joining us now is kaori enjoji, former cnbc bureau chief. what more can you tell us about this?hots, as you say, in the western waters off the korean peninsula heightening tensions that have been simmering for months now. the area we're talking about is the northern limit line. it is one of the most serious flash points for contention on the korean peninsula. i mean, north korea, itself, doesn't even acknowledge that that border exists. when you take into consideration that north korea has been launching missile tests at an unprecedented pace this year, especially since the end of september with one flying directly over japan earlier on this month and you consider the fact that government officials here in japan, south korea and the u.s. have been warning that north korea might be gearing up for another nuclear test. now, the timing for the next two weeks is going to be critical, jose. we're just coming off the end of the national congress in china which is one of the biggest ben benefactors for north korea. and you have this deteriorating relationship that the u.s. has with rus

joining us now is journalist and former cnbc tokyo bureau chief kaori.actly are authorities saying at this point about the police response there in seoul and what might have led to this stampede? >> reporter: well, aaron, the chief of police apologizing today, saying that the officers who were on the scene did not realize that the crowd had gotten so large and instead of focusing on crowd control, their primary focus was trying to prevent crime. he said that 130 police were there but that doesn't seem like a whole lot for a crowd size of 100,000 people. you know, south korea has so many political protests and rallies are extremely well organized and managed, but for these kinds of gatherings, you're required to register ahead, but that didn't happen on saturday. and the police say there was just no playbook to guide them through that process. still, many are saying that after two years of very strict covid restrictions, they could have guessed that it would be a halloween like no other, aaron. >> wow. just an incredible crowd size for sure. you know, thi