AGL 40.40 Increased By ▲ 0.20 (0.5%)
AIRLINK 129.25 Increased By ▲ 0.14 (0.11%)
BOP 6.81 Increased By ▲ 0.21 (3.18%)
CNERGY 4.13 Increased By ▲ 0.10 (2.48%)
DCL 8.73 Increased By ▲ 0.28 (3.31%)
DFML 41.40 Increased By ▲ 0.15 (0.36%)
DGKC 87.75 Increased By ▲ 0.75 (0.86%)
FCCL 33.85 Increased By ▲ 0.50 (1.5%)
FFBL 66.40 Increased By ▲ 0.50 (0.76%)
FFL 10.69 Increased By ▲ 0.15 (1.42%)
HUBC 113.51 Increased By ▲ 2.81 (2.54%)
HUMNL 15.65 Increased By ▲ 0.42 (2.76%)
KEL 4.87 Increased By ▲ 0.09 (1.88%)
KOSM 7.62 Decreased By ▼ -0.21 (-2.68%)
MLCF 43.10 Increased By ▲ 1.20 (2.86%)
NBP 61.50 Increased By ▲ 1.00 (1.65%)
OGDC 192.20 Increased By ▲ 9.40 (5.14%)
PAEL 27.05 Increased By ▲ 1.69 (6.66%)
PIBTL 7.26 Increased By ▲ 1.00 (15.97%)
PPL 150.50 Increased By ▲ 2.69 (1.82%)
PRL 24.96 Increased By ▲ 0.40 (1.63%)
PTC 16.25 Increased By ▲ 0.01 (0.06%)
SEARL 71.30 Increased By ▲ 0.80 (1.13%)
TELE 7.25 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-0.68%)
TOMCL 36.29 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.03%)
TPLP 8.05 Increased By ▲ 0.20 (2.55%)
TREET 16.30 Increased By ▲ 1.00 (6.54%)
TRG 51.56 Decreased By ▼ -0.14 (-0.27%)
UNITY 27.35 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
WTL 1.27 Increased By ▲ 0.04 (3.25%)
BR100 9,967 Increased By 125.2 (1.27%)
BR30 30,751 Increased By 714.7 (2.38%)
KSE100 93,292 Increased By 771.2 (0.83%)
KSE30 29,017 Increased By 230.5 (0.8%)

Japan said Friday it will impose fresh sanctions on North Korea by freezing the assets of Chinese and Namibian firms doing business with the nuclear-armed state. The move against a half dozen organisations and a couple of individuals comes days after Washington expanded its own punitive measures against Chinese and Russian firms, as well as people linked to Pyongyang.
The US move drew an angry response from Beijing, North Korea's key ally, while Japanese media said Friday that Namibia has been tightening its links to the North in recent years. "We will continue to make strong calls (for North Korea) to take actions toward denuclearisation," Yoshihide Suga, the Japanese government's top spokesman, told a regular press briefing.
"Now is the time to apply pressure," he added. The sanctions are aimed at disrupting the flow of cash funding North Korean weapons programmes, which are in violation of United Nations resolutions. Japan has previously frozen the assets of entities and individuals involved in natural resources and research work related to Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development programmes.
The US and its allies, particularly Japan and South Korea, have been on high alert in recent months as North Korea carried out successive missile tests. Tensions have eased since North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un pulled back from a plan to send a salvo of missiles towards the US Pacific territory of Guam.
But Pyongyang Wednesday disclosed significant technological advances and ambitious plans to further improve its missile capabilities. US President Donald Trump, like his predecessors, has called on China to play more active roles in convincing North Korea to stop threatening its neighbours and the US.
But China has so far been lukewarm on the idea, preferring to address the issue through long-stalled talks. On Friday, China hit out the new Japanese sanctions. "We firmly oppose any other unilateral sanction outside the framework of the UN Security Council, in particular those targeting Chinese entities and individuals," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing in Beijing.
"We urge the Japanese side to stop this and if it insists on doing this wilfully, it must accept the consequences," she added, without elaborating. China backed new United Nations sanctions against North Korea this month and has announced that it was upholding them by banning imports of iron, iron ore and seafood from its neighbour. Beijing had already suspended imports of North Korean coal in February.

Comments

Comments are closed.