U.S. to help N. Koreans gain more access to outside information

U.S. to help N. Koreans gain more access to outside information. September. 09, 2016 07:17. by 워싱턴=이승헌 특파원ddr@donga.com.

The U.S. government has laid out a plan to help North Koreans have greater access to outside information.

It was reported that the U.S. State Department submitted a report to Congress that contains a strategy to increase access to outside information in North Korea to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday (local time). So far, Washington has sponsored North Korean defectors’ organizations to help increasing access to outside information to North Koreans, but it is the first time that it made this official. The report is required under the North Korean Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act that came into effect in February. The U.S. government issued a report on North Korean human rights in July, putting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on the list of sanctioned persons, and also submitted a report on promoting North Korean human rights to Congress last month to block the inflow of foreign money into North Korea leveraging North Korean workers abroad.

According to congressional sources, the report contains a detailed plan for making “unrestricted, unmonitored, and inexpensive electronic mass communications” available to the people of North Korea. They refer to such devices that can be used for communication with outside the country as radios, mobile phones, tablets, and USB drives. The report is said to have assessed its efforts to send outside information to the reclusive regime such as radio programs sponsored by the U.S. government including Voice of America (VOA) and specified other options that the U.S. government could use to send outside information to the country.

The Financial Crime Enforcement Network of the U.S. Treasury Department issued another alert on any financial transaction with North Korea on Wednesday following one in March. The Treasury Department reconfirmed that North Korea was designated as a primary money laundering concern in May, stating that U.S. nationals including U.S. financial institutions cannot have a financial transaction related to North Korea.