we want no new sanctions. even debating sanctions in iran is a mistake. people from california want diplomacy not new wars, not new sanctions. >> new sanctions will undermine diplomatic efforts. >> i'm going to call the meeting to order. i would say to people in the audience that we would appreciate you refraining. we understand people have strong emotions about much of what happens in this committee and others and we hope you'll respect the work of the committee. i have never operated a gavel. i learned as a young man how to operate a hammer. i understand my staff told me to be a little more gentle with this, but i want to welcome everybody to the committee. we've switched sides. that was not symbolic. i understand just because of the number of seats it works better this way. i do want to welcome the new members of the committee and say that under senator menendez's leadership, i really believe that this committee has caused it's profile to rise. we've passed a number of very important pieces of legislation out of this committee, and i think it's because

we are not sanctions doubters. but neither do we believe layering on additional sanctions is always the right move. sanctions are one tool in our tool kit alongside diplomacy military action, and the myriad other ways that we project power. if diplomacy does not succeed the president said he, quote will be the first one to come to congress and say we need to tighten the screws. but in our view now is the time to give diplomacy every chance to succeed not to create a new sanctions tool. thank you and i look forward to addressing your questions. >> thank you both. and, again i just want to make sure everybody understands this committee is not the committee that deals with sanctions. and i know the witnesses certainly have the opportunity to say anything they wish in -- in testimony, but that is not the issue that is before us. i'm sure you may get some questions about things other than iran today, and people will use this venue for that. but i would just like to ask this question of mr. blinken. do you believe congre

sanctions are key component. we are not sanctioned doubters.either do we believe that the layering on of additional sanctions are the right move. they are one tool in our toolbook, along with diplomacy, and a number of ways that we project our. if the policy does not succeed, the present them said he will be the first person to come to congress and say, we need to tighten the screws. in our view, this is the opportunity to make diplomacy succeed. thank you and i look forward to address your questions. >> thank you both. again, i want everyone to understand that this is not the committee that deals with sanctions. i know that witnesses certainly have the opportunity to say anything that they wish in testimony. that is not the issue that is before us. i'm sure you may get some questions about other things that i __ i __ iran today. may i ask, do you think congress has a role to play in these negotiations? >> yes i do. first, we would not be where we are without the role the congress authority plate. i think the sanctions that have been imposed to

as we have lined with learned with any nation that has sanctions that is subject to sanctions does not work if they can go around our block and go with other countries and get money or trade oil or trade products or anything else. and i have to say as much as i disagree with the president on some of these things and publicly disagree with them on the interim agreement where i never would have loosened sanctions at all did a good job getting the nations of the world together. they may not stick together but that is important, as is our bipartisan policy. one other.i want to make have a great deal of sympathy for mr. venters amendment. as well as working with sen. corker and sen. menendez to come up with congress having final say. that that is a good check a very good check, and it makes sense. and and so i hope we we will pursue that. it must be done in the right way and carefully. but making clear that their will be additional sanctions this is a good step forward. i hope we can keep our bipartisan coalition together and make it clear to the iranians who i do not trust in any way that

very powerful sanctions on russia.as, i think, we won't go into great detail here in this setting, but it's had an effect on the russian economy and on i think, how they are perceiving what's happening in ukraine. i think secretary blinken is right. it has not, to our knowledge, sort of bled over into the iran negotiations. >> if you would talk a little bit more about that because one of the things that i thought was very telling was when russia cancelled the missile deal with iran several years ago and we've got putin, i was in an armed services committee hearing where the former national security adviser talked about putin's comments about using nuclear weapons during this ukraine conflict and suggesting that that might be a possibility at some point. so to what extent do we believe that russia continues to be very concerned about iran developing a nuclear weapon and how is what's happening in ukraine affecting that? >> senator, i think it does share that concern, which i think explains largely why it has been at lea

these sanctions, in batches. if 10 is the worst and iran is eight or nine russia was a four. now with the expansion of the blacklist, maybe it is 4.25 . there is the potential that if the heads of state 12, they can take it to a six. there is not a huge appetite for that now. but everything keeps changing when it comes to the sanctions. who knows what will happen over the next two weeks. the really exciting story was the greeks. were they going to derail the whole sanctions process? all eyes were on nico's -- the new greek foreign minister. some thought he would low off the whole process. some ministers told me he was pretty constructive. >> this is their bargaining chip, ryan, and terms of debt relief. approaching russia first. these are interesting political over tunes -- overtones. we are going to turn it towards russia in the face of the rest of europe going in a different direction. >> the question was, going into this, is he going to be a pro-russian spoiler of the sanctions regime? the answer is not entire

