We’ll never forget

Family members of those lost in the Sewol tragedy carry a banner with portraits of the students who died, after a memorial concert and reading at Seoul Plaza outside City Hall to Gwanghwamun Square, July 24. (by Lee Jeong-ah, staff photographer)

100 days later, Sewol families still pleading for the truth

Families marching, hoping for enactment of special law, which is currently held up in parliament

By Kim Gi-seong, south Gyeonggi correspondent and Park Ki-yong, staff reporter, in Ansan

“No matter how long the tears flow, the ice in my heart doesn’t melt because no one is taking responsibility for the moment when the children slipped beneath the waves. We have determined to do more than just cry.”

Because of the government and National Assembly, which are still refusing to answer calls to carry out an honest investigation of the Sewol ferry sinking 100 days after it occurred, the families of the victims have begun another march of tears.

It was 9 am on July 23, and heavy raindrops were falling intermittently. The families of those who perished in the sinking of the Sewol were assembled at the official government memorial altar at the Hwarang Resort in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province.

“We are setting out on this march because we cannot remain silent in a society in which the door of truth is locked, a society with no emergency exit,” someone said, reading a document announcing the beginning of the 100-Li (about 40km) March Calling for the Legislation of the Special Act on the 100th Day since the Sewol Tragedy.

Family members of those lost and still missing from the Sewol tragedy march toward Ansan City Hall in Gyeonggi Province calling for the legislation of the special Sewol Law, July 23. The march went from Ansan to Seoul City Hall and Gwanghwamun Square on the evening of July 24. (by Ryu Woo-jong, staff photographer)

With their dead children’s student ID cards from Danwon High School around their necks, the bereaved families set off on their journey, trailing a minibus bearing large banners printed with the funeral portraits of the victims. They were set to walk around 40km for two days, in a plea for the National Assembly to pass the special Sewol Law, which is in limbo because of opposition from the Saenuri Party (NFP).

Starting on Wednesday, about 300 people - including relatives of the victims and members of social and civic groups - started walking toward Seoul Plaza across from City Hall, which they will reach by way of the National Assembly in Yeouido. The bereaved families, who were divided into the ten classes from Danwon High School that their children belonged to, left the memorial, carrying yellow flags with messages such as, “Pass the Special Act to Get to the Truth” and “How Could We Forget?”

When they reached Danwon High School, some of the bereaved parents burst into tears, calling the names of their children. Teachers and parents from the school showed up at the same time in support of the marchers, holding up a sign that read “We Won’t Forget.” Touched by the anguish and pain of their neighbors, the people of Ansan urged the line of marchers to keep their heads held high as they went by.

Ten opposition lawmakers - including Park Young-sun, floor leader for the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, Moon Jae-in, Kim Young-hwan, and Boo Jwa-hyun - took part in the march on Wednesday. Sim Sang-jung, floor leader for the Justice Party, visited the memorial center to comfort the bereaved families.

After arriving at Gwangmyeong Citizens Gymnasium in Gyeonggi Province at 8:30 pm on Wednesday, the marchers were planning to spend the evening in a public debate and then reach Seoul Plaza, the site of the city’s public memorial for the Sewol tragedy, at 7 pm on July 24.

“If the tears shed by Park Geun-hye on May 19 when she was apologizing to the public were not crocodile tears, she needs to make a decision to enact the Special Act,” a representative of the bereaved families said during a press conference held at the National Assembly on July 22.

The “Bus of Waiting,” organized to comfort families still waiting for those missing after the sinking of the Sewol, also set out for Jindo in South Jeolla Province. The Sewol Tragedy Public Committee, which is composed of 618 nonprofit groups, held a press conference at Seoul Plaza on Wednesday morning. “Since June, the ‘Bus of Waiting’ has been going back and forth to Jindo every Friday. In addition, we will be running the bus on July 23, one day before the 100th day since the tragedy took place,” the committee told reporters.

