China Orders North Korean Businesses Closed by January

Military vehicles carry missiles with characters reading 'Pukkuksong' during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017.  REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
Military vehicles carry missiles with characters reading 'Pukkuksong' during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
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China Orders North Korean Businesses Closed by January

Military vehicles carry missiles with characters reading 'Pukkuksong' during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017.  REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
Military vehicles carry missiles with characters reading 'Pukkuksong' during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

China on Thursday ordered North Korean-owned businesses to shut down by January, cutting foreign revenue for the isolated North under UN sanctions imposed over its nuclear and missile programs.

North Korean businesses and ventures with Chinese partners must close within 120 days of the Sept. 11 approval of the latest sanctions, according to the Ministry of Commerce. That would be early January.

China is North Korea's main trading partner, making Beijing's cooperation essential to the success of sanctions imposed in an effort to top the North's pursuit of weapons technology. China has long been North Korea's diplomatic protector but has gone along with the latest penalties out of growing frustration with leader Kim Jong Un's government.

The latest round of sanctions approved by the UN Security Council ban member countries from operating joint ventures with North Korea.

The sanctions also ban sales of natural gas to North Korea and purchases of the North's textile exports, another key revenue source. They order other nations to limit fuel supplies to the North.

North Korean companies operate restaurants, trading outfits and other ventures in China, helping to provide the North with foreign currency.

China, which provides the bulk of North Korea's energy supplies, announced Saturday it would cut off gas and limit shipments of refined petroleum products, effective Jan. 1. It made no mention of crude, which makes up the bulk of Chinese energy supplies to North Korea and is not covered by the UN sanctions.

China also has banned imports of North Korean coal, iron and lead ore, and seafood since early September.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Commerce defended its recent imports of North Korean coal as permitted by UN sanctions.

A ministry spokesman, Gao Feng, said imports that were reported in August trade data were allowed by a "grace period" for goods that arrived before the UN ban took effect.

The imports are "in line with the (UN) resolution," Gao said.



US Judge Orders Trump Administration to Reinstate Thousands of Fired Workers

US President Donald Trump speaks during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 13 March 2025. (EPA)
US President Donald Trump speaks during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 13 March 2025. (EPA)
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US Judge Orders Trump Administration to Reinstate Thousands of Fired Workers

US President Donald Trump speaks during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 13 March 2025. (EPA)
US President Donald Trump speaks during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 13 March 2025. (EPA)

A California federal judge on Thursday ordered six US agencies to reinstate thousands of recently-hired employees who lost their jobs as part of President Donald Trump's purge of the federal workforce.

The ruling by US District Judge William Alsup during a hearing in San Francisco is the most significant blow yet to the effort by Trump and top adviser Elon Musk to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy. Government agencies are facing a Thursday deadline to submit plans for a second wave of mass layoffs and to slash their budgets.

Alsup's ruling applies to probationary employees at the US Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Interior and the Treasury Department.

The judge said the US Office of Personnel Management, the human resources department for federal agencies, had improperly ordered those agencies to fire workers en masse even though it lacked the power to do so.

“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” said Alsup, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton.

Probationary workers typically have less than one year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal employees. They have fewer job protections than other government workers but in general can only be fired for performance issues.

Alsup ordered the agencies to reinstate workers who were fired over the last few weeks, pending the outcome of a lawsuit by unions, nonprofit groups, and the state of Washington.

He did not order the 16 other agencies named in the lawsuit to reinstate workers, but said he would promptly issue a written decision that could expand on Thursday's ruling.

A Veterans Affairs spokesperson declined to comment. A Department of Interior spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on litigation over personnel matters.

The White House and the other agencies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The plaintiffs include the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal workers. The union's president, Everett Kelley, in a statement said the decision was an important victory against "an administration hellbent on crippling federal agencies and their work on behalf of the American public."

25,000 WORKERS

Alsup last month had temporarily blocked OPM from ordering agencies to fire probationary employees, but declined at the time to require that fired workers get their jobs back. The plaintiffs subsequently amended their lawsuit to include the agencies that fired probationary workers.

About 25,000 workers across the US government had been fired as of March 5, according to a Reuters tally, and another 75,000 have taken a buyout. The Trump administration has not released statistics on the firings, and it was not immediately clear how many employees could be affected by Thursday's decision.

In the lawsuit before Alsup, the plaintiffs claim the mass firings were unlawful because they were ordered by OPM rather than left to the discretion of individual agencies.

OPM has maintained that it merely asked agencies in a January 20 memo to identify probationary workers and decide which ones were not "mission critical" and could be fired, and did not order them to terminate anyone.

The agency on March 4 revised that memo, adding that it was not directing agencies to take any specific actions with respect to probationary employees.

OPM has pointed to the updated memo and to press releases by agencies as proof that it had no control over agencies' decisions.

Alsup on Thursday told the US Department of Justice lawyer representing OPM, Kelsey Helland, that he did not believe that was true, and scolded the government for not presenting OPM's acting director, Charles Ezell, to testify at the hearing.

“I’ve been practicing or serving in this court for over 50 years and I know how we get at the truth, and you’re not helping me get at the truth. You’re giving me press releases, sham documents,” Alsup said.

Helland said it was common for presidential administrations to prevent high-ranking agency officials from testifying in court, and that the information provided by OPM in court filings was enough to prove that it never ordered agencies to terminate workers.

Along with the lawsuit in California, several other challenges to the mass firings have been filed, including cases by 20 Democrat-led states and a proposed class action by a group of fired workers.

The Merit Systems Protection Board, which reviews federal employees' appeals when they are fired, earlier this month ordered the Agriculture Department to reinstate nearly 6,000 probationary workers at least temporarily.