and i'll set you up today, i'll have more world news and some of the, our coming up next on the w mapped out takes a look at whether a flurry of north korean weapons test indicates that sec, kim jones on is pushing full. that's next the we are all set and we are watching to see the to bring you the story behind the new, the will on about come by as information for free might say do to and then kim jones own is threatening the world with and less miss style test,

you might be thinking what's new or used to north korea's leader kim jong own being presented either as a super villain or last off in dictate, or jokes. but now some north korea watchers are sounding the alarm. st. can might actually want a war, how big when done know can seems to be 6 of trying to make peace and things are working out in his favor these days kim is very involved in. that's a threat, especially for south korea, which is backed by the us. so is the frozen conflict between north korea and south korea? heating back up. and is kim more dangerous than ever the these days came, jonathan seems to be pretty and to maps. and when dictators start focusing a lot on the borders, that's always a bit worrying. here he is inspecting

a model of the south korean capital soul and warning that his country is ready to completely annihilate his neighbor to the south. if provoked whatever that means. and this is the border, he particularly has his eye on the disputed maritime border between north and south korea, known as the northern limit line or n o l. instead of just extending the land border out into the seats, look at how the boundary is drawn here. coming up over these islands. dave remained under de facto south korean control, put north korea claims these waters, which is why it's not surprising that they don't appreciate us and south korean navy drills here. in 2010, north korea attacked one of the islands, killing several people there. now, north korea has repeatedly fired artillery into the waters around the islands as a threat. north korea has been unhappy about this border for decades. now kim seems

done with tolerating it. he called it illegal. it seems to me he wants to crash for some reason. he wants that to happen and he's preparing for it. this is robert carlin. he's been working on north korea for over 50 years and has been there at least 30 times, including as a us intelligence officer. carland thinks him zone on his talk of a legal borders might only be the 1st step to white or military action. another worry and development came recently declared that south korea is now the north principal enemy. before peaceful re unification was the official coal. tim was effectively se south korea is no longer part of the traditional core of the korean people. and the implication is therefore it's of the target. and kim has the military might to back up his rhetoric. he has

nuclear, the west side, and he's in charge of one of the largest armies in the world. the tensions between the 2 sides extend from the sea over onto the land, into the dmc. it's the most militarized, demilitarized zone in the world. and it's where the war between north and south korea has been frozen for 70 years. and where the korean peninsula is basically still split along cold war lines. how did we get here? at the end of world war 2, the korean peninsula was liberated from japanese occupation the winners of the war, the soviet union, and the united states, decided that they would each occupy half of the peninsula. they agreed on this latitude as the dividing line. in 1950 north korean troops invaded the south and the south pushed back. it was a brutal war. at least 2 and

a half 1000000 people were killed. the north was backed by the soviet union and later also by china, both communist states. the south was backed by you and troops led by the us. and you'll see the cold war super powers never really went away. in 1953, an arm is disagreement was signed. freezing the front line of the war, roughly back along the same line again. it ended the fighting and created the buffer zone. we already saw the d n z, but it left many things unresolved, like that maritime border. that wasn't in the agreement, the un led by the us through that later without actually asking north korea's permission. and it wasn't a peace treaty, so the war between north and south korea never officially ended the the same family, the launch, the war is still in charge. now the king salmon,

he is currently the only communist dynasty, the jim jones own rules just like his father and grandfather beforehand with the to tell a terry and cult of personality and an iron fist using intimidation and violence. north koreans don't have access to the outside world, leaving the country is illegal without permission. and then came the pandemic. north korea had some of the strictest border controls in the world. and kim started building hundreds of kilometers of fencing and walls along north korea's border with russia and china like here, satellite images. so that a double fence pops up after the pandemic shut down, north korea even introduced to shoot to kill order along the chinese border. so kim has pretty much sealed off his country and locked in his people, but he's open for business with his authoritarian neighbors. north korea shares

a 1400 kilometer long border with china without its nor their neighbor. the country wouldn't survive. almost all of its very limited trade happens with the china, which brings us to russ on a north korean region right on the border with both china and russia. it's a special economic so which means this is where the communist country has been letting a bit of capitalism happen since the 1990s. now something new is happening here. just look at how close north korea's to mon gung station and russia's house on station are. this satellite image from october 2023, analyzed by the center for strategic and international studies, shows an unprecedented number of rail cars at the north korean train station. some of these rail cars seem to end up in russia. the crates are covered, so no one really knows what's inside. but the c s i s experts say it's likely north

