"Today's sanctions target the North Korean military and regime officials engaged in flagrant abuses of human rights," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. "We also are targeting North Korean financial facilitators who attempt to keep the regime afloat with foreign currency earned through forced labor operations." Among those targeted by the sanctions were the director and the deputy director of the Military Security Command, the first vice minister of the Ministry of People's Security and the labour minister. "We are especially concerned with the North Korean military, which operates as secret police, punishing all forms of dissent," the statement said. North Korea routinely denies widespread allegations of rights abuses.

Source: bd News24 October 26, 2017 17:15 UTC