sanctions are what got iran to the table. not unilateral sanctions frankly. as good a job asthma menendez, kirk and all of us did, it was having the family of nations impose those sanctions. so easy for say we should just go off on our own, but the sanctions as we've learned with any nation that has sanctions that is subject to sanctions doesn't work if they can go around our blockages and go with other countries and get money or trade oil or trade products or anything else. and i have to say as much as i disagreed with the president on some of these things and i publicly disagreed with him on the interim agreement where i never would have loosened sanctions at all, he did a good job getting the nations of the world together. and they may not stick together but that's important. one other point, i have a great deal of sympathy for what mr. vitter's amendment and mr. corker hopefully working with mr. toomey's amendment, to come up with congress having final say on this. that's a very good check. and it makes sense. and so i hope we will pursue that. it has to

a fifth sanction -- a fifth myth sanctions don't work on north korea. well, they do k. we did, we had an extensive program in 2005 against a bank where in conjunction with the u.s. treasury department announcing it as a money laundering concern, there were a number of private meetings with u.s. officials throughout asia with businesses and banks. it led to over two dozen entities no longer going to do business north korea. a north korean negotiator told a white house official you finally found a way to hurt us. and the obama administration came in office saying it was a huge mistake for the bush administration to have removed those sanctions, which we did in trying to improve the atmosphere for nuclear negotiations, and the obama administration has said they're trying to recreate the pressure that the u.s. had in 2005. what are some of these things that we can do, that the u.s. can do under existing law? we can put north korea back on the state sponsors of terrorism list, we can designate them as a primary money laundering concern as we have iran burma and ukraine, we c

to sanction or not? >> we should not impose further sanctions now. that would be counterproductive and it could put at risk the valuable international unity that has been so crucial to our approach. gwen: the legalty of gay marriage will now be decided by the supreme court. candidates peddle their possibilities and step up the 2016 talk. >> i speak to members of my own party in asking that you do not place purity ahead of unity. gwen: plus, the president hits the road to promote his legacy. this week's "friday he focus" preview's next state of the union adren. covering the week, michael duffy, executive editor of "time" magazine. tom gjelten, national security expandant for npr. joan biskupic, legal editor for reuters. robert costa political reporter for "the washington post." and john harwood chief washington correspondant for cnbc. >> award winning reporting and analysis covering history as it happens, live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week" with gwen ifill. corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> how much mon

away with sanctions on ukraine, i think it's pretty telling. to be very honest with you, the overwhelming number of sanctions that this committee has levied to the congress have overwhelmingly had a much more significant lead time than immediate position. obviously, the time for necessary for it to have an effect on iran has been even greater. there is no such thing as an immediate sanction that ultimately has an immediate effect. there are few of those. i don't know, but it seems to me it took us a fair amount of time to know about a covert operation. him -- i hate to see that doing something covert would take as long. finally, you stated that we would have the same ability to respond in the future should iran breakout, and we would have all options on the table. i think that ignores the reality that iran will be in a different position. iran will be able to sell more than 2 million barrels of oil. it will have access to $100 billion in reserves currently being held overseas, and it will have the ability to procure critical items for its progr

sanctions. no, you will hear arguments. these technically aren't new sanctions, they are simply laws putting in place the possibility of additional sanctions. i assure you that is not how iran would interpret or our partners would interpret it. so the likelihood of the entire negotiations collapsing is very high. if that happens, there is no constraints on iran at that point going back and doing what they came to do before they came to the table, developing a heavy water reactor that once built it is -- is extraordinarily difficult to dismantle, and very difficult to hit militarily. going back at underground facilities that are very hard to reach militarily, accelerating advanced centrifuges that shorten the time span in which they can achieve breakout capacity. and they would be able to maintain that the reason they ended negotiations was because the united states was operating in bad faith and blew up the deal. and there would be some sympathy to that view around the world, which means the san

