http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/19/japan.nkorea.ap/index.html

"TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japan's Cabinet approved a new set of financial sanctions against North Korea on Tuesday in response to the communist nation's missile tests in July, the government's top spokesman said.

Australia also imposed similar restrictions Tuesday.

The sanctions -- called for in a U.N. Security Council resolution that denounced the July launches -- ban fund transfers and overseas remittances by groups and individuals suspected of links to North Korean weapons programs.

"By taking these measures, we have demonstrated the resolve of the international community and Japan that is in line with the U.N. Security Council resolution," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said.

"I do not know how North Korea will respond, but I hope North Korea will accept the U.N. Security Council resolution in a sincere manner and respond to various concerns of the international community," he said.

Separately, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the sanctions were "consistent with our strong international stand against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

Japan's Finance Ministry and other government bodies quickly implemented the new sanctions. Parliament has previously voted to allow the government to impose such measures.

The new restrictions target 15 groups and one individual that have links to the North's weapons programs, Abe said. The measures also will tighten identification checks on people making suspicious transactions.

Communist North Korea's moribund economy is heavily dependent on cash infusions from a large community of sympathetic ethnic Koreans in Japan. Abe said the government devised its list of sanction targets using information from other governments and information from its own findings, including groups with histories of illegal activities. He did not give specifics."