Departing from Seoul, Gwangju, Daegu, and Ansan, buses assembled at the gymnasium in Jindo at 7:30 pm on Wednesday. The hundred or so people on the buses hailed from a variety of backgrounds, including workers on leave, housewives, university students, Catholics, and labor union employees. After meeting the families of the missing at the gymnasium, they attended a cultural event organized by an art group from the Gwangju and South Jeolla region. Held at Paengmok Port on Jindo, the event lasted from 10 pm until the early morning hours of July 24. On July 24, the visitors will hold an assembly with the Jindo Residents Committee.

“There are still 10 people missing in the accident and the families are mournfully waiting, but the public is already losing interest in the Sewol. As the families who remain here feel a greater sense of isolation, there is a crucial need for solidarity with the families,” said Lee Won-ho, an activist with the Public Committee.

Gwanghwamun Square was filled with a tide of yellow on Wednesday, one day before the 100th day since the tragedy. Around lunchtime, members of People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy opened about thirty yellow umbrellas and circled the plaza, shouting messages such as “Enact the Sewol Special Act” and “The right to investigate and indict is the whole point.” On the grassy lawn in front of the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, dozens of origami boats and pinwheels made of yellow paper fluttered in the breeze.

The hunger strike is still underway, with about 40 members of the bereaved families fasting at the National Assembly in Yeouido and the fathers of Yeji from class no. 9, Binnara from class no. 3, and Yumin from class no. 1 (all second-year students at Danwon High School who died in the accident) at Gwanghwamun Square.

In addition to the hunger strikers, five other tents were also set up in front of the statue. These are the location of people who are going without food in sympathy with the bereaved families. Groups taking part [in the fast] on Wednesday included the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea, members of the Mom’s Yellow Handkerchief online group, students from Kyonggi University and Sungkonghoe University, the Women’s Association of Bucheon, the Corean Alliance, and People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy.

“Since the Special Act is focused on getting to the bottom of the disaster, enacting it quickly is the only way to get closer to the truth,” said Lee Kyung-hwan, president of the student council at Seoul National University, who was taking part in the hunger strike.

Bishop Lee Yong-hun, chair of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea’s Justice and Peace Committee, visited the Family Committee’s hunger strike on Wednesday. On July 14, Lee expressed his position on the botched parliamentary investigation of the Sewol tragedy and the enactment of the Special Law. “Clearly, something is wrong with a society in which people who have lost their family members must desperately ask for someone to find out the truth of those deaths. It is the responsibility of the government to place the safety of the public and the dignity of human kind above every other value of government,” Lee said.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

[Weekender] Korea faces digital footprint dilemma Big data uploaded by Koreans on Facebook, Google sparks concerns

On Wednesday, South Korean consumer rights activists filed a lawsuit at a Seoul court demanding that Google Korea disclose whether the IT behemoth shared its users’ personal data with outside parties.

The suit follows a January government fine of 200 million won ($195,000) levied on Google for collecting personal information such as Internet IDs, passwords, and resident registration numbers.

The suit is also in line with a global trend that has landed in South Korea in recent years: protection of personal information floating online, or what are popularly known as digital footprints.

Europeans addressed their own concerns over digital footprints and personal privacy management earlier when European courts dealt Google a series of fines.

France and Spain have imposed financial penalties for Google’s privacy policy change made in 2012. Wednesday’s suit involves the same change applied to Korean users.

Google had combined personal data from its array of online services such as YouTube, Google Plus and Gmail without adequately notifying users of the policy change’s purpose and its implications, according to European watchdog groups. 

A Facebook application icon is seen on an iPad. (Bloomberg)

British and Dutch authorities are also looking to Google. On Tuesday, a regulator in Rome gave the search engine 18 months to comply with local rules.

Koreans have also reacted to similar digital footprint cases playing out in the U.S., the country that hosts the world’s largest private information holders, including as Amazon, Google and Facebook.

After a U.S. scientific journal, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, last month announced the findings of an “emotional” experiment on Facebook, the American media rose up in fury.