or businesses on the sanctions list. the government here clearly still unhappy though with that announce announcement and there's an issue as to how unified the eu is on the position of sanctions now and what role the new greek government is playing in dividing those who would see sanctions racheted up. so i asked if the greeks decide they're going to turn their back on some of the support and they come to you and ask for money, how would you respond? let's have a listen to the conversation. >> translator: i think this is a pragmatic approach. there are politician and there are business men. and this always effects economic growth employment social stability in our countries. we have always advocated for the lifting up of sanctions and some of of the countries that felt the negative effects of these sanctions that felt their sales in russia or experts in russia have been reduced significantly. in this situation business always lose and sanctions is a political instrument. not really correlated with the economic situation

sanctions while negotiations are going on. recognizing and stating that the purpose of sanctions is to bring people to the negotiating table. having said, that i'm as skeptical as anyone that iran will actually come through and follow through on their agreements for the long term. i certainly hope they do. i am as concerned as you are about breaking up this coalition we have the p-5 plus one. these sanctions have been effective because they're multilateral. and i'm very concerned they will break up. they are at the table because this has been iran versus the west rather than iran versus the u.s. and i think that's what we need to make sure continues. and so i am sensitive to the administration's concern that congress move ahead now with additional sanctions even triggered that might upset the negotiations and fracture the coalition, the effective coalition that we have.çn÷ i do believe that if the administration thinks that they can conclude an agreement and move on without congress weighing in, however at some point on that a

>> there are two types of sanctions. there are sanctions on luxury goods. those are been entirely ineffective. past sanctions in the financial sector have been effective, though. we have sanctions ten years ago involving a small bank in macao, and it had real macroeconomic significance for the north koreans, and, indeed, it's in the wake of that bank of asia case that the military established all of these correspondent relations with small banks in china. simply to diversify their portfolio, so to speak. >> there is nothing that we can do on that end, the small banks on china's side? >> really not. we threatened to bar you from the u.s. market if you engage--if you have dealings with these sanctioned entities. well, any bank in anywhere in the world regardless of politics are going to do the commercially prudent thing. they're going to drop those north korean customers. the issue is there are these small banks that may be controlled by the north korean military who don't do business in the u.s. and don't tear about reputational concerns, so you continue to

a 5th sanction or a 5th myth, sanctions don't work on north korea. well, they do. we had an extensive program in 2005 against a moscow bank where in conjunction with the u.s. treasury department and announcing it as a money laundering concern their were a number of private meetings throughout asia with businesses and banks that led to over two dozen entities no longer willing to do business with north korea. you finally found a way to hurt us. the obama administration came in office saying it was a huge mistake for the bush administration to remove those sanctions which we did in trying to improve the atmosphere for nuclear negotiations. trying to re-create the pressure that they had in 2,005. what are some of those things that we can do the mac put them back on the state-sponsored terrorism must designate them as a primary money-laundering concern formally charge them as a currency counterfeit. we can impose human rights related sanctions on them as we already have on zimbabwe and congo. the presidents of zimbabwe and cargo are on the sanctions list. yet 11 months

sanctions and see the optimism now that some of those sanctions are eased for cuba. >>> and the film "back to the future" made big predictions for what 2015 would look like. just how right or wrong were they. that film is 30 years old. can you believe it? welcome to our viewers in the u.s. and around the world. i'm natalie allen. we begin this hour in indonesia where rough seas are keeping the search teams from getting a closer look at two large pieces of metal now spotted in the java sea. they believe the objects are from the airasia flight that crashed. recovery crews also found a panel, this panel with two windows. they found this on friday. and planes flying overhead have spotted oil slicks. paula went out with the helicopter today. she joins us from indonesia. but just like many others in the search you and the helicopter crew couldn't see very much out there, paula? >> reporter: that's right, natalie. at the last minute the flight plan was changed so we didn't go to the site itself. we went along the coastline were at at least we intended to. because officials are concerned tha

i can get sanctions.hese negotiations that he has resisted sanctions at every turn. the initial set of sanctions that really weaken the regime and hurt the economy and cut the value of the in half that brought iran to the table, obama resisted tooth and nail. congress had to pass them over his objection and then starts these interim negotiations starting by relaxing the sanctions which is a disincentive for iran to go ahead and negotiate and says if this doesn't succeed in the six month limit we will or we can reimpose new sanctions. he doesn't do it. instead he extends negotiations. it runs out and extends it a second time. nobody including the iranians has any faith in the fact that he will actually impose sanctions. iranians know that and that is why they understand he is negotiating out of weakness and desperation. >> in the first go through the president said we haven't taken anything off the table. if the negotiations fail he is very forceful. second time around our former colleague asked wait a sec