korean munitions for russia, which is 2 years into its full scale war against ukraine. ukraine says it has found north korean artillery shells and missiles on the battlefield. the u. n. is confirmed, the use of missiles north korea, russia to neither claims. what's kim john own getting out of it? well, reportedly a lot of the money and foods and may be given kim oil and raw materials and parts to make more weapons, potentially including band missile technology. some of this stuff has been hard for kim to come by. so far. north korea is under international sanctions. for building and testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, oil deliveries, for example, violate those sanctions into t. v. so

these days kim is very involved in jenny town is the director of the program devoted to north korea analysis at the simpson center. think time she's been working on north korea for almost 20 years. this is a big win cartoons on the bed on that on the war. and so far that, that now is paying off for him. this russian maid's luxury limousine is an example of that. it was a fancy gift from pollutant to kim, on his recent trip to russia. luxury items are also section. so this gift is polluting, showing how little he cares about all that. because both kim and fruits and are under sanctions. tiers to a growing friendship. the 2 also share a passion for showing off their weapons and it's more than just showing off. now,

no experience getting fields. experience for their missiles. there's been evidence of them in the ukrainian battlefields and as they improve the quality of good, be a cheap choice for others in the future. what this means improves north korean weapons on the illegal market. potential buyer, as includes syria and iran on his trip to russia, kim jong on also toward a spaceport in the far east of the country. south korean intelligence has said it probably was russian health that enables north korea to launch its 1st spice satellite into orbit. right now, what north korea gas from russia is a level of military cooperation. it has not had since the cold war since the soviet union. right. and that is a huge, huge wind for kim's outline. it might also be a win for kens nuclear weapons,

even though no one knows for sure if russia is helping him develop that. what we do know is that kim is carried out an unprecedented number of messiah launches since 2022. people call them provocations. if they're just intended to get under our skin, they're not, they're testing new systems and down and almost all of them seem to work. these miss uh, launches used to have a differential purpose. the idea that they were always so dangerous was mistaken. the north peers did not want to go to work for the whole purpose of their policy was to engage the americans not to go to war, was in other words, weapons testing was kind of part of their diplomatic policy. a way to make sure south korea and more importantly, it's super power back or the us kept talking to them. that takes us back to the d.

n z. it looks pretty good when these meetings were happening there. a few years ago, south korean president moved j in and conjunction and we're taking steps to try and finally end the war. because remember, the 2 koreas never officially made peace and us president donald trump made a surprise appearance. he also came to visit the d. n z and was actually the 1st us president ever to set foot into north korean territory. many didn't take the meetings between the 2 seriously. but actually there were clear signs that came down and really was willing to do something right. age and something on this nuclear weapons program and so can, may have been willing to give up a lot in return for sanctions relief. but at their summit in hanoi, the talks collapsed and why was a terrific failure?

a personal failure for conjunction and from that point on, he began thinking how he was going to change the policy. i don't believe they can get anything from the us. i think they've given up right now, the idea that the sanctions will be listed or could be listed if they just did that . right. right. kim seems to have abandoned the hope for peace. and all this isn't happening in a vacuum. we see china, russia and north korea working more closely together. and iran is in the mix as well. you know, came down on was one of the 1st world leaders to talk about and embrace the idea of a new cold war layer politically aligned with no rush and trying to against the west kens allies. russia and china are back to thinking about spheres of influence

. and territorial ambitions, russia is trying to take over ukraine. and china is zayn taiwan. that's the context for kens, talk about the maritime borders. it could just be rhetoric, or he could be planning to take over one of these little islands. so when he really started a war, this could be a long fuse in a long term plan. while he prepares him his own people, well he, he gathers together the equipment he needs while he convinces there's allies that they need to support him. i don't know where he thinks he is in this and therefore we're close the use of pulling the trigger. there's definitely a reason on to reason for concern and a reason why we should be trying to rebuild diplomacy with the north koreans in order to, you know, pull them back into the international community. as we've seen at the moment, kim doesn't really seem interested in that. instead he started looking elsewhere

for support. so is that enough to give him what he wants? or does he have more dangerous options? the valuable thing has been openly aggressive and ukraine for more than 2 years now. but as far as concourse is not confined to you, he's also clearly exhibiting influence and other pharma. so if you have states as well, for instance, in georgia and model of georgia, has foster controversial legislation that labels non governmental organizations as foreign agents, leading to be so heavy put in the legislation of being regarded as a copy of a similar russian law and model of all which is due to void presidential elections and a referendum on joining the

e u. later this year. russia is being accused of targeting the public's.