Conducted among 689,003 Facebook users by a research team for the social networking site, the experiment had apparently manipulated peoples’ emotions according to critics. They charged the SNS company of transforming users into “laboratory guinea pigs.”

Facebook randomly increased or decreased the number of positive and negative comments each user could see when he or she logged on to Facebook over a weeklong period in early 2012. Researchers then measured the change in the user’s mood by counting how many “positive” and “negative” comments he or she subsequently posted.

A number of U.S. media outlets criticized the social media giant over the experiment. But Forbes reported “Facebook’s experiment sounds creepier than it was.”

Facebook offered an explanation after the media uproar.

“The goal of all our research at Facebook is to learn how to provide a better service. Having written and designed this experiment myself, I can tell you that our goal was never to upset anyone,” Adam D. I. Kramer, one of the participating researchers, wrote on June 30. 

But criticism against Facebook was not limited to those in North America. 

“What if the negative mood swing was the last blow to a depressed user who later committed suicide?” the Hankyoreh, a South Korean newspaper, wrote this week.

“Experiments like that must stop,” a South Korean blogger wrote.

“Facebook has become the world’s largest personal information protection bank. It would be disastrous to have a place like that become a huge lab. What if Facebook starts selling its experiment results to other companies … without our knowing it?”

The digital footprint in mobile devices is a topic that sparks heated debates, as people pack so much personal information into their tablets and smartphones. 

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement officials could not search suspects’ smartphones without warrants except in emergencies.

Smartphones are now so prevalent that a Martian would think the minicomputers were part of the human body, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote in his landmark June 25 ruling. 

Because smartphones now also contain vast amounts of personal information, authorities should be required to attain warrants before searching smartphones, Roberts added.

The ruling could have implications in South Korea, one of the world’s most wired countries, and home to smartphone goliath Samsung Electronics and popular mobile chatting apps such as Kakao Talk and Line. 

A massive amount of private messages, photos and video files are uploaded daily via such mobile apps to the servers of the operators, but some users express concerns about how tightly their data is protected against cyberattacks or whether the data might be disclosed as a result of police investigations.

By Jeong Hunny (hj257@heraldcorp.com)

Korea splits matches with Australia

South Korea split its two first-day matches with Australia on the opening day of the inaugural international competition on the LPGA Tour on Thursday in Maryland.

The team of Park In-bee and Ryu So-yeon defeated the duo of Katherine Kirk and Lindsey Wright 3 & 2 in their four-ball match at the International Crown on Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, a suburb of Baltimore.

In the next match, Australia’s Karrie Webb and Lee Min-jee edged past Choi Na-yeon and Kim In-kyung 2-up.

The first edition of the International Crown features the four highest-ranked players from eight countries, based on their world rankings on March 31.

The four-day competition will feature three days of four-ball matches and one day of single matches. Two points will be awarded per victory and one point will be given for a halve.

Park In-bee follows her tee shot on the fifth hole during the first round of the International Crown in Owings Mills, Maryland, Thursday. (AFP-Yonhap)

The top two countries from each pool plus the fifth, wild card country will play in the singles matches on Sunday.

For the singles, the countries will be re-seeded based on their points from the four-ball matches. The inaugural champion will be crowned based on the total points accumulated from Thursday to Sunday.

For South Korea, Park, currently No. 3, is joined by No. 9 Ryu, No. 18 Choi and No. 23 Kim. At the time of the team selection, Park was still the top-ranked player, while Ryu was in sixth place, Choi in 11th and Kim in 15th.

Park and Ryu led 1-up after the birdie on the opening hole and doubled the lead with a birdie on the par-3 third hole. The Australians answered right back with a birdie of their own on the par-5 fourth, but it was as close as they got on this day.

After the teams traded a birdie apiece on the seventh and the eighth, the South Koreans led 2-up again with a birdie on the ninth, and then went up by three holes with another birdie on the 10th.

Australia cut the deficit by one with a birdie on the 11th, but South Korea’s eagle on the par-5 12th restored a 3-up lead that it never relinquished.