>> is sanctions come, they will add on to the existing stock of sanctions. had been a fear that we could move to something far more serious like the banking system. what we are really expecting is that the sanctions will be adding to the sanctions we already have. it does not really make the situation that much worse. the more serious sanctions to hit russia were last august. that remains the most serious round of sanctions. some embellishment of that. >> is the junk rating the game changer? or does putin shrugged this off? >> in the long term, it is a serious issue. it will make it a lot more difficult for russia to pull out of the crisis once we get through the politics. it is a lot easier to use to your -- lose your investment-grade status than to get it back again. it does not materially change the difficult situation we are already in. russian banks and companies have not been able to access foreign capital markets since last august. it is immaterial what the rating is to some extent. it does add some extra cost to companies with existing debt. some ext

a fifth sanction, a fifth myth. sanctions doents work on north korea. well, they do. we have an extensive program in 2005 against a macau bank where in conjunction with the u.s. treasury department announcing it as a money laundering concern, there were a number of private meetings with u.s. officials throughout asia with the businesses and banks. it led to over two dozen entities no longer willing to do business with north korea. north korea negotiator told a white house official you finally found a way to hurt us. and the obama administration came in office saying it was a huge mistake for the bush administration to have removed those sanctions which we did in trying to improve the atmosphere for nuclear negotiations. and the obama administration said they're trying to recreate the pressure that the u.s. had in 2005. what are some of these things we can do? that the u.s. can do under existing law? we can put north korea back on the state sponsors of terrorism list. we can designate them as a primary money laundering concern as we have iran, berma and ukraine. we can

obviously north korea is worthy of sanctions but how do you have trade sanctions against the sanctionshave no trade name and shame the company that is shameless. the ranking member and chairman had pointed out that we can have secondary sanctions. they are where we threaten another country or bank or other company in another country with sanctions if they do business north korea if we designate those provide material support to the dprk start with the government of china. free money free oil subsidies. the ambassador points out that the chinese have stifled north korean behavior by pushing them to be a less aggressive but the fact is just last month they threatened to blow up multiplexes in the district of every member up your. china has made a strategic decision. for now they are back in north korea. every day every day they give them free oil, support them militarily and medically. we would have to do things that china disagrees with do things to chinese companies to china's own trade relationship. one thing we can do is designate them a currency manipulator. this has the additional

the sanctions have had an affect. if you do an interim deal and discuss with the the iranians any of these things, the sanctions will fall apart and pressure will disa pate. that is shown to not be true. the pressure is still there and as the president said if the iranians say no and there is no deal, we'll sit down and work out what extra sanctions to put in place. we are united in a simple thought which is a deal that takes iran away from a nuclear weapon is better than iran having a nuclear weapon or military action to prevent. it as i do what i can in as one of the countries negotiating i would. >> it is it i think the way the president put it i wouldn't disagree with it. it is it hard to know what the iranian thinking is about this. i am the first british prime freedom in 35 years to meet with an iranian president and it is it hard to know what they are thinking. there is a chlor offer there which is to take iran away from a nuclear weapon and conclude an agreement that is beneficial. and that is what should happ

so the notion that we need additional sanctions or the possibility of sanctions hanging over their head to force them to a better deal i think the iranians know that that is certainly in our back pocket if the negotiations fail. with respect to violent extremism, my -- my impression is that europe has consistently taken this seriously during the course of my presidency we have worked collaborative and with great urgency and -- and a recognition that not only do you have foreigners who may be trying to hatch plots in europe but that given large immigrant populations, it's important to -- to reach out to and work with local communities, and to have a very effective intelligence and counter terrorism cooperation between countries and between the united states and europe. there's no doubt that the most recent events has amplified those concerns. i think one of the things that i have learned over the last six years is that there's always more that we can do. we can always do it better. we learn from mistakes each incident that occurs teaches our professionals how we might be able to prevent

