Why Trump needs to develop a North Korea policy now: analyst
On Feb. 13, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother Kim Jong-nam was reportedly assassinated at a Malaysian airport.
Jong-nam was the oldest son of the country's former leader Kim Jong-il, and was once seen as the natural heir to the leadership.
But he'd become estranged from the family, having lived abroad for many years before his death.
The death of Kim Jong-nam
"There is no doubt that they had the motivation and this is completely within their modus operandi," Demick tells The Current's guest host Laura Lynch.
"There's actually been an arrest in Malaysia of a woman who seems to be a Vietnamese national. But I would assume that she was hired by somebody connected to the North Korean government."
"I don't think they even need plausible deniability. You know they just do it."
North Korea test-fires nuclear-capable missile
If it turns out that Kim Jong-nam's death in Malaysia was an assassination by the North Korean regime, it would only be the latest in a series of provocations by his half-brother, Kim Jong-un.
Recently, North Korea test-fired a nuclear-capable missile off its eastern coast in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
James Acton, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace tells Lynch he's deeply concerned North Korea has openly disregarded international norms and laws in this way and it's a "significant mistake" to brush it off.
"Most if not all of North Korea's previous tests of land based missiles had been with liquid fuel. This was a solid fuel missile and that is a very significant technical enhancement for them," says Acton.
"So the headline for this is not the range of the missile. It's the kind of fuel that it had."
Acton says it's important to recognize this since "developing solid fuelled missiles would be a significant military advantage for North Korea."
While Acton says he was surprised that U.S. President Trump did not condemn the missile test, he hopes the new administration gets a North Korea policy and a North Korea strategy "sorted out pretty quickly."
"This is not a problem that it can kick down the road a year or two years," explains Acton.
"I think North Korea is going to be challenging the new administration regularly. And I think the new administration needs a strategy sooner rather than later."
Listen to the full segment at the top of this web post.
This segment was produced by The Current's John Chipman and Sam Colbert.