Webb and Lee overcame an early deficit to salvage two points for Australia in the second match. Choi and Kim also opened their day with a birdie but lost the lead with a bogey on the par-4 fifth, where Australia managed a par.

The Aussies took the lead with a birdie on the next hole.

Another birdie on the 10th put them up by two holes. Webb and Lee clung to a 1-up lead heading into the final hole and clinched the victory with a birdie on the par-4 18th.

Lee, whose parents were born in South Korea, is the No. 1-ranked amateur and is the only amateur in the field this week.

The eight countries have been divided into two pools. The United States, as the top seed, is in Pool A along with Thailand, Spain and Taiwan. South Korea, the No. 2 seed, ended up in Pool B with Japan, Sweden and Australia.

The South Koreans will face Sweden on Friday and Japan on Saturday.

Japan leads Pool B with three points after beating Sweden in one match and halving another with the Europeans.

Elsewhere, Taiwan stunned the top-seeded Americans and took both of the four-ball matches to take an early lead in Pool A.

Candie Kung and Teresa Lu crushed Paula Creamer and Cristie Kerr 4 & 3. Then former world No. 1 Yani Tseng and Phoebe Yao defeated the current No. 1 Stacy Lewis and Lexi Thompson 1-up.

In the other Pool A match Thursday, Spain and Thailand halved their first match and Spain prevailed in the second one. (Yonhap)

Regrouped KARA to return with new EP

KARA will release its new EP “Day & Night” on Aug. 18. (DSP Media)

K-pop quartet KARA will officially return to the music scene with a new EP and a showcase next month, its agency said Friday. 

KARA, which now consists of the group’s three original members Park Gyu-ri, Hang Seung-yeon and Koo Ha-ra and new member Heo Young-ji, will drop its sixth EP “Day & Night” on Aug. 18 with the album’s showcase to be held the same day. 

The showcase, slated to feature KARA’s first performances of tracks from its new EP, will be aired on a special program by the local television network SBS MTV as well as the Japanese broadcaster TBS, according to the group’s agency DSP Media.

The upcoming EP will mark KARA’s new start as a regrouped quartet since two original members, Kang Ji-young and Nicole, left the group to pursue solo careers earlier this year. 

New member Heo was added to the girl group after winning the audition program “KARA Project,” which ran on MBC Music until July 1 to select one of seven DSP trainees to be the new face to join KARA.

By Sohn Ji-young (jiyoung.sohn@heraldcorp.com)

Seoul to push tax on corporate cash reserves Ministry unveils W40.7tr stimulus to boost domestic spending

 

Published : 2014-07-24 21:32
Updated : 2014-07-24 22:17

The South Korean government announced a set of economic stimulus measures on Thursday, including a controversial plan to levy taxes on cash reserves kept at the nation’s largest companies.

The finance ministry said, the tax scheme is aimed at reviving domestic demand by funneling excessive corporate cash reserves into the broader economy. The tax rates have yet to be set.

“We will be introducing taxes on cash reserves for the purpose of pushing companies to invest more and to return more to their employees or shareholders, who in turn would have more disposable income,” said Choi Kyung-hwan, the nation’s new finance minister and deputy prime minister.

Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan announces economic stimulus measures on Thursday. (Yonhap)

South Korea logged a trade surplus of $20.2 billion in the first half of the year. The money, however, failed to translate to the broader economy, partly because top profit-earning firms withheld the cash, Choi said.

Companies that use their cash reserves for higher wages and dividends, on the other hand, are to be granted tax incentives.

In other measures, Choi said his ministry plans to inject 40.7 trillion won ($39.5 billion) into the economy until 2015, while easing mortgage rules to help revive the slumping housing market.

The rejuvenation blueprint comes after the country’s economy posted its weakest growth rate in more than a year in the second quarter. This was in the wake of a deadly ferry accident that considerably dampened consumption to the extent that it has offset the modest recovery that Korea’s exports were enjoying.

Citing such adversities, the ministry on Thursday cut its growth outlook for this year to 3.7 percent from 3.9 percent.

