BEIJING // South Korea yesterday announced a raft of financial sanctions against its northern neighbour for torpedoing a navy ship in March, including severing economic exchanges with the Pyongyang worth US$300 million (Dh1.1 billion).
What was not officially announced, but was leaked by government officials to the media, is Seoul's plan to target the personal bank accounts of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
On Monday, Lee Myung-bak, the South Korean president, said he would sever nearly all trade with North Korea and deny its commercial ships use of shipping lanes in South Korean waters.
He also said South Korea would freeze all of its remaining exchanges with the communist North, except for a joint industrial park. It would also embark on anti-North military drills to enhance combat readiness, and restart anti-North Korea loud speaker broadcasts across the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Koreas, which have been suspended for the past six years.
In response, the North threatened to shoot at the huge loud speakers, which are mounted on the side of a mountain. The South's defence minister, Kim Tae-young, warned that the North's provocation would incur a military retaliation from the South.
"Today's measures, together with previous sanctions will turn out to be very effective as they prevent the influx of capital and industrial technology from entering North Korea," said Cho Myung-chul, a former professor at the North's elite Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, who defected and now works at the South's state-run Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in Seoul.
South Korea yesterday also formally announced that it would refer the issue to the UN Security Council, but this would be a lengthy process and would likely face resistance from China, a veto-wielding member of the council and ally of the North. Beijing has not yet endorsed the international investigation that blamed Pyongyang for the attack, according to analysts.
"Chinese investigators were also not part of the multinational investigation team that looked into the case. It was a conclusion largely spearheaded by the US and South Korea," said Jiang Longfan, a North Korea expert at Yanbian University, located near the north-east Chinese border with the North.
Expecting hurdles from China to further tightening UN sanctions, South Korea wants to mete out immediate measures against North Korea that especially focus on the financial accounts that channel money to Mr Kim.
Anonymous South Korean officials told media outlets that the impact of such a move will be as painful as a military retaliation to the North's leadership. "This method will render extreme and real pain to North Korean leadership without having to go through the UN Security Council," an unnamed official told the South's official Yonhap news agency over the weekend.
Analysts agree with this assessment. "North Korea dreads it," said Dong yong-sueng, head of the North Korean economic security team at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul. "It's both very painful and inconvenient to North Korea. It's like you cannot use your banking card any more," Mr Dong said.
Information on Mr Kim's personal financial accounts first surfaced in 2005. The US government at the time was cracking down on the use of the international financial system by what it considered "rogue states" and "state sponsors of terrorism". As a result of these investigations, a Macao-based bank, Banco Delta Asia, was blacklisted.
North Korea used the bank as a major gateway for worldwide money laundering. But investigators only later found out that the North Korean accounts in the bank had another very important role in supplying personal funds to Mr Kim and his family.
The North's accounts at Banco Delta only contained $24m, a relatively minuscule sum even for the impoverished North. But Pyongyang reacted to the crackdown by boycotting six-party nuclear talks. The North's hypersensitivity aroused the curiosity of South Korean and US authorities and found out it was because the bank had managed Mr Kim's personal funds.
"The jittery response was not about 24 million ? It's because they touched chairman Kim's personal cashbox," said Lee Woo-tak, in his 2009 book , Survival Game between Obama and Kim Jong Il.
Lee, a South Korean journalist who covered all of the Beijing-hosted six-party nuclear talks, said the freezing of Mr Kim's personal account was "much more effective than any other financial measure that the US had been pursuing before".
Last week, the US also hinted at taking similar actions. The US state department spokesman Philip Crowley on Thursday told reporters: "We have the authority to take unilateral actions in the financial sector and other areas ? we will look at how we can send a clear signal to North Korea."
Exact figures on Mr Kim's personal assets are unknown, but the US treasury department previously estimated that the total amount of money North Korea siphons into the personal accounts of senior officials through international financial network by producing counterfeit US currency and drug trafficking to be around $500m annually.
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
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The specs
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Jumanji: The Next Level
Director: Jake Kasdan
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Jack Black, Nick Jonas
Two out of five stars
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylturbo
Transmission: seven-speed DSG automatic
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Engine: 6.2-litre V8
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Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Tips for job-seekers
- Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
- Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
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Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin
Game Changer
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Stars: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S J Suryah, Jayaram
Rating: 2/5
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
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Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
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The specs
Engine: 2-litre 4-cylinder and 3.6-litre 6-cylinder
Power: 220 and 280 horsepower
Torque: 350 and 360Nm
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Price: from Dh136,521 VAT and Dh166,464 VAT
On sale: now
