North Korean Economy Watch. Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein.

I’ll try to gather some of the many stories on the impact of sanctions on the North Korean economy in this post, starting with the one below from Reuters (with my annotation in brackets, [BKS]): DANDONG, China (Reuters) – The United Nations may have failed to slow North Korea’s weapons programs, but the country’s economy is already showing signs it is feeling the squeeze from the ongoing clampdown on trade, including a curb on fuel sales by China. The latest sanctions agreed on Monday by the UN Security Council ban the export of textiles from North Korea, one of its few substantial foreign currency earners. They also capped imports of oil and refined products, without imposing the full ban the United States had sought. Chinese traders along the border with North Korea and some regular visitors to the isolated country said scarcer and costlier fuel, as well as earlier UN sanctions banning the export of commodities such as seafood and coal, are now taking a toll.“Our factory in North Korea is about to go bankrupt,” said an ethnically- Korean Chinese businessman in Dandong who sells cars refurbished at a factory in North Korea.

He declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the situation.[My emphasis: Sanctions may target the regime first and foremost, but civilians certainly do not go untouched by them./BKS]“If they can’t pay us, we’re not going to give them goods for free,” he said, referring to his North Korean customers. A trader at another auto- related businesses in Dandong said cross- border trade had been hurt over the past few years, which he attributed to sanctions and less access to petrol.

News items, upcoming events, admissions requirements, faculty listing and publications. 'AGT's' Angelica Hale On Performing With Darci Lynne & Preacher Lawson: 'I Love Them' 'AGT' Winner Darci Lynne Excitedly Shares About Her Vegas Debut. Xmovies8 - Watch Movies online for Free with Xmovies8.vc! It's xmovies8 official site, you can find the newest movies here and watch it for free. Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in January, gave the keynote address at this year's Senior Convocation.

Several Chinese traders told Reuters the sanctions had stymied North Korean businesses’ ability to raise hard currency to trade.“Last month sales were really bad, I only sold a couple of vehicles,” said the Chinese trader who sells new trucks, vans and minibuses to North Korea. In August last year, I sold tens of vehicles and I thought that was bad.”On top of the sanctions, some traders said Chinese officials have stepped up efforts to curb smuggling across the border, a key source of fuel in the northern parts of North Korea.[Question is: for how long will these efforts last? BKS]And Chinese bank branches in the northeast have curtailed doing business with North Koreans, according to branch staff [BKS emphasis]. FUEL PRICES SURGEStill, North Korea has made strides in increasing its economic independence and not all traders or observers agreed the international pressure was having a major economic impact. Many residents, long accustomed to restrictions and shortages, were most concerned about the risk of already tight fuel supplies being cut further, said Kang Mi- jin, a North Korean defector in Seoul who reports for the Daily NK website.“If the U. S. were to say they plan to bomb Pyongyang, North Koreans wouldn’t care less.

This report examines 24 incidents, resulting in 32 deaths, involving Philippine National Police personnel between October 2016 and January 2017. Unfortunately, my travels and my business usually bring me to New York City a few times a year. I really don’t care for it. Bad smells, democracy and Chipotle are. A comprehensive look at what to watch on Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Amazon and more over the next few months – from This Is Us to David Simon’s The Deuce.

With Lorna Patterson, Hal Williams, Eileen Brennan, Lisa Raggio. Based loosely on the 1980 film of the same name, this series follows Private Judy Benjamin, a spoiled. Easily manage the Citrix portfolio of products from the cloud. Simplify control of your apps, desktops, content, devices and network. Explore Citrix Cloud services.

But if China says they are considering slashing oil exports to North Korea because of missile or nuclear tests, North Koreans would absolutely freak out,” she said.[BKS emphasis.]Reuters reported in late June that state- run China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) had suspended sales of gasoline and fuel to North Korea over concerns it would not get paid, and Chinese customs data showed that gasoline exports to the North had dropped 9. Petrol and diesel prices in North Korea surged after the cut and have almost doubled since late last year. In early September, petrol cost an average of $1. December, according to data from the defector- run Daily NK.“The cost of living has gone up, the price of petrol has risen and there are fewer cars on the streets,” a foreign resident of the North Korean capital told Reuters.

Watch Private Benjamin Online (2017) Movieclips

Watch Private Benjamin Online (2017) Raw

The only thing that had become cheaper was coal, he said, after China banned North Korean coal imports earlier this year. Watch The Stoning Of Soraya M. Online on this page. Some of the scarcity of oil products and higher prices may have been caused by hoarding in anticipation of a clampdown on supply.[Hoarding does seem like a likely culprit judging from the price trend from late spring this year.

Basically, none of the current measures are ones that North Korea likely didn’t expect. BKS]North Korea canceled an air show scheduled for this month in the coastal city of Wonsan, citing “current geopolitical circumstances”. Several Chinese traders said they believed it was because the military is saving aviation fuel. The new UN resolution imposes a ban on condensates and natural gas liquids, a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products, and a cap on crude oil exports to North Korea at current levels. OIL NOT BOMBSNorth Korea uses far less crude than during its industrial heyday in the 1.

U. S. Energy Information Administration. After cut- price supplies from China and the Soviet Union ended following the Cold War, consumption dropped from 7. EIA.[Oil consumption is already relatively low — key point. BKS]The use of small- scale solar has become widespread in the North, with many apartment balconies dotted with panels providing power for cooking and lighting. China has not disclosed crude exports to North Korea for several years but industry sources say it supplies about 5. North Korea through an aging pipeline. The pipeline already operates at the minimum level for which the waxy crude from China’s Daqing oil fields can flow without clogging, according to a senior oil industry source.

Chun Yung- woo, a former South Korean envoy on the North Korean nuclear issue, said the North could endure for a year or two without oil imports.“North Koreans are so used to living in harsh economic conditions that they would just get by for at least one year even if the oil ban is adopted, rationing the existing stockpile among top elites at a minimum level and replacing cars, tractors, equipment with cow wagons, human labor etc,” he said.“They would also manage to produce oil from whatever resources are available, whether it be coal, trees or plants.”Full article: As North Korea girds for latest sanctions, economy already feels the squeeze. Sue- Lin Wong. Reuters. This last point is extremely important: the weakness of the North Korean economy is also its strength. It is still highly underdeveloped and also resilient because so much of it functions on ad- hoc, creative solutions. That’s not to say that current sanctions (if fully enforced — a big “if”) may come to hurt the economy and society if pressure is continued over a longer stretch of time, but they’re unlikely to be completely crippling right away.(UPDATE 2. Added below is some Daily NK coverage from last week on consequences inside North Korea and for North Koreans of the current economic pressure.

On September 1. 3th, they reported that large numbers of North Korean workers returning home from China had been spotted at the Dandong railway station: Daily NK has received photos of North Korean workers waiting to board trains home at Dandong’s railway station (Liaoning Province) on the morning of September 4. They were reportedly working at a cold storage facility in China but having failed to have their contracts extended, have had no choice but to return home.“Every day, groups of North Korean workers are returning to their country via Dandong railway station due to the sanctions. The Chinese factory owners used to prefer North Korean workers because of the cheaper wages, but now they are employing Chinese workers even though their wages are higher,” a source familiar with North Korean affairs in China told Daily NK. North Korean trading companies were previously using a system to dispatch workers to overseas factories for three to five year intervals, with an extension of the contracts or the signing of new ones upon expiration of the original contract. Officially, the companies are required to recall workers whose contracts have ended and dispatch new workers, but many workers have been extending their stays in exchange for bribes given to the company managers.