“Our economy now stands at a critical crossroads between making a leap forward and falling into a recession,” he said in a news conference after announcing the recovery package.

Despite some market predictions, the minister ruled out the possibility of a supplementary budget this year. Instead, he unveiled a $39 billion stimulus package, including around $11 billion in expanded fiscal spending and $28 billion in extra financing support.

Of the total, some $21 billion will be spent in the second half of this year to spur domestic demand, according to the ministry.

To revive the local housing market ― which Choi sees as vital in jumpstarting the economy ― the ministry announced revised regulations on mortgage loans, including raising the loan-to-value ratio to 70 percent from the current 50 percent for home buyers.

The ministry also decided to raise the debt-to-income ratio to 60 percent. The ceiling on this ratio is currently set at 50 percent for those buying property in Seoul and 60 percent for the surrounding metropolitan area.

Choi, a former floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party, stressed that the ministry would take expansionary macroeconomic policy in a bold manner until consumer sentiment recovers.

“We’ll do our utmost to stabilize the home market and ensure public welfare,” he said.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)

Mysteries linger over Yoo’s death

The nationwide manhunt for a fugitive tycoon, known to be the de facto owner of the Sewol, ended Tuesday, when the police confirmed that a body found last month was that of Yoo Byung-eun. 

The death of the nation’s most wanted man, however, remains a mystery as the authorities are still struggling to determine exactly when and how he died. The fugitive’s death is also shrouded in secrecy as the police identified the body as Yoo’s nearly six weeks after it was found by a farmer in a plum orchard near Suncheon, South Jeolla Province. 

The police said that they sent two DNA samples as the body was badly decomposed when it was found. But questions linger about why it took so long ― nearly a month and a half ― to identify the body, and why it never occurred to investigators that the body could be Yoo’s, considering the site where it was found and evidence that apparently indicated it was him. 

The body was discovered 2.5 kilometers from a country house where Yoo was believed to have been holed up. The police said they found three bottles of liquor beside the body and a bag containing handwritten letters with the phrase “Dreamlike Love.” “Dreamlike Love” is the title of a book of poetry published by Yoo. 

Investigators and journalists look at a lock of hair and bone fragments that police say were torn from the dead body of runaway Yoo Byung-eun (in circle) at a farm in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, Tuesday. (Yonhap)

Suncheon police also said they found an empty bottle of shark liver oil, which the businessman was said to have taken for a while. It was reportedly manufactured by a pharmaceutical company led by his close aide. The body was clothed in a designer label winter jacket and shoes, items imported from Italy and Japan.

The police claimed they never imagined that the body could have been Yoo’s until the forensic experts confirmed the identity on Monday afternoon.

“We never suspected the body found near Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, on June 12 was Yoo’s and only learned (that it was his) after a DNA test result that came out on the afternoon of (July) 21,” said Lee Seong-han, commissioner of the Korea National Police Agency.

The police chief said the corpse had been suspected to be that of an unidentified elderly resident in the region and the DNA test was ordered to simply identify the body. 

“The initial investigation was carried out with mistakes,” said Lee. 

The body was transferred from Suncheon to the National Forensic Service in Seoul, to determine the cause and time of death. The police said on Tuesday afternoon that a toxicology test was being carried out to see whether Yoo killed himself by swallowing poisonous substances.

The confirmation put an end to a major, months-long search for Yoo, head of the family-controlled company that owned and operated the Sewol ferry that sank on April 16. The doomed ferry was carrying 476 passengers, including 325 high school students who were on a school trip to the resort island of Jejudo. The death toll stands at 294 with 10 victims still missing. 

Shortly after the sinking, the prosecution issued summonses for Yoo and his family members. Yoo has no stake in Chonghaejin, the operator of the ferry. But the company has been run by his children and close aides. They were called in for questioning over alleged embezzlement and criminal negligence which was believed to have caused the sinking of the ferry. 

