intention to expand sanctions against North Korea when she was in Seoul in July. That was in the ffxiv gil tense aftermath of the March sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors — the worst military attack on the South since buy ffxiv gil the 1950-53 Korean War.
The U.S. and buy gw2 gold South Korea blamed North Korea, which has denied involvement and threatened to retaliate if it were to be punished.
Clinton said in July that new U.S. sanctions were meant to warn Pyongyang cheap gw2 gold to resist further military provocations.
Separately, the State buy aion gold Department announced that Clinton would meet on Tuesday with former President Jimmy Carter to discuss his trip to North Korea last week. Carter met with buy aion kina North Korean officials to secure the release of an American, Aijalon Gomes (gohmz), who had been held captive for seven months for crossing into the North from China on Jan. 25 for unknown reasons.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Clinton cheap aion kinah would thank Carter for undertaking his mission.
Crowley also said that while the aion online gold Obama administration appreciates North Korea's willingness to release Gomes on humanitarian grounds, that does not alleviate U.S. concerns about North aion leveling Korea's nuclear program.
North Korea, which tested a nuclear bomb in 2006, is believed to have cheap aion leveling enough weapons-grade plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs and last year revealed it has a uranium enrichment aion cd key program that would give the regime a second way to make nuclear weapons.
Five nations — China, Russia, South Korea, the U.S. aion cdkey and Japan — have been trying for years to negotiate with North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for aid and aion time card other concessions.
Pyongyang abandoned those talks last year after the U.N. Security aion power leveling Council condemned the regime for carrying out a long-range missile test. Weeks later, North Korea carried out a second aion power level nuclear test.