here inlies the dilemma for south korea. we are very much entrenched in the old order but there is this new order emerging which the, where china wants korea to play a significant role. now this is, this is a problem because the new silk road, i may be wrong in this assessment, is not seen as being complimenting but rather competing with u.s.-controlled sea lanes, not to mention tpp. and china's push on this as already mentioned, push for south korea joining the aiib and also the open opposition to it. ad, as far as south korea is concerned, tad has nothing to do with china t has everything to do with north korea. that is not the view of china. china looks at it not in the local sense but from the perspective of u.s.-china relations. this is the background, okay, this is the background where, you know, there is this discourse over the dilemma of south korea. but to come to an abrupt conclusion, really as far as i'm concerned there is no dilemma because the at end of the day the fact is the united states is south korea's ally.

and herein lies the dilemma for south korea. we are very much entrenched in the old order, but there is this new order emerging where china wants korea to play a significant role. now, this is a problem because the new silk road, i may be wrong in this assessment, is not seen as being complementing but, rather, competing with u.s.-controlled sea lanes, not to mention ttp. and china's push has already been mentioned, push for south korea joining the aaib and also the open opposition to t.a.d. where as far as south korea is concerned, t.a.d. has nothing to do with china. it has everything to do with north korea. that's not the view of china. china looking at it from the perspective of u.s./china relations. this is the background -- >> well, time is over. >> okay. this is the background where there is this discourse over the dilemma of south korea. but as far as to come to an abrupt conclusion, really as far as i'm concerned, there is no dilemma. at the end of the day, the fact is, united states is south korea's ally. china is not a

of the fact system in south korea and also what is south korea's aaid are really making south korea quite frustrated in a way. they don't want to offend china allegedly the chinese post to this and also try to invite south korea to join the aid. finally, the opposition to the fact deployment and also chinese efforts to enlist south korea to join the aib are making south korea's life a little bit more uncomfortable at the same time. and also, despite the success of the key obama summit in beijing, i think differences between china and u.s. on a whole range of issues remain ranging from how to deal with the north korea more effectively on the nuclear issue to how to address the south china sea maritime issue. they have a lot of differences. and both governments are concerned about -- or quite concerned about the other country's approach. the three countries do agree as to how to deal with north korea's nuclear issue which is allegedly sparing no time -- i mean north korea -- developing a nuclear weapon and planning to have another nuclear test. how can we explain the negative developm

has not formally approached south korea about the matter. meanwhile, politicians in south korea's national assembly have been debating the issue for a month. >> translator: if we decide not to use thaad, north korea will be free to threaten our citizens with nuclear missiles. >> translator: thaad could mean we are pulled into a dispute between the u.s. and china. >> translator: if thaad is deployed without civilian input there will surely be strong resistance within korea. the current administration must exercise extremely careful judgment. >> reporter: with china on the rise, and the u.s. no longer the only super power, south korea's government walks a diplomatic tight rope. kim dae-young, nhk world, seoul. >>> u.s. safety regulators are demanding a recall. they want all cars fitted with japan's ta kata air bags off the road. how are industry people reacting to the demands? >> it's been quits mixed. these can explode, injure and kill people in the car when it's warm outside. so, in several of the southern states, actually, recalls have take

demands that south korea confront russia and north korea, will this development succeed? the same categories which could be -- but if anybody is could respond, it is up to you. so, but anyway. there is one question to you. >> okay. help me. sorry. >> i think, north korea believes that china is serious but the problem is it also believes that to have nuclear weapons, extremely important to north korea. that's the problem you know. that's why it hasn't been able to give up. . . but i don't think the chinese government is playing this, in order to make south korea and japan separate and cannot cooperate. i don't think that's, i don't think it ever occurred to the chinese government, the officials, that this would be the end again -- in the game. they are playing us for domestic political support. you can't establish him corporate relationship, but to say that china wants to play this card in order to make japan and south korea together, i think that's a bit offish. with regard to china's position, i think that voting share issue, i mean, sal koreans are concerned about this.

