well, let me first say that both korea/china relations and korea/u.s. relations, if we are able to isolate the two and look at them independently, it's as good as it can get. i mean, you know, we've heard it. from the chinese delegation here. we've heard it from the american delegation here. in fact, during the summit between president obama and president park geun-hye, obama was saying korea/u.s. relations is more than just an alliance. this year in june, u.s. congressional report was saying that korea -- i keep saying korea/japan. korea/america relations is at their best state since the establishment of the alliance in 1953. earlier the key note speaker, dan russell, was also saying that in his career in the state department, that it's really at its best state. we've had multiple summit meetings already and counting. we've had a good number of -- i can count seven foreign ministerial meetings. we're not even into two years quite yet. we've had two plus two meetings. and, of course, the security consultative meetings, the scm. in fact, the 46th scm at

in korea, i speak in korea. >> translator: for the marketization and changes in north korea, there has been some changes in north korea and the basic framework is between different generations that we have in north korea. i would like to actually have a conceptual generation in north korea. there is something called chang madame, which is the markt mechanism in north korea. this has been in place for about 20 years by now. and this which is a market economy for north korea is an economy that is outside of the planned economy of the socialist regime that north korea was. there is a new generation. those who were born perhaps sometime after the 1970s and who have grown up watching these take place and so their parent generation were a generation of distributi distribution and rations. so they received these subsidies from the planned economy. but the news generation have not actually received any rations or distribution from the government or the governing regime. so they have actually not seen a socialistic regime at work. they actually do not have as much loyalty to the regime. what th

in korea, i speak in korea and. >> translator: the marketization's in north korea there's been some changes in north korea and the basic framework is in the different generations that we have in north korea. i would like to have the different generations in north korea. there is the market mechanism in north korea and has been in place for about 20 years by now coming into the market economy for north korea is an economy that is outside of the planned economy that north korea was and there is a new generation of those who were born perhaps sometimes after the 1970s and who have grown up watching this take place and so the parent generation of distribution received these subsidies from the planned economy that the new generation hasn't actually received the distributions from the government regime so they have actually not seen the socialist regime at work. they actually do not have as much loyalty to the regime. what they have seen if their mom and dad working in these market economies and producing income from these market economies so these are two different generations. this is the stori

and korea. on the other hand we have defectors from the north who are the vanguard of activism criticizing the chinese foreign-policy regarding refugees, economic migrants and what have you from the north soviet diplomatic tensions between the south and china because of the defectors, the left activism and the south korean rights activism on the refugees and human rights. we have multiple ways that we are watching and diversifying the foreign-policy. in the first year as the head of state to come to south korea the current president of the philippines to visit all of the major southeast asian states in her first year of presidency she has a new foreign-policy. so they are diversifying the policy and it isn't a coming sense that the demographic changes that are occurring having to draw from the population in the amount, indonesia, thailand etc.. so i leave open the question of how might the domestic demographic changes in south korea affect domestic identification in terms of political identifica

>> of north korea. country that doesn't have a lot of resources or money, but they're spending it on building basically signer attackers who previously had been specializing in attacks on south korea. this is the first time we see this coming against an american country. the scary thing is, you know, that they can do this against a movie studio, imagine if they did this against a bank or major financial institution in the united states, what the repercussions would be. >> we spoke to the assistant attorney general for national security here in "the situation room" the other day. he said boldly that if, in fact, this was a regime, a country, maybe 90% of all u.s. companies out there are vulnerable to this kind of attack. >> you have a country, they test missiles, they go 500 miles and go off course. he doesn't have enough nuclear weapons to threaten the united states. but if they have grade-one hackers that can penetrate any computer network out there, it puts him on par with a country like ours. >> jeff

