President Obama Announces New Sanctions Against North Korea

President Obama has approved a fresh batch of sanctions against North Korea as a result of their role in the Sony hack.

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Complex Original

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Today, President Obama announced the first in a new round of sanctions against Kim Jong-un and Co. as a direct result of the North Korea-sponsored Sony hack.

According to a Reuters report, three companies—including North Korea’s primary intelligence branch, their primary arms dealer, and a defense research firm—and 10 North Korean officials are being specifically targeted by this new round of legal action. The Treasury Department has said that these people are currently working in Iran, Syria, China, Russia, and Namibia.

These new sanctions are the government’s first official response to the hack, which started over the Sony movie The Interview and blossomed into an international incident. While it’s suspected that the U.S. may have had something to do with a massive Internet outage in North Korea last week, that has yet to be confirmed.

A White House statement says that the sanctions are “a response to the Government of North Korea's ongoing provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions and policies, particularly its destructive and coercive cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.”

[via Huffington Post]

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