last year here in south korea. and those were eventually linked to north korea. that may be so, but the truth is, there's no hard evidence of that at the moment. >> steve evans in seoul. with me is our technology correspondent rory jones. any other attacks in the last few days that people have been concerned about? >> one thing that we spotted this morning, an annual report from germany's cyber security organization, main cyber security defense organization. and it's highlighted what sounds like a very damaging attack on a steal plant in germany. they manage to identify key personnel. somehow get their credentials, and then get in the organization. it said it caused an actual shutdown of a while of a blast furnace. so real impacts in a way that you don't often see. i think that is beginning to worry people more. we're hearing this story out of south korea about nuclear plants. has to be clear there. they're not saying that the actual technology inside the nuclear plants is being affected. it is the administration. that kind of cyber warfare could be extremely dam

and south korea comes in second. so far, the western makers have controlled much of the world's energy production. japan and south korea have had to pay through the nose to get the gas. what's more, emerging economies such as india and china have started buying up the energy, too. securing stable supplies has become a major challenge. so, the japanese and south koreans decide d to help. they are hoping it will give them a stable and reasonably priced supply. the joint venture is expected to produce 2 million tons of lng annually. the gas will be supplied to japanese utilities and gas corporations for the next 13 years. korean officials say they have high hopes for further cooperation with japan. >> translator: we need more experience in overseas operations, and in gathering information. japanese firms are well plugged in globally. we feel they are the best possible partner. >> translator: our way of thinking is similar to the south koreans. that's a big help when we work together. we find that they are easy to work w

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 of the

that's all at aljazeera.com >>> a new intelligence-sharing pact between south korea, the u.s. and japan came into effect. it will allow seoul and tokyo to share military secrets on north korea indirectly using the united states as an intermediary. harry fawcett joins us from seoul. one would thing that this pact would have been implemented years ago. why now? >> well that's right. you would think that two countries which share a common threat from a country like north korea, which often threatened them with nuclear weapons would be cooperating to a full degree on such matters. that is to ignore what happened here in the last century, when japan was a colonial power, and ruled korea as it then was, often in a brutal way. that history wrangles deeply in south korea. in 2012 there was plans for a military pact between the two countries, an hour before it was to be signed. the south koreans pulled out because of public outrage and the outrage in parliament. the solution came through months of secret negotiations through the united states saying okay we'll have a trilateral intellig

there's a quality press in south korea and more of those types. >> on the question of attribution, jeanyou raised and what are the standards in the south korean press specifically? do you quote from anonymous sources? how do you verify the credibility of these sources where again, with this report about kim jong-un dying while on the phone? how is this something that was verified? where are the sources named? >> there is some difference -- [inaudible] to find out whether you die or not. nobody knows. given the korean intelligence agency doesn't know. so that's another problem. usually if we check again and again and issue more opening, and then we can figure out what is going on and what is correct or what is incorrect. usually again over discussion, that's the main thing. and also i think to make a little mistake on north korean news, we have reliable source. we have to have reliable source, and then when we meet news, and then we have to talk with them and then he can tell us if it is correct or not, or have more information. that's the one mechanism to make rate news on north korea.

kakao talk is south korea's most popular social media service. more than 90% of smartphone owners use it. cyber asylum has dealt kakao talk a serious blow. an opposition party official was recently indicted for refusing police demands to stop a protest demanding that park resign. he says police then monitored messages he exchanged with about 3,000 people on kakao talk. the co-ceo apologized for causing concern to users. the head of an online business body says there needs to be a balance between conflict and interest. >> translator: trust is of the utmost importance for these services with huge numbers of users. but it's also important for businesses to follow the law. it's unfortunate that these two criteria collided on this issue. >> reporter: prosecutors say they won't monitor chats in realtime. but it's hard to win back trust once it's been lost. many users have switched to a german chat app called telegram. it had 50,000 users in early september. now 2 million people have signed up. >> translator: i won't go back to kako talk now that it los

especially difficult for him. >> >> i am saying this with a heavy heart because for south koreans, people in north koreaot just anybody's -- millions of south koreans still have our family members and relatives living in the north, even though we never hear from them, even though by now the pain of separation has become a cold fact of life, we can now watch video clips from north korea without flinching at every scene. we cannot listen to stories of north korean defectors without sharing in their tears, without feeling as if we are there with them experiencing the tragedies. >> monday's procedural vote exempt from vetoes is the first since 2006 when the security council add the myanmar's human rights record to the agenda. >>> now, a private memorial service was held tuesday for one of the hostages in last week's siege at a sydney cafe. 38-year-old katrina dawson shot and killed during the siege. the lawyer and mother of three was buried on monday. also on tuesday, a private funeral was held for the other victim. you see him there, 34-year-old tory johnson. he was the manager of the cafe. the 16-hour sie

