U.S. allies in Asia such as Japan and South Korea commended the move of the United Nations Security Council on Monday to unanimously approve a resolution that would impose new sanctions on North Korea in an effort to end the country’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapon development efforts, Reuters reported Monday.

The sanctions include a ban on North Korea’s textile exports, a cap on the export of crude oil and refined petroleum products to the country and an embargo on natural gas liquids and condensates.

“The North Korean regime has not yet passed the point of no return,” said Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the UN.

“If it agrees to stop its nuclear program, it can reclaim its future … if North Korea continues its dangerous path, we will continue with further pressure,” Haley added.

The UN Security Council’s decision came a week after U.S. government officials called on council members to ban the sales of oil and other fuel products to North Korea after the East Asian country tested a hydrogen bomb.

The National Background Investigations Bureau plans to start testing a new security clearance system for federal employees in approximately six weeks, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.

NBIB Director Charles Phalen said at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance Summit held in Washington that the bureau aims to deploy the E-application system in 2018 to replace the Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing platform.

“We’ve actually been running this through a lot of other people in the meantime to get feedback on it,” Phalen noted.

E-App is being developed by the Defense Department and will work to support real or near real-time validation of an individual’s responses, according to Phalen.

He said the government should consider issuing more interim clearances at the secret level or starting the investigation process before an employee has received a job offer to help address the current backlog of 700,000 applications.

The Trump administration has objected to a provision under the Senate’s proposed fiscal 2018 defense policy bill that would restrict all funds for U.S. Army battlefield network development efforts, C4ISRNET reported Saturday.

The White House said in a statement published Friday that implementing funding limitations to the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical program would affect the Army’s on-the-move communications, intelligence analysis and air and missile defense operations.

The Senate’s proposed National Defense Authorization Act for 2018 does not include President Donald Trump’s $420 million budget request for the General Dynamics-led WIN-T program.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley voiced concerns over whether WIN-T can function as intended and ordered the service branch to review the program.

Several House and Senate lawmakers previously urged Milley to consider the implementation of a new procurement strategy that would accelerate fielding of the network.

The upper chamber aims to take up NDAA this week.

Ann Stefanek, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Air Force, has said the service branch has been in talks with White House officials to reduce the cost of the next presidential planes and one of the cost-saving plans is to forgo the aircraft’s aerial-refueling capability, Defense One reported Friday.

Cost-cutting plans for the new aircraft came a month after the service branch awarded Boeing a contract modification to convert a pair of 747-8 aircraft into Air Force One planes.

The 747-8 aircraft variant is designed to fly approximately 1,800 nautical miles farther than the aging presidential planes, according to a copy of Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s December 2016 briefing obtained by Defense One.

Stefanek told the publication in an email the future Air Force Ones will be equipped with commercial interior furnishings that include an environmental control system for cooling and filtering cabin air.

The report said the service also has begun to negotiate prices for seats and other aircraft components with Boeing and subcontractors in order to lower the aircraft’s final procurement price that would not be disclosed until the summer of 2018.