Despite repeated requests by the prosecution, none of his family members, including Yoo himself, replied to the summonses. Yoo and his eldest son, Yoo Dae-kyun, fled as the authorities tried to capture them for disobeying the summonses. Tens of thousands of police officers and Army troops were deployed to search for the two fugitives. 

Despite the police’s confirmation, some within the law enforcement agency raised suspicions that the body could not be that of Yoo. 

“I am 110 percent sure that the decayed body is not that of Yoo, after years of experience in the field,” a police officer told Yonhap.

He was referring to the decomposition level of the body, saying that it looked as if it had been dead for at least six months. Yoo was last spotted on May 25 in the Suncheon area, he said. Pointing at the empty alcohol bottles, the officer said Yoo never drank, adding that it would be impossible for him to die alone in a field as he was known to have been constantly protected by followers of a religious cult established by his father-in-law.

Questions also remain over why it took so long for the authorities to identify the body. 

According to reports and sources, the rivalry between the two law enforcement agencies ― the prosecution and the police ― may have delayed the identification since they refused to share Yoo’s DNA information with each other.

The two agencies reportedly collected DNA samples of Yoo separately from hideouts they raided over the last two months, as well as information that may have indicated Yoo’s next move. 

Korea, Portugal to boost business ties Silva condemns North Korea’s missile threats, human right abuse

The leaders of South Korea and Portugal agreed Monday to forge strategic partnerships and seek ways together to enter markets in Portuguese-speaking countries in Latin America and Africa.

Presidents Park Geun-hye and Anibal Cavaco Silva also agreed during a summit held at Cheong Wa Dae to expand cooperation in the development of renewable energy and tourism. They also agreed to cooperate in a wide range of fields including politics, information and communications technology, and shipping and aviation. 

President Park Geun-hye speaks at a joint press conference held after a summit talk with her Portuguese counterpart, Anibal Cavaco Silva, at Cheong Wa Dae on Monday. (Yonhap)

“We have agreed to seek ways to enter the communities of Portuguese-language countries together, considering that Portugal has strengthened ties with the countries,” Park said at a joint press conference held after the summit.

“If a cooperative partnership is established between Korea and Portuguese-speaking countries, it would help us not only build a reciprocal relationship but also contribute to the economic and industrial development of the Portuguese communities,” she said.

Silva said he has focused on seeking partnerships with Korean businesses during his three-day visit, stressing that he acknowledges “the country’s competitive and dynamic economy.”

“I met business leaders of Korean companies and saw business potential between Korean and Portuguese firms,” Silva said. 

President Park Geun-hye speaks at a joint press conference held after a summit talk with her Portuguese counterpart, Anibal Cavaco Silva, at Cheong Wa Dae on Monday. (Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald)

“The business opportunity is big for both Korean and Portuguese companies to form a strategic partnership and enter markets in the Third World,” he said.

On the sidelines of the summit, the two countries signed two memorandums of understanding for promoting exchanges of experts on renewable energy development, increasing cooperation between tourism officials and boosting investment in the sector.

“The fact that the two countries have agreed to utilize bilateral cooperation to boost exchanges of technology, human resources and information in regard to the field of renewable energy, a growth engine for both countries, is of great significance,” Park said.

Silva arrived in Seoul on Saturday for a three-day visit. He was the first Portuguese leader invited for an official visit by the South Korean government. He was accompanied by first lady Maria Cavaco Silva, administrative delegates and business leaders.

Silva also said his country supports Park’s North Korea policies and her vision for a unified Korean Peninsula. 

“I’d like say that I entirely agree with President Park’s vision for the unification of the Korean Peninsula proposed in Dresden,” he said.

“Again, I also want to say that Portugal strongly condemns North Korea’s nuclear test or its provocative actions like missile threats as well as its criminal acts against humanity such as human rights abuse,” he added.

The two leaders previously met in 2011 when Park, then presidential envoy, visited the European nation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries. 

West escalates Russia sanctions

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Both the U.S. and European Union imposed new economic sanctions on Russia Wednesday, with President Barack Obama declaring that Russian leaders must see that their actions supporting Ukraine’s rebels “have consequences.”