practice first in south korea, then aim overseas. should america be prepared for north korea to try to break into these types of agencies in america? of course, he says. even though the u.s. is one of the best prepared nations, cyber attacks are hard to protect yourself from. they have to constantly be diligent. >> you want us to kill the leader of north korea? >> yes. >> they send a signal to north korea, cyber attacks work. >>> the fbi lays the blame for the sony cyber attacks on north korea. the investigation says the malware and techniues match previous attacks. the director of the secret state of north korea say he and his crew uncovered similar evidence. >> i can't go into too much detail, but we had a source that was filming secretly across the china border and saw north korean hackers we think were part of this war fair unit 121. you know, it's kind of an open secret, they go to china to be trained by sophisticated hackers. it seems this is what we are seeing in this incident. >> ken is here with us now. you did a story on thi

in the 1960s, south korea was much poorer than it is today. leaders put a top prize on economic growth. very few people had the luxury of going to college. and the widespread sexism of the time made the situation even worse for girls. but now things are different. the south korean economy is strong. many older men and women can pursue the education they never received in their youth. >> translator: i really enjoy studying a lot. i feel it offers a lot of opportunities for me to bring out my full potential. >> translator: i want to keep going to school without worrying about my age. as long as i'm healthy enough. >> reporter: this woman is 82 years old. she's the eldest person to take this year's entrance exams. her father died when she was just 6. her two brothers went missing after being recruited by the authorities during japan's colonial rule of the korean peninsula. she had to drop out of middle school to help support her mother. she went to work as a textile factory. she says it was tough to see her former classmates going off to school i

cnn's kyung lah is in seoul, south korea. what are you learning? >> reporter: this is known as bureau 121 out of north korea and it's concerned the government of south korea for some time. and now there is this new wrinkle, the idea of going overseas. these hackers spread around the world, we're learning, with one sole mission to hack and cripple western interests. north korean soldiers, a parading force against the west. on state-run television, a mere ridiculous bravado of the military. but there are unseen soldiers in kim jong-un's cyberwar against the west. they have no face and only known by a number, bureau 121. what is bureau 121? they conduct the cyberattacks against overseas and enemy states, says jang se-yul. he's a north korean defector and independently trying to crumble an agency nearly impossible to chase. bureau 121, a shadow number of unknown number of agents placed in countries armed the world. jang believes there are approximately 1800 of them and says the agent ts themselves don't know how many exist. we can't verify jang's claims

south korea, japan, and the u.s. pool their resources. >>> let's take a look at the top stories an al jazeera. the man in charge of search for the airasia flight says the craft is probably at the bottom of the sea. search area has been widened and the plane disappeared after takeoff on sunday. >>> three al jazeera joucialists peter greste, mohamed fadel fahmy and baher mohamed -- journalists peter greste, mohamed fadel fahmy and baher mohamed have been in prison for a whole years, they were falsely accused of aiding the outlawed muslim brotherhood, and damaging egypt's reputation abroad. >>> officials on the ferry is under control say officials. the rescue operation is continuing for the 183 people still on board >>> a new intelligence sharing pact between south korea, the u.s. and japan comes into effect on monday. it will allow seoul and tokyo to share military secrets on north korea through the united states. harry fawcett has more from seoul. >> any kind of military pact between japan, south korea's former coloni

they're part of a group of 1,000 professionals who plan to visit south korea. industry groups from the two countries are sponsoring the tour. the number of japanese visitors to south korea dropped 22% in 2013 from the previous year. the number so far this year is down more than 10%. >> translator: south korea is a nice place. i hope to learn more about the country so i can share my knowledge can customers. >> well the people taking part will visit tourist spots in seoul, and other parts of the country. they hope to get ideas to help them develop package tours. >>> researchers at japanese electronics firm hitachi more than a decade ago developed technology that identified people by scanning the veins in their fingers. well, now they've taken that a step further. people in the industry thought it was next to impossible for a machine to read finger veins while people were moving. but researchers have come up with a device that does just that. people pass through an automatic ticket gate, for example, hitachi officials say it's a industry first. they claim it can h