sanctions. but the significance of this new executive order may come from the broad power it gives the president to target anyone who is a part of the north korean government, or is assisting them in any way. that is if the administration chooses to use it to its full advantage. we need to step up and target those financial institutions in asia and beyond that are supporting the brutal and dangerous north korean regime. such sanctions have crippled north korea in the past. for those of us that remember the consequences on banco delta asia being sanctioned, and left the regime unable to buy the loyalties of its generals at that time, and could not be paid. this committee has been focused on the north korea threat for years, bringing attention to the regime's human rights abuses. its illicit criminal activities. its growing nuclear and missile programs and helpful scrutiny of north korean nuclear negotiations. indeed, last congress the house passed legislation that ranking member eliot engel and i

sanctions or he feared u.s. sanctions. he feared the revenge of kim jong-un.now i want to know why we don't sanction cuba for aiding and abetting the north koreans and why didn't we work with the u.n. so the u.n. could impose their sanctions. you correctly point out ambassador kim that sanctions are important. this is what the u.n. response was. this is the security council committee for -- four-page strongly worded memu. that is what cuba got. it said the concealed arms and illicit cargo to conclude the hazardous cargo was not declared on the ship's manny fest and the cargo was hidden under 218,000 bags of raw sugar. but, boy, they got really tough. they said the committee encourages all member states to remain vigilant regarding their obligations and responsibility to inspect suspect cargo to prevent prohibited items going to and from the d.p.r.k. and to ensure the implementing instruments -- blah blah blah blah. in regard, the committee draws the attention of member states as security resolution -- oh, my golly. this is all that happened. when they were shi

sanctions would fray because imposing these sanctions are a hardship on a number of countries around the world. they would love to be able to buy iranian oil. the reason they have hung in there, despite it being against their economic interests, is that we have shown that we are trying to solve this problem. antivert some sort of military showdown. in that context, there is no good arguments for us to try to undercut, undermine the negotiations until they have played themselves out. if iran ends up not being able to say yes, if they cannot provide us the kind of assurances that would lead myself and david cameron and others to conclude that they are not obtaining a nuclear weapon then we are going to have to explore other options, i will be the first one to come to congress and say when you tighten the screws. and that's not the only options that are going to be available. i consistently said we leave all options on the table. congress should be aware that if this diplomatic solution fails the risks and likelihood that this ends up being at some point in military confrontation is hei

those sanctions have had an effect. to those who said if you do an interim deal or even start discussing with the iranians any of these things the sanctions will fall apart, the pressure will dissipate, no one will be able to stick at it. that has demonstrably been shown not to be true. so the pressure is still there. if the iranians say, no there's no deal let's by all means sit down and work out the sanctions to put in place. we're united in a simple thought which is a deal that takes iran away from a nuclear weapon is better than either iran having a nuclear weapon or military action to prevent it. in the end, it comes down to that simple choice so i do what i can to help as one of the countries negotiating, sure i will. >> [ inaudible question ]. >> the way the president put it, i wouldn't disagree with. it's very hard to know what the iranian thinking is about this. i'm the first british prime minister in 35 years to meet with an iranian president and it's very hard to know what their thinking is. but there is a ve

sanctions are a mixed record. they have a mixed record in the way that the united states implemented them. they are an instrument that you tend to employ. it's an intermediate solution between reverting to military force and doing nothing. sanctions have a dubious track record, it makes policy makers feel like they are doing something. i think the track record of sanctions shows that we can target officials, certain institutions. whether the sanctions will make a deal more likely with the iranians it's unlikely. it's a stalling mechanism, a way to continue to impose incremental pressure but it is not clear based on track records, the iranians that a new round of actions will necessarily cause change in before. >> back to you at this time. how does the u.s. move forward in dealing with i.s.i.l. >> i would say the iran issue sanctions have been effective. >> they have a mixed record. but they have been effective. farce i.s.i.l. again, the u.s. has a clear strategy on the iraq peace, work with the iraqi forces train

