A congressional source said the bill would ban tourist travel by Americans outright, while any other visits would require a special license from the Treasury Department, which is enforcing a

wide range of sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs. North Korea this month asserted its sovereign right to "ruthlessly punish" US citizens it has

detained for crimes against the government. The despot nation also said calling such arrests bargaining ploys was "pure ignorance”. Kim Hake Song, who worked for the Pyongyang

University of Science and Technology, was detained on May 7 by the dictatorship on suspicion of "hostile acts”. Another American, Kim Sang Dok, who was associated with the same school,