more welcomed clicks i'm thinking of south korea. >> guest: said the political uncertainty, that's when you can see different democratic forces unleashing. is, if you go back to the south korean democratization and consolidation of course if you are on -- if you're regime is highly autocratic and you are an authoritarian there are no protests because you just clamped down on the protesters. but it's in this pure code the democratization when you can see the civil societal forces i do think that there is a period of uncertainty and instability about the bases and the trick for the united states and the balancing act is that on the one hand we see we place an emphasis on security and stability not only for the country that for the region as well and at the same time we want to encourage democracy so in a case like south korea there was a bit of uncertainty but at the same time i think even when you have the transition by government leaders their case is somewhat unique in that you have a direct enemy and there is a consensus built at the national security is almost guaranteed by the u.s.

last year here in south korea. and those were eventually linked to north korea. that may be so, but the truth is there's no hard evidence of that at the moment. >> steve evans in seoul. while cyber attacks are becoming more common, as the future of warfare takes shape, in 2010, iran's nuclear enrichment facility was hit by the stuxnet worm. in 2011, nasa's computers were taken over by hackers who used a chinese ip address. in 2014, hackers have become almost a routine part of the ukrainian conflict as cctv and electronic billboards are targeted. with me here is professor ian brown, associate director at oxford university's cyber security center. is this about to become a regular feature? >> i think certainly in any kind of warfare going forward, we will absolutely see cyber playing a big part of that. i think the trickier question for governments is how far is critical infrastructure like nuclear power stations, but the rest of power grids, water grids and so on, how well-protected is that against attack? because i think that's where people rightly see the bigges

>> i think south korea does have radio broadcast and the united states has radio broadcast and if you are in north korea and you are not supposed to be listening. some tried to and most don't. >> visiting fellow at the u.s. korea institute on out of johns hopkins. it has been a year since three al jazeera journalists were improvened. we will talk to the financy about what a dangerous year this has been for journalism, just after the break. and a car! so far, you're horrible at this, flo. yeah, no talent for drawing, flo. house! car! oh, raise the roof! no one? remember when we used to raise the roof, diane? oh, quiet, richard i'm trying to make sense of flo's terrible drawing. i'll draw the pants off that thing. oh, oh, hats on hamburgers! dancing! drive-in movie theater! home and auto. lamp! squares. stupid, dumb. lines. [ alarm rings ] no! home and auto bundle from progressive. saves you money. yay, game night, so much fun. >>> this week marks one year since three journalists were put behind bars in egypt. the charges against them spreading false news and aiding the muslim brotherho

cinemas willing to distribute the movie but now it's been talked about so much, many people in south korea are trying to watch it. interestingly, it's not just people in north korea who are annoyed with the movie. we are seeing online many citizens of south korea complaining that the sea, east sea as it's called in the rest of the world, sorry the ec, in south korea it's called the sea of japan to the rest of the world, a very contentious here in north korea. that is being focused on by south korea. really both sides of the peninsula at this point, there is some anger at this movie. >> well, it was meant to be an outrageous comedy and it is certainly garnering some outrageous responses. and also, what about efforts, paula, for those in south korea who try to smuggle things into north korea to get people there to try to be able to see it? >> well, this is certainly going to be one of pyongyang's biggest concerns that this movie could make its way into north korea. we've seen these so-called propaganda balloons and activists sending dvds showing exactly what is happening in north korea acros

it's a different situation when it comes to how politics affects coverage than in south korea. but in international community i think because north korea by its own actions has really turned itself into kind of a rogue state, that political situation has seeped into the coverage as well. for a lot. >> i want to ask you about some of the unique challenges to an organization or like nk news, chad where you are reporting on a daily basis. i mean that's everything you do is report on north korea. but you're also working, the people you're working with are not trained journalists. how do you adhere to the same standards and how do you strive to and what are the unique challenges. you do work with a lot of scholars that are not reporting necessarily on a contemporary issues, so there's a variety. i mean ate great resource for, you know -- there's the aggregator portion, there's a lot of great tracking devices that you work with specialists to develop but then also a lot of reporting on contemporary events but, again not everyone has the same training. what are some of the unique chall

south korea. japan and south korea also have disagreements over history. rth korea's nuclear and missile development is another concern. authorities in pyongyang launched ballistic missiles into the sea of japan multiple times this year. and amid what abe is calling a changing security environment, his cabinet approved a landmark change in policy. in july, they decided to reinterpret the constitution to enable the country to use the right to collective self-defense. it allows japan to defend a closely related country under attack, like this scenario where japan's maritime self-defense force ships defend a u.s. naval vessel. past leaders interpreted the constitution to mean japan cannot take such actions. but abe says the country must change course. >> translator: making all possible preparations will in itself serve as the power to thwart and wage war on japan. this is deterrence. >> reporter: some opposition parties are critical of abe's defense policies, saying it's against the constitution. abe wants a strong mandate to enact it. and so he turns to the v

it's actually known as currency reform in south korea. this was actually a shock to people who were immersed in the market economy of north korea. because up until then, people traded using both foreign currencies, such as the chinese yen and the north korean one. so they were used interchangeably. but after the currency reform, people came to realize that the north korean one was very weak and that the one is not a very reliable currency. so it actually became a point where the north koreans beca distrustful of the government's activities. and the north korean one was no longer a prized currency. in fact, people decided it's better to hold on to the american dollars than the chinese u.n. because they felt e felt that those currencies would be much more stable into the future, rather than the north korean one. so we can see that the merchants, the private people are smart. they can actually study their own system. in fact, they come to distrust any planning or any reformation activities when it comes to economy. so we see that there is no

last year south korea's banks were hacked, television knocked off the air. ground sony systems to a halt and similar code to what led to this latest breach of south korean nuclear power plants. there's a pattern, practice first in south korea and then aim overseas. >> reporter: should america be prepared for north korea to try to break in to these types of agencies in america? of course, he says. even though the u.s. is one of the best prepared nations, cyber attacks are really hard to protect yourself from so they have to constantly be vigilant from. >> you want us to kill the leader of north korea? >> yes. >> reporter: with sony's stunning decision pulling this movie, it may send a simple signal to north korea, cyber attacks work. >> reporter: now the south korean government says it is currently going through 23 power plants. this action after the suspected hackers posted some new threats saying that -- online saying the virus was in place and it could be activated at any time against the nuclear power plants. likely an empty threat, but after sony, natalie

last year south korea banks and media were hacked and television news knocked off the air.are to what ground sony systems to a halt and similar code to what led to the latest breach of south korean power plants. this is a power. practice first in south korea and then aim overseas. >> should america be prepared for north korea to try to break in to these types of agencies in america? >> of course, he says. even though the u.s. is one of the best prepared nations, cyber attacks are really hard to protect yourself from. so they have to constantly be vigilant. >> you want us to kill the leader of north korea? >> yes. >> what? >> with the sony stunning decision, pulling this movie, it may send a simple signal to north korea. cyber attacks work. >> reporter: and we are learning something new on this. the south korean government, we understand, is going through 23 power plants. the reason why is that the suspected hackered posted new ominous threats on the web saying that the virus is in place and it can be activated at any time. now these could be empty threats but after sony, er

kyung lah is in south korea. ck on sony pictures, what it means, what does the u.s. do about this now? we'll be right back. if yand you're talking toevere rheumyour rheumatologiste me, about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. this is humira giving me new perspective. doctors have been prescribing humira for ten years. humira works for many adults. it targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't star

but they warn of the dangers. >> translator: south korea's economic system relies on the internet. if the government regulates the freedom of expression most internet users want the foundation of the company's economy will be shaken. the government needs to realize this and deal with this danger. >> reporter: people in south korea are losing trust in online services but they question whether those services can win back that trust. nhk world, seoul. >>> officials in jordan are seeing fewer people from outside their borders coming to visit. their tourism efforts are hampered by the political situations in neighboring countries. they've now teamed up with some japanese experts to help get visitors back. >> reporter: the old town was once the capital of thejordan. it dates back to the 16th century. it has beautiful buildings. for two years, this man has been supporting south tourism promotion. for many years, he had worked on projects aimed at stimulating their tourism. >> translator: the information you provide to first-time visitors is important. >> reporter: are hagi is historic and

what we have heard so far from defense officials and south korea is that north korea operates a unitout 3000 hackers. these hackers are basically trained in how to hack into four networks -- four networks -- foreign networks and sending out e-mail that contains malware which activates when the hackers want them to. we believe these hackers are young trained kids that are the smartest and most loyal in north korea's education system. they certainly pose a certain threat to the businesses as well as governments around the world. developed north korea a hacking team in the first place? >> well, north korea knows very well that modern workfare is all about electronic devices. it is electronic warfare. they are computer networks running behind all of those sophisticated weapons we have seen in the united states and south korea, but it does not have the resources or money to build up those sophisticated weapons. what north korea does is develop a unit that hacks into the computers of the enemy. thereby paralyzing the computer networks that are used to attack north korean troops. this incre

south korean president. he said he'll strive to bring the two koreas together. north korean official who oversees unification matters reportedly read the letter out to the south korean delegation. analysts say leaders in pyongyang are trying to put pressure on seoul to respond. >> five japanese have been executed in the country for drug-related offenses. >> now it's time for the latest in business news. the biggest challenge of the japanese prime minister's economic policy is how to generate a positive growth cycle. that requires employers to give raises to their workers. now, we're joined by rami the condition is companies must raise employees wages by at least 3% for fiscal 2015 from the current fiscal year. the portion of the wage hike will be tax exempt. now the russian central bank took an unprecedented step earlier this week by bailing out a retail bank following a plunge in the ruble, and now it's made another bold move. this involves some unconventional measures to help companies refinance their foreign debts. official in moscow say they will offer dollar

that's been the focus on the attacks, is on south korea's financial activity and the south korean governmenttheir attention to the united states and that's what is new here and why we should be looking at what we can do. as pointed out, without resources, north korea can't develop its nuclear weapons program. without hard currency, it can't send, you know, students abroad to learn these skills in moscow or beijing and then come home and practice them. let's cut off their hard currency. that's what we should be doing to bureau 121. >> well, there is a sentiment right now. i want to show you the cover of the new york post in a headline "kim jong won." >> the thought was not just on that but the publisher. the publishing houses came together and defended the right to pub lesh. what should have happened here is that hollywood and frankly the wider business community should have come together and defended sony's rights here because once you capitulate to one dictator, does that mean that the next dictator or terrorist, when they say you are not going to make a comedy about -- or a film at all abo

law enforcement said is mimics a hack against banks last year in south korea. those attacks are believed to have been carried out by north korea secret network of hackers known as bureau 121. >> 121 is a highly sophisticated organization under the people's branch of the republic of north korea. and what this group is designed to do, is to advance their cyber war wear capabilities. >> one response is tougher sanctions. north korea could be crippled if the u.s. goes after chinese banks that do business with pyongyang or the u.s. could flex cyber muscles and launch a cyber attack. >> right now the north koreans feel they are winning. the only way we stop them is if they are persuaded this is a bad idea and so we have to react in a way that deters future attacks of this kind. >> there is also a legal option. returning an indictment like the u.s. did against five chinese military hackers earlier this year. but sources tell cnn there is not enough evidence yet to tie the sony hack to specific individuals. as washington scrambles to figure out an appropriate response.

for that let's go to kyung lah live on the ground in seoul, south korea. kyung? >> we don't know, but that's what makes north korea extremely unpredictable and extremely dangerous. previous hacks of south korea are any clue, here's what we're anticipating. south korea has been a victim, a number of companies here have been the victim of attacks from north korea. cyberattacks, that is. what we've heard from the regime -- deny, deny, deny. but underneath that veneer of denials, was cyberintelligence experts here in south korea say is happening is north korea has been building their capabilities for cyberwarfare, they're sending out more of these agents around the world, they are becoming better, they're becoming smarter, we heard one cyberintelligence expert tell us today that he considers them one of the top five threats globally, as a country, as far as launching hack attacks. so certainly we're anticipating that they're going to deny it, regardless of what washington says, but they're going to be continue to be building their army. chris? >> kyung, proof of confi

and we are joined now from seoul, south korea with the latest on this story. so, we are learning tonight that the u.s. investigators think the hackers use aid sony employee -- used a sony employee's credentials to get in. what can you tell us about that? >> reporter: it is a targeted attack. if you think about it from the hacker's perspective. a smart attack. from what we are learning from u.s. investigators they believe they were able to hack in and steal the credentials of a system administrator. essentially the guy holding the keys. once they got the keys they were able to break in, have free reign, access to all kind of information and thereby wreak havoc. that's why this has been so successful. at least that's what we are hearing. so, how does, what does this mean? what this means for sony is that they now have to figure out how to button this up. but it also gives us a window into how successful they were