they know the south korea attack was launched by north korea. way to test, looking at this current tact, against that south korea attack, is one way you would map and try to determine whether or not north korea was the actual hacker here. >> it's not just private companies that are vulnerable. the u.s. government is vulnerable. we knew that state department compute kerrs were hacked a few months ago. >> absolutely. look what snowden did. taking tons of classified material right out the back door and probably out the front and side doors at the same time. and that was u.s. government proprietary information. so yeah, the government's vulnerable, everybody has some vulnerability to this type of attack. >> one of the options, peter, in terms of retaliating against north korea, sending a message to not only north korea but other countries, other actors as the white house calls them, not to do this. what are the options in terms of a response, once the u.s. names and shames north? >> north korea has beening to things that the u.s. finds objection abo

north korea. so this is a very positive development in korean-american relations. that is not to say that everything is rosy in rianne-american relations. there are some outstanding issues that needs to be ironed out between the two. one of course is the north carolina clear agreement which i guess will move into 2015. it is a very complicated issue. it is not an easy issue. there is the on going complication of u.s. bases in korea but overall i think bilateral relations is in great, excellent shape. likewise south korean relations with china is in great shape. everyone is talking about the personal relationship between president xi jinping and president pack was the chair womb of grand national party. at that time the grand national party was the opposition party, not the ruling party. president she jinping was the president of both of them were are were not the height of the statute which probably reinforced their chemistry because they're undergoing some issues at the time. that friendship has

implementing the korea-u.s. free trade agreement, negotiating a bilateral investment treaty with china. finishing the trans-pacific partnership, the tpp, with japan and others. all of these will provide a huge lift to the global economy. china's ftas. korea's ftas. trade proposals like rc ap. these are all important part of the conversation as well. now, the u.s. and china, as is well known, the world's greatest emitters of greenhouse gas. but our recent action on climate change, on targets, show we are determined to address it. so do president obama's and prime ministers abe's pledges to the south korean hosted global green climate fund of $3 billion in $1.5 billion respectively. and our countries r&d and manufacturing capabilities will keep us at the forefront of the clean energy economy. we each have public health and infectious disease expertise, and tremendous experience from the bird flu and from sars experience. that helps ensure that our nation's rt contributed to dealing with ebola response. and it cert

a wish for people in north korea. our innocent sisters and brothers on the streets, in the countryside, in the prisoners camp who are suffering for no reason. we only hope that one day in the future when you look back on what you did today, we will be able to say that we did the right thing for the people of north korea, for the lives of every man and woman, boy and girl to have the same human rights as the rest of us. thank you. >> i thank the representative of the republic of korea for his statement. i will now make a statement in my national capacity as representative of chad. i also wish to thank the asg for political affairs and the asg for human rights and their briefings. the report from the coi on the human rights situations in the dprk, as a great many of us have just said, has brought to the the fore abrought to situation marked by massive violations in the dprk. the report covers systematic, widespread and flagrant human rights violations that have been and are being committed by the dprk. the report conclu

forces in korea said the north korea has the capabilities to build nuclear tip missiles. south korean defense minister confirmed this. in the near future we will face north korea's nuclear proliferation and capable of icbm. it will dramatically increase nuclear proliferation in the region. many experts anticipate north korea is likely to explode nuclear device in the first half of next year. then i am going to ask my friend what is china's policy to deal with this kind of issue? is there any specific policies? seems to take new initiatives in the north korea policies. if north korea tested the nuclear device how will china respond to it? my fourth question is related to russia's return. we also face new factors in the northeast asia. there is a prospect for the cement meeting in 2015 between putin and kim jong-un. and is it helpful or negative? the last question is about china's new initiative and their foreign policy. we are witnessing great transformation in china's foreign policies which is very different. what is the new normal diplomacy of china? what is the meaning

he said north korea and north korea aloneau

there's more interest in north korea. part of that is because the general public -- because of its access issue tends to look at north korea sometimes as if it's the moon. another planet. that in turn drives a push for sensationalism and mainstream journalists that don't cover north korea that often. that's one issue. we have a big challenge with small stories that just echo chamber into extremely sensational tabloid nonsense very quickly which even get traction from quite prestigious outlets. so that's one thing. access is another. in a different way to the way jean and paul have said. so we specialize in only north korea. we do it day-to-day, which is in the slow summer days of august can be very, very difficult. you know, we are really struggling sometimes to find leads for stories to do something original and it's those times when personally it does get to you and you just wish this could be a bit more of a normal country and access and get in and interview various people and find leads for content. that's something t

and also korea, u.s.korea institute in size, they usually have one time breakfast meeting in a month. and also they show a lot of the satellite images so we can write a lot of the stories with the images. just if i add one more thing, or make a recommendation for the think tank. why don't you invite north korean officers or professors, academia from north korea the united states? the think tank -- united states government tend to invite north koreans, and then that would be very helpful. i used along force information from think tank, -- [inaudible] the agencies can a lot of agencies who are selling the north korean information for money. so it's not a neo-think tank. some type of super think tank like agency. >> i think one obstacle to bring north koreans is you have to pay for everything including -- >> united states, lots of money. [inaudible] >> should be on the bottom. >> we are being recorded. >> i think that's a great suggestion to if you could please talk to government officials in washington to l

a show north korea for what it is, a living nightmare. a former prisoner of prison camp 15 said she and other prisoners were so famished they picked dungels of corn from the of cattle to eat. she said, "if there was a day we were able to have mouse, that was a special diet for us. we had to eat everything alive, every type of meat we could find, everything that flew or crawled on the ground, any grass that grew on the field." a former ground at -- guard at prison camp 22 spoke of guards routinely raping residents. in one case in which a victim became pregnant and gave birth, the former guard reported officials cooked her baby and fed it to their dogs. and sounds unbelievable unthinkable, yet this is what a former guard told the commission of inquiry at a public hearing. his account fits a pattern across witness testimonies of sadistic punishments netted out to prisoners whose crime was being raped by officials. the commission estimates between are being,000 people held in prison camps like the one where so many of these crimes occurred. m

he said north korea and north korea alone launched a devastating attack on sony pictures and vowed to respond but stopped short of saying what and when that would be, only that he would do it at a place and time of his manner. but his harshest marks were not about north korea. it was more about sony. >> sony is an organization. i'm sympathetic to the concerns they have faced. having said all of that, yes, i think they made a mistake. we cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the united states. because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don't like. >> it is a fair point. and that is pretty blunt. the president of the united states coming out. if you are sony pictures, coming out and saying you made a mistake. that is not mincing words. well ceo from sony michael lynton replied. >> i don't know exactly whether he understand the sequence of events to the movies not being shown in the movie theaters and therefore i would disagre

yes, north korea ups the ante claiming the u.s. government was involved in making that movie "the interview" and threatening an even worse cyber attack. >> happy holidays to you. >> and an exclusive interview with president obama. nothing is off limits. how will the white house respond to north korea's escalating threats? hear it all right now. you're in the cnn newsroom. good afternoon, everyone. i'm randy kay in today for fredericka whitfield. we begin this hour in new york. a stunning ambush in broad daylight. two police officers murdered, shot and killed in their police cruiser. today new york is in shock. newspapers calling it an execution and tensions are mounting between police and the city's leadership. we are covering every angle of this story, including an interview with former new york mayor rude where i juliany. alexander field is in new york. erin mcpike is in baltimore where police say the suspect shot his ex-girlfriend, and michelle kazinski has the reaction from the president and his administration from hawaii for u

and korea and -- you can make comedies about korea, "mashn make comedies like ," but let's have someanity in these films. >> leaked e-mails between sony producer scott rudin & executive amy pascal are also making headlines. mail she wrote -- they continued exchanging e-mails. executives later apologized. we have other north korean agents lower hollywood -- in hollywood that understand this? i kind of doubt it. if you look at the early stories of this hack, which is important to do, because before north korea came up as a source, there are many articles in the press about this. it shows extensive knowledge of sony, who is who, where their e-mails are kept, where the stuff is kept inside their servers. i find it ludicrous to think the north koreans, so isolated and crude in the technology, have been able to completely penetrate and all must destroy an american hollywood studio like this. >> finally, christine hong, on the evidence of north korea actually doing this hacking. the u.s. relationship with north korea and china? >> i would say a couple of things. one, just to continue someth

. >>> north korea lashes out at the u.s. president over the release of "the interview" and uses insulting language in the process. also ahead, several experts raise doubts about claims north korea is actually responsible for the sony hack. then who was? we look into it. >>> also, more than 100,000 people are fleeing major flooding in malaysia. we'll have a weather report for you live here. also the red carpet gig can be far from glamorous, did you know. we'll have a behind the scenes look from one of cnn's own. welcome to viewers in the u.s. and around the world. i'm natalie allen. happy holidays to you. we begin this hour at the box office where sony pictures controversial comedy "the interview" is a hit. the film earned $1 million christmas day playing in only about 300 theaters across the u.s. sony originally planned to release the film in 2,000 to 3,000 theaters. sales figures for online viewing on sites like youtube and google play aren't in yet but one blog says "the interview" has been shared illegally about 750,000 t

>> naming and shaming north korea. it's a step that you have all the evidence now but haven't taken the step of publicly calling them out. it's something that took them years to do, frankly, john, with china with cyber attacks on u.s. companies in the government. multiple times for years and took them a number of years before publicly called them out. that's a first step. if they're able to determine who the actual hackers are by name and id, they could take a step again they took against an elite group of chinese hackers of filing charges against them. you're not going to take them into court, they're on the other side of the ocean but you could file charges publicly. but in the near term, raise the economic costs for north korea, tighten economic sanctions on the country. i'll tell you the most powerful one they could do is go after their access to dollar-denominated trade. this is north korea's lifeline to the outside world and by squeezing chinese banks that do business with north korea, you could exact an economic

how did north korea, according to the federal government, north korea hack into a multibillion-dollarompany's computers and spark all of this lunacy? we'll show you how next. >>> also in the pop culture lead today -- >> folks, if this is your first time tuning in to "the colbert report," i have terrible news. >> all the highlights from the final "colbert report" and my interview with the only man who can bring willsie nelson and cookie monster on stage together. don't settle for 4g lte coverage that's smaller or less reliable when only one network is america's largest and most reliable 4g lte network: verizon. with xlte, our 4g lte bandwidth has doubled in over 400 cities. and now, save without settling. get 2 lines with 10gb of data for just $110... ...or 4 lines for just $140. and get a $150 bill credit for each smartphone you switch. only on verizon. female announcer: sleep train's ends sunday.e for 3 event! it's your last chance to get three years interest-free financing on beautyrest black, stearns & foster, serta icomfort, even tempur-pedic. plus, get free delivery, and sleep tr

why isn't north korea blaming over the internet outage in north korea.at proof it is not the united states doing it? >> i think the north koreans who are conspiracy minded any way, think the same thing is true for the good friends in this, the chinese. it may well not be us. but if it isn't, it doesn't matter what is true. what matters is what the chinese and the north koreans think and they are very, very focused on blaming the world's problems on us. >> and this question about north korea and how fragile the internet is, and one of the poorest in the world and they believe their leader is a god and something we haven't seen in the western world for a long time. who in north korea has the access, when you look at the 1,024, who are those people. >> the kim family and seniors and generals and admirals and those in security. so it is a layered group. the north korean regime is the four groups. the kim family, the security services the party and the military. at the top level of all of those you'll have people with unrestricted internet access. >> unrestri

the fbi lends north korea did it for her north korea says they did not do it. other groups say they did it. so i want more evidence to it i want to be 100% sure that north korea did this. until i see the evidence, i am not buying it. thanks. host: the fbi, on friday, announcing that north korea was officially responsible for that that coming from the fbi here in washington, d.c. president obama saying after that announcement was made by the fbi that we cannot have a society in which some dictators opposing censorship here in the united states because somebody can intimidate us out of the releasing of a satirical movie. imagine what they start doing if they see a documentary or a news report they do not like. that is not who we are. that is not what america is about. that was president obama friday at his end of the year news conference. evelyn in west virginia, our line for independents. caller: yes, i have a question, actually. my question/comment is -- why should anyone political criticize sony for not releasing after benghazi happened, if you remember, every

getting into north korea. that was really i think what they were driving at with regard to this movie. once people start to understand that their leaders could be assassinated and that rand researcher talked about, then obviously they might decide to do the same thing. that's what the regime was really concerned about. host: monty tweets in, sony is a japanese corporation. where is japanese government's outrage? guest: the japanese government outrage right now is not to be heard, largely because japan is now in pretty difficult and tense negotiations with the north koreans over the return of the abductees as we talked about earlier. it didn't want to offend the north koreans. obviously, they feel as our government feels that it's not good to get the north koreans angry. i'm not so sure that's the right theory, because when you show that, you're starting to show weakness to the north koreans. that's the worst thing you can possibly do. but in any event, that's the way the tokyo government calculates its interes

also, there are new developments involving north korea. guess what? north korea's internet is down. who's responsible for that? we've got new information coming into "the situation room." it's more than the driver. it's more than the car. for lotus f1 team, the competitive edge is the cloud. powered by microsoft dynamics, azure, and office 365, the team can gain real time insights and instantly share information around the globe. when every millisecond counts, staying competitive begins with the cloud. this is the microsoft cloud. >>> we continue to follow the breaking news in new york city where the mayor, bill de blasio, is asking people to put aside protests until after the funerals of the two police officers who were brutally killed over the weekend. but we're also following reports that north korea's internet system all of a sudden collapsed today. the reports come as the state department put new pressure on north korea to admit that it was behind the cyber attack on sony pictures. let's bring in our global affairs correspondent, elise labott, who's working this story for us. w

policy toward north korea in your judgment?ink the -- it would be far more likely that north korea would do some kind attack in the south. i don't think they would have carried out attacks against theaters in the u.s. and in that sense the sony pulling of the film was a mistake as well as some of the other movie companies that have pulled other films related to north korea. obviously, we have to be vigilant against north korean attacks, but i think it was an overreaction by sony. >> it is an exact parallel to president obama's white house begging google to take down the anti-mohammed, anti-muslim video on youtube. this time it is a mistake. then it was national policy because the president was the one asking. bruce clinger, we thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much. >>> president obama's illegal immigrant amnesty executive fiat losing its first test in federal court, so what you pay your auto insurance premium every month on the dot. you're like the poster child for paying on time. and then one day you tap the bump

a wish for people in north korea. our innocent sisters and brothers on the streets, in the countryside, in the prisoners camp who are suffering for no reason. we only hope that one day in the future when you look back on what you did today, we will be able to say that we did the right thing for the people of north korea, for the lives of every man and woman, boy and girl to have the same human rights as the rest of us. thank you. >> i think the representative of the republic of korea for his statements. i will now make a statement in my national capacity as representative of chad. i also thank the a.s.g. for political affairs and the a.s.g. for human rights. i thank them for their briefings. the report from the c.o.i. on the human rights as a great many of us have just said has brought to the fore, a situation marked by massive violations in the dprk. flagrant human rights violations that have been and are being committed by the dprk

, out of north korea.tory and i heard there was a movie plan that has already been canceled. so movies about north korea, you see the capitulation going on now. there's more than one that's already been canceled. >> right. the movie you're talking about would have starred steve carrell. is it the government's responsibility to help sony? >>. >> well, the responsibility here for the international community, including people in public life, is to stand up and remind people of what we did and said after there were satanic verses published. if at that point the world capitulated, there couldn't be a dialogue today about these important issues. so we cannot walk down that road. all of us in public life have a responsibility to speak out and say, sony, you did the wrong thing. and to say to hollywood, come behind sony and offer their support and at this point, no more capitulation. no more cancellation of scripts. you know, freedom of speech is a very important thing, not just in this country but all over the wo

the white house maintains north korea acted alone. >> we've got no indication north korea was actingn con juchx with another country. >> north korea denies hacking sony but if pong pang pulled this off without any outside help it would be the greatest success for their shadowy hacking group called bureau 1231. >> frankly, north korea probably doesn't need the help. they've been investing in herr cybercapabilities very heavily and they've had a couple of trial runs on south korean media and banks. >> one bank points to key reasons why other governments may not have helped north korea with the sony attack. he says most governments wouldn't be foolish enough to hand any kind of attack tools to north korea given their erratic behavior. brian todd, cnn, washington. >>> he was the youngest person ever executed in the united states and now this young boy's murder conviction is thrown out. up next, what led to his case being reviewed and why some are still convinced he did it. i've had moderate to severe plaque psoriasis most my life. but that hasn't stopped me from modeling. my doctor told

south korea. and the language that they are speaking is a language typically used in north korea. and my -- my idea of this would be, like, how many people in the world speak english? and how many people in the world use windows 8? so, i think everybody could learn a great deal out of this. it is not really a big deal. how much money does sony entertainment have? rogen w much is seth going to lose at the end of this? it is not going to affect anybody. it is just a movie. iis ink that everybody hyping it up, and it really deserves no attention, like you had mentioned earlier. host: the president is holding press conference today before hhe flies off for christmas break in hawaii. 1:30 pm live on c-span. kim. manchester, tennessee. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. to say this like -- i think we ought to show the movie. i think everyone could benefit from it. we should do not mind putting movies out on 9/11 when we were attacked. we should retaliate against them. we have to sit and watch

evan talked about the capability of north korea, which is pretty stunning, because in north korea, they basically don't have access to the internet. that hasn't stopped the regime from grooming the best and brightest to wage cyber warfare. we are live out in front in south korea. and what can you tell us kyong? in a country when you don't have the internet are shocked this capability exists? >> and that is a feeling a lot of south koreans had for sometime, until last year. last year 2013 in june there was a widespread attack on south korea, on banks where people couldn't withdraw money from atms and some of the high-profile companies here in south korea. it is an awakening called as dark sol. things went dark. that might sound weird to sony. but there are sleuths here trying to figure out if there is similarities to what happened to sony and what happened here next year and that is where they will try to connect the dots back to north korea and learn something new. what is key here is this was a cyber war, a cyber war on both sides of the border knew what was happening. south koreans kn

i think it is korea joining aiib. the u.s. interest to see korea.e time, i think it is china's interest to facilitate korea joining the aiib. but the problem is to the contrary of my chinese colleague saying korea are is pushed enough to join aiib. but the way it is structured is very far from common sense. voting rights as envisioned by beijing is 50% china. it is based on so called gdp on tpp parenting. i have an economist. i have never heard of this voting right on the basis. it could be a good comparison when you went to compare livingston for people in beijing. people in tokyo. but income on tpp. can it buy more oil? impossible. if that's related to voting rights it is unconventional. beijing is accusing western institutions on the basis of transparency, unreliabilities. if beijing wants to stand up it's a new global players. i think it is in beijing's interest to get korea in the aiib and show strategic flexibility. >> thank you very much. professor long? >> it is unwieldy for me to give a clear -- to the regional economic future. but i have t

and they found similarities with a cyberattack launched by north korea against south korea banks and media outlets. >> hello, north korea! >> the cyberattack was apparently motivated by the sony movie "the interview," a plot against north korea's leader. >> after threats of violence sony decided to cancel the movie. but president obama in his end of year news conference criticized that decision. >> yes, i think they made a mistake. we cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the united states. because if someone is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they'll start to do if they see a documentary that they don't like or news report that they don't like. >> but sony disagrees with the president. they issued a statement. sony ceo said that they don't own movie theaters and cannot determine what movie a theater will show, but what is left unclear is whether sony plans to put "the interview" back on the market. >> very interesting. i want to talk a little bit about the options that are on the table.

working today on north korea and human rights, whether or not to refer north korea to the international criminal court for crimes against humanity. in other news, here in the united states, congressman michael grimm in new york pleading guilty to a felony count of tax evasion. he was charged a 20 count indictment for hiding more than a million dollars in income and wages. pleading guilty on tuesday to a felony charge of cheating on his taxes with a restaurant he owns and manhattan that he co-owned before entering congress. congressman michael grimm pleading guilty to a felony count of tax evasion. >> this meeting of the security council is called to order. the provisional agenda for this in the is the situation democratic people's republic of korea. does any member of the council wish to speak on the subject? to give the floor now to the representative of china. president, china is against using the existence of the large scale violence in the in theo include this agenda of the security council. the you in charge stimulates explicitly that the primary responsibility of the security coun

north korea is your proverbial her mitt kingdom. it sits there in splendid isolation in plot so splendid isolation. it has a ruling family that approaches a ruling religious cult. they don't mind that the rest of the world doesn't like them. but they don't like the ridicule of the world. they usually have tomorrow after organizations, and they felt this was the right thing to do with sony. i think they may have taken on more than they bargained for. i was. just in china last week, and i was really struck by the fact that the chinese, who have traditionally asked the u.s. to give the north koreans a pass on these things, how the chinese are fed up with them at this point. this is a real opportunity for the u.s. to go and sit down with the chinese, who by the way have had their own challenges with cyberattacks, and see what we can do to work something out forwards north korea. >> ambassador, there is talk of putting north korea back on the list of sponsor for terrorism. >> it's essentially a list that if you're on it, the united state

insisting he means to stand up to north korea. this time the president said he will give a proportional response aimed at north korea. he didn't elaborate further. reports suffered that the president is considering retaliation. he's actually thinking about putting north korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. that designation would put north korea along syria, cuba, and iran. a designation that so far has done nothing to stop bashar and the president two days ago beginning his attempt to normalize relations with raul castro and cuba. when asked about the long-term effect of his unilateral action, the president had nothing concrete to say. obama: i think it would be unrealistic for me to map out exactly where cuba will be. but change is going to come to cuba. it has to. lou: it has to. the president also asked about working with a new republican congress next year and the looming battles over his rule by fiat. mr. obama had one suggestion for the republican leadership: he thinks it would be democratic, progressive an

friday in pyongyang, north korea. wherever you're watching from around the world, thank very much for joining us. up first a crippling cyber terror attack about to be officially blamed on north korea. an announcement expected as early as today by the obama administration. u.s. officials believe the north korean leadership directly ordered the attack on sony pictures and the fallout from the attack keeps on growing. sony is being criticized by some for canceling the christmas day release of the movie at the center of the controversy. the movie titled "the interview" angered north korea because it depicts a plot to assassinate the north korean leader, kim jong-un. pamela brown is joining us now. what have you learned about the u.s. linking the attack directly to north korea? because as you know, the north korean government has flatly denied it was responsible and praised all the criticism of the film, but it doesn't -- it insists it had nothing to do with the hacking? >> you're right. the north korean government has den

going to do if it is, in fact, north korea that did this?an't imagine there's much left to sanctions. >> we do already have sanctions in place due to their human rights violations. we have issues being discussed by the national security team. i'm not going to outline it here but i'm sure we'll talk about it once a conclusion has been made. >> jen psaki, thank you and happy holidays to you. >> thanks, jake. you, too. >>> can anyone really prevent a cyberattack like the one that took place at sony. should the u.s. government being responsible for protecting your information online, even if it's at private companies? maybe the company you work for should take a more proactive approach. the plan in the works to defend your information against hackers. that's next. hello... i'm an idaho potato farmer and our big idaho potato truck is still missing. so my buddy here is going to help me find it. here we go. woo who, woah, woah, woah. it's out there somewhere spreading the word about americas favorite potatoes: heart healthy idaho potatoes and the a

