N. Korea leader praises 'indomitable' spirit of workers

"The newly produced five-ton trucks proved that the hostile forces' desperate efforts to block the advance of the DPRK make the indomitable spirit of the Korean workers stronger and make them produce a great miracle startling the world," Kim was quoted as saying.

North Korea was put on the list of states sponsoring terrorism for the 1988 bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed all 115 people aboard, but it was taken off in 2008 in an effort to accelerate denuclearization talks.

"This designation will impose further sanctions and penalties on North Korea and related persons and supports our maximum pressure campaign to isolate the murderous regime," Trump said, adding it should have been done "years ago".

Trump accused North Korea of supporting acts of terrorism including assassinations on foreign soil, referring to the assassination of Kim's half-brother at a Kuala Lumpur airport in February. The new U.S. move is largely seen as symbolic as North Korea is already under strengthened international sanctions.

Analysts say Pyongyang is more nervous about Beijing's toughened stance as 90 percent of its external trade comes through China. The South's Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon told a forum in October that sanctions are expected to affect some 90 percent of North Korea's annual exports worth about three billion US dollars.

Cho predicted North Korea may see an economic crisis which is more serious than the period of a great famine following the death of its founding father, Kim Il-sung, in 1994.

North Korea was battered by an economic crisis together with a series of natural disasters and the famine from 1994 to 1998 that killed up to three million people by some estimates. The crisis was commonly known as the Arduous March or the March of Suffering in North Korea. At that time, starvation and hunger-related illnesses were rampant.


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