Though the American and European sanctions were coordinated, they nonetheless exposed fissures in what the West has tried to project as a united front in its months-long effort to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of fomenting a pro-Russia insurgency in eastern Ukraine by sending troops and weapons across its border with the former Soviet republic, something Moscow denies. The insurgency was sparked by Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine earlier this year.

The penalties announced by the White House were broad in scope, targeting two major Russian energy firms, a pair of powerful financial institutions, eight arms firms and four individuals. Leaders in Europe, which has a far deeper economic relationship with Russia than the U.S., were more restrained, ordering investment and development banks on the continent to suspend financing agreements with Moscow.

Even the U.S. penalties stopped short of the most stringent actions the West has threatened, which would entail fully cutting off key sectors of Russia‘s economy. But officials said those steps were still on the table if Russia fails to abide by the West’s demands to stop support for pro-Russian insurgents who have destabilized swaths of eastern Ukraine.

“What we are expecting is that the Russian leadership will see once again that its actions in Ukraine have consequences, including a weakening Russian economy and increasing diplomatic isolation,” Obama said as he announced the U.S. penalties from the White House.

Publicly undismayed, Putin said the new sanctions run counter to U.S. national interests because they put American companies that want to operate in Russia at a competitive disadvantage.

At a news conference in Brazil, Putin said through a translator: “They are undermining the positions of their energy companies.” He said, “They made one mistake, and now they insist on making another one.”

After meeting late into the night in Europe, the EU leaders did signal for the first time their willingness to go after Russian companies “that are materially or financially supporting actions undermining or threatening Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.” They ordered their foreign ministers to draw up a list of such people or entities by the end of the month.

“There has been no progress in the attitude of Russia to solve this situation, the Ukraine crisis,” said French President Francois Hollande in explaining the decision he and other EU leaders took.

In a decision that could affect Russian oligarchs or members of the Kremlin inner circle, the EU leaders also asked the ministers to consider targeting people or companies involved in the unrest in Ukraine.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, whose nation borders Russia, said the EU had to get tougher with Moscow “because if Putin’s aggressive policy isn‘t stopped, he will go further.”

Until now, the U.S. and Europe have limited their sanctions on Europe to travel bans and asset freezes aimed at individuals and entities, including some with close ties to Putin. But those measures have done little to change Putin’s calculus, with the Pentagon announcing Wednesday that Russian troops were again building up along the border with Ukraine. In Ukraine itself, pro-Russian rebels in the east have lost much ground but now seem to be hunkering down for what could be extended urban warfare.

While Obama has put a premium on responding to the provocations in coordination with Europe, the White House has grown increasingly frustrated with the continent’s reluctance to impose sanctions on Russian economic sectors. EU leaders fear such penalties could have negative impacts on their own economies given their close financial relationships with Russia.

U.S. officials summoned European diplomats to the White House on Monday to discuss the matter. And the U.S. warned during a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday that Obama was prepared to take unilateral action if the EU did not take stronger measures.

The targets of the U.S. sanctions include two major Russian energy firms: Novatek, the country’s largest independent natural gas producer, and Rosneft, Russia‘s largest petroleum company and third largest gas producer. The penalties bar both from getting long-term loans from U.S. entities.

Also targeted were leading Russian financial institutions, the Russian development bank VEB and Gazprombank, banking arm of Russia’s state energy behemoth Gazprom. The sanctions restrict their ability to access U.S. capital markets.

Four individuals were included on Wednesday’s sanctions list: Putin adviser Igor Shchegolev, Russian State Duma Deputy Speaker Sergei Neverov, Ukrainian separatist leader Aleksandr Borodai and Sergey Beseda, an official with Russia’s Federal Security Service, the intelligence agency that replaced the KGB after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Steven Pifer, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said the American sanctions will add uncertainty to a Russian economy that has already been showing signs of weakness.

“These are serious sanctions. They target major Russian energy companies and financial institutions,” said Pifer, who currently works as an analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington.