Kim Jong Il’s Christmas wish list just got dealt a heavy blow:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration wants North Korea’s attention, so like a scolding parent it’s trying to make it tougher for that country’s eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters.
The U.S. government’s first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government.
Kim, who engineered a secret nuclear weapons program, has other options for obtaining the high-end consumer electronics and other items he wants.
But the list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim’s swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis.
Heh.
November 30th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
Still not enough
While Eugene Volokh says huh and Doug at Below the Beltway thinks Kim has been dealt a heavy blow, TFM notes two important items that still need to be banned.
December 1st, 2006 at 8:00 am
[…] While Eugene Volokh says huh and Doug at Below the Beltway thinks Kim has been dealt a heavy blow, TFM notes two important items that still need to be banned. […]