This is the best summary I could come up with:

In recent years, a booming trade in human hair has helped to sustain North Korea’s isolated economy, softening the impact of international sanctions and providing Pyongyang with vital revenue to pursue its nuclear ambitions.

Light industry of the kind that manufacture beauty products are not subject to UN sanctions against Pyongyang; instead, they are one of several ways – legal and otherwise – in which the regime is able to soften the blow from international punitive measures and earn vital foreign currency.

The UN security council was shocked into action, passing its first rounds of sanctions in 2006 with the demand that the North end nuclear testing, along with a ban on exports to the country of military supplies and luxury goods.

Fallout from the Ukraine war, and criticism of China’s military buildup and human rights abuses have fomented a new détente between Moscow and Beijing; it has also given Kim Jong-un an unprecedented opportunity to bust sanctions.

The US sanctions regime began to falter in 2022 – the year Russia invaded Ukraine – when Moscow and Beijing used their vetoes as permanent members of the security council to sink a US attempt to tighten measures after an ICBM launch.

While the West struggles to find new ways to monitor sanctions, the panel of experts’ demise is likely to encourage Pyongyang and its allies to commit more violations, according to Marcus Noland, executive vice-president and director of studies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

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