did north korea win? >>> and is the release of a spy for almost 20 years, a man that almost no one knew he existed, who is the mystery spy. >>> and as the terror attack rises in pakistan, we have new video tracking the steps of the killers inside of that school. let's go outfront. >>> good evening. i'm erin burnett. and "outfront" tonight, the breaking news, the white house calls the crippling attack on sony pictures, a quote, serious national security matter but today no formal response from the white house. one day after cnn reported that u.s. investigators concluded that north korean leaders ordered the attack. a statement from the administration blaming north korea and laying out the response was anticipated as early today instead a white house spokesperson didn't use the words north korea in responding to questions about the attack, simply saying the investigation is ongoing. >> i'm not prepared to ascribe any accountability for this specific act or to describe who might have been the sophisticated a

north korea on the course. and a fox news analyst and a lot of blow back and push back dealing with the sony hack. and the first time we are hit in a massive cyber attack by a foreign country. >> it is a major blow against free speech. the company was under pressure after threats of violence and all of the hollywood hot shots attacking sony for letting north korea dictate. and i don't know what the president will say about that. he will have to address the question of cyber security not only on the government's part and officials of the state were consulted by sony on the movie and they told them to go ahead. no problem. you are dealing with your grid and computer system and electricity and every infrastructure in the country that is vulnerable if north korea carried it out. >> we know that every company in our organization could be vulnerable. not only embarrassing e-mails but shut down. and that is on the front burner and look at media coverage of president obama. up to and encluding and mr. obama took air on

another one is north korea. 20 years ago, we asked ourselves the question whether north korea had any materials -- we don't ask that kind of question anymore. we now ask about miniaturization or whether they have the technologies to load those nuclear devices on to missiles and so on and so forth. according to some estimates, as of now, north korea is supposedly possessing 24 to 42 kill grahams of plutonium-based material, possibly 150 kilograms of uranium-based materials compared to almost none ten years ago. north korea already had three nuclear tests, excluding the supposedly -- the underground test, undertaken in 2010 compared to zero ten years ago. now north korea is estimated to have four to eight plutonium based weapons compared to zero ten years ago. so this isn't exactly the area where we really need u.s.-china cooperation. but whether or not that kind of cooperation would really be forthcoming to a very successful and satisfying level remains to be seen. just because of the deficit of trust between washington and beijing. all these issues are strategically embedded in u.s.-c

>>> north korea called u.s. president barack obama the chief culprit behind the release of the interview". we'll tell you what else pyongyang is saying about it. also, two fallen new york police officers are remembered as more threats are leveled against their fellow officers. also ahead this hour it, preparations under way in california for the rose bowl parade. how do they make those floats? and what is inside them? we'll have a report for you. welcome to our viewers in the u.s. and around the world. you're watching cnn live coverage. i'm natalee allen. happy holidays to you. no one expected "the interview" to get a good review from north korea and they did not disappoint issuing a scathing criticism of the comedy about a fictional plot to assassinate kim jong-un. they say the film is illegal, dishonest and contrary to the u.n. charter but they saved some of their harshest language for u.s. president barack obama and paula hancocks is following the story for us from seoul south korea and joins us now live from

he's been sending balloons with anti-north korea propaganda from south korea for many years. the plan to float the politically sensitive film into the country is being funded by the human rights foundation in new york. but the movie hasn't been released on any format yet. >>> we have this just in to cnn after an eight-year ban on capital punishment, jordan has executed 11 convicted criminals. state-run petra news agency says the men were put to death early sunday morning for murders. the government gave no reason why it suddenly lifted the death penalty ban that has been in place since 2006. >>> 70 years ago, a 14-year-old boy was executed by the u.s. for allegedly killing two girls in the south. he was black. they were white. his trial took less than three hours. recently a judge overturned his conviction. here's cnn's david mattingly. >> reporter: at 5'1" and 95 pounds he was just a skinny teenager, only 14 years old, growing up in the town of south carolina back in 1944. george steny jr. was tending to the family's cow with his little sister in this field near an old set o