U.N. decapitates North Korea's statue export business

By James Pearson SEOUL (Reuters) - Impoverished North Korea is not known for a bustling manufacturing industry but has earned a reputation in some African states for a highly visible export - its huge socialist-style statues. On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council imposed new sanctions aimed at cutting North Korea's annual export revenue by a quarter in response to its fifth and largest nuclear test in September. North Korea's manufacture and export of its cast bronze statues in the socialist-realist style is only a small source of hard currency for the isolated country, comprising about $10 million a year, according to one estimate.

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