and so the negotiation that we need to have additional sanctions or even the possibility of sanctions hanging over their head to force them to a better deal hey, i think the iranians know that that is certainly in our back pocket if the negotiations fail. with respect to violent extremism, my impression is that europe has consistently taken this seriously during the course of my presidency we have worked collaboratively and with great urgency and a recognition that not only do you have foreigners who may be trying to hatch plots in europe but that given large immigrant populations, it's important to reach out to and work with local communities and to have a very effective intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation between countries and between the united states and europe. there's no doubt that the most recent events has amplified those concerns. i think one of the things i've learned over the last six years is that there's always more that we can do. we can always do it better. we learn from mistakes each incident that occurs teaches our professionals how we might be able to preve

the notion that we need to have additional sanctions or even possibility of sanctions hanging over their head to force them to a better deal i think the iranians know that that is certainly in auerbach pocket if negotiations fail. with respect to violent extremism, my impression is that europe has consistently taken this seriously during the course of my presidency. we have worked collaboratively and with great urgency and with a recognition that not only do you have foreigners who may be trying to hatch plots in europe but that given large number of populations, it's important to reach out to and work with local communities and to have a very effective intelligence and counterterrorism cooperation between countries between the united states and europe. wills no doubt that the most recent events has amplified those concerns. i think among the things i've learned over the last six years is that there's always more that we can do. we can always do it better. we learned from mistakes each incident that occurs teaches our professionals how we might be able to prevent these the next time and

the first clash may start with russian sanctions. welcome to "the pulse" live from bloomberg's european headquarters in london. i'm francine lacqua. apples $18 billion profit. the tech giant smashes with its record sales. the company sold 34,000 phones an hour every hour for the quarter. caroline hyde has more. the growth is absolutely immense. >> it is insane numbers. $18 billion. that is $200 million a day. i the time i finished speaking apple will have made half $1 million. this is a phenomenal company. they beat analyst estimates. they wanted record smashed amalie have smashed them. look at these figures. bigger than yemen's entire gdp. bigger than iceland's annual economy. adding up microsoft and google it is more than that. they are dominating the competition. in fact, in one quarter they managed to provide as much profit as general motors makes in a year. the growth is so phenomenal. $18 billion is 30% more than last year. the new product, the innovation is shining through. iphone 6, the bigger screens are winning out across n

sanctions. you will hear our arguments. these technically aren't new sanctions, they are simply laws putting in place the possibility of additional sanctions. asher you that is not how -- i assure you that is not how iran or our partners would interpret it. the likelihood of the entire negotiations collapse is very high. if that happens, there is no constraints on iran going back and doing what they came to do before they came to the table, developing a heavy water reactor that once built it extraordinarily difficult to dismantle, and very difficult to hit militarily. going back at underground facilities that are very hard to reach militarily, accelerating advanced centrifuges that shorten the time span in which they can achieve breakout capacity. and they would be able to maintain the reason they ended negotiations was because the united states was operating in bad faith and blew up the deal. there would be some sympathy to that view around the world which means the sanctions we have in place n

it could be monetary sanctions, trade sanctions for the country as a whole. there's a lot of things that they can do. but, you know we don't know what they are yet. but it's interesting that this announcement was made and they came to this conclusion to tie it specifically to the individuals is quite amazing at this point. that points they must have -- besides computer evidence maybe some sort of intelligence evidence, the human intelligence that's giving them clues as to who was behind these hacks. >> we've learned so many times time and time again that north korea is not the kind of regime to say you sanctioned us we give up, we'll play nice. how do you think they're going to retaliate to this retaliation? >> the thing is, these type of things generally involved escalation. so one person does something and then there's retaliation. and there's retaliation on the other side. and sometimes diplomacy might be a better way to go. when you retaliate as a way to impose consequences for an action, sometimes that results in further escalation of the actions to begi

. >> a new set of sanctions-- . >> jon: boom merry christmas mother [bleep] pou sanction pou! now is what shape these sanctions will take. perhaps we could restrict transfers of cash and cattle. >> sanctions include-- the elicit activities of nrt considerian diplomatic personnel nrt korean banking relationships elicit sanctions of new trash and travel restriction. >> jon: we already did it maybe we could stop north consideria from smuggling arms into -- >> states will now have new authority to inspect cargo and stop north korean arm smugglings and proliferation. >> jon: [bleep]. we did that one. why don't we stop north korea from smuggling fancy treats in like our specialty -- --. >> sanction aimed at north korean's elite which may snuling el exotic food or cigarettes. (laughter) >> jon: all right so, we already have sanctions so tough nobody there can get lung cancer. what new punishments are even left. >> the big sanction here is barring the north korean entities from the u.s. financial systems. one is the rgb, this is nrt korean's kgb. another one is a big arms dealer for 9

