Ostracised North Korea finds warm friends in Cold-war era
The US Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to tighten economic sanctions on North Korea, seeking to punish the reclusive Asian nation for its provocative recent nuclear test and rocket launch
Seoul
This is not the first time sanctions have been imposed on the hermit country. Pyongyang has been squeezed by layers of U.N. sanctions since 2006 targeting its once-lucrative arms trade and the flow of money that financed its weapons program.
Despite being cut off from much of the world for conducting a decade of banned rocket and nuclear tests, including the launch of a rocket last weekend that North Korea says put a satellite into space, North Korea is managing to maintain business ties and friendly diplomatic relations.
FRIENDS WHO COUNT
- Backing in U.N. General Assembly (votes on human right) from Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Venezuela, as well as from China and Russia.
- China accounts for 90 percent of North Korea’s trade; others include Russia, India and Thailand.
- India exported precious metals and stones worth nearly $2 million to North Korea in 2014, up from $103,000 in 2013.
- North Korean artists and construction engineers sent to Africa to build public artworks. A $27 million North Korea-built bronze statue called the Monument of African Renaissance that opened in 2010 in Senegal stands taller than the Statue of Liberty.
- Has imported Indian dyes and paints, Russian mineral oil and Thai rubber, and sold electronic components to India and clothes to Russia.
- Provides training on the use of AK-47s and pistols to Uganda
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