sanctions on the communist nation and the white house says more actions will come.ibby casey has more from the white house. >> senior obama officials say this is the a first imposing sanctions on a country because of attacks on a country. they're taking this rare step because of the nature of the hack which they say was instructive and coercive and u.s. officials are standing by the assertion that north korea was responsible for hacking sony pictures. they say that this is part of a larger plan to push back against the threat of cyber-attacks. now there are already sanctions in place on many north korean entities including the three targeted today can. today. so this is symbolic in many ways. here are the groups, one is the intelligence gathering arm of the north korean government, other, the being research and development arm, and the other is comed primary arms dear and equipment and goods having to do with ballistic and conventional weapons. what has to do is sanctions on ten individuals most of whom are based in places like syria iran and russia. senior administ

a sanctions regime because of its nuclear program? >> exactly. how do we measure what effect they will have? it is hard to see when you are cut off from the rest of the world what additional sanctions will do. u.s. officials could not even save the 10 individuals concerned have any assets in the united states that could be affected. it may be a more symbolic gesture at this stage. as you said in the introduction, this is the first aspect of the u.s. response, implying there is more to come. there may be an invocation that america is not responsible for the internet outage that took place over the holidays. >> when americans say when -- that it is the first aspect of their response, what exactly does that mean? >> barack obama said there were going to be sanctions. he said what can you do to north korea, to a country that is always so cut off from the rest of the world? we shall see. we shall he if there are any cyberattacks, punitive sanctions , but still, there is a lot of doubt over how effective sanctions can be on a country that i

the sanctions introduced last year were sanctions light. the travel ban and the blacklist.hose are up for renewal this march. one of the things that might have been today is we could see a renewal an extension of those specific sanctions. eu ambassadors met yesterday to discuss that, however, and they failed not only to introduce on introducing new sanctions but they failed to agree on rolling over the existing ones. the foreign minister sit down at 3:00 p.m. brussels time and of those guys fail to come to consensus, then they will take it up to the heads of state and gather on the 12th of february. >> let's talk about obstacles. in the last few days, it seems greece's voice has gotten louder. greece is the word. how significant is their voice in all of this? >> it's one to tango. all you need is one of the 28 countries to not agree with sanctions. they cannot go forward. so far greece has said they do not consent to some of the language that the european union has been using to describe russia's actions in ukraine. they felt disgruntled that they were -- that will definite

because the president came out today and we're putting sanctions down.ources, do companies have the resources to fight back if the government can't fight for us? >> number one, the government is not responsible for corporations. they have to take that on for their own task. corporations believe that they're tied into products. yet every place that has been broken into has these devices. they don't have the proper understanding of network security and some managers out there too many of them don't even have a -- the respect for security by saying hey -- one manager actually told me, i can recover from an attack. i don't have to worry about my clients or employees getting their information stolen. i can recover from that. that's a bad attitude. cheryl: pretty confident. do you think that companies -- usually when these cyber attacks happen or you tell me or the expert don't these hackers leave behind back doors so that they can come back and do a future attack at the same time? >> yes, and to comment on whether companies should hack back. hacking back is i

sanctions. but the significance of this new executive order may come from the broad power it gives the president to target anyone who is a part of the north korean government, or is assisting them anyway. that is if the administration chooses to use it to its full advantage. we need to step up and target those financial institutions in asia and beyond that are supporting the brutal and dangerous north korean regime. such sanctions have crippled in north korea in the past. for those of us remember the consequences on banco delta asia being sanctioned and left the regime unable to buy the loyalties of its generals at that time who could not be paid. this committee has been focused on the north korea threat for years, bringing attention to the regimes human rights abuses. it's a list of criminal activities, its growing nuclear and missile programs, and helpful scrutiny of north korea in nuclear negotiations. indeed last congress the house passed legislation that ranking member engel and i offered t

the first clash may start with russian sanctions. to "the pulse" live from bloomberg's european headquarters in london. i'm francine lacqua. apples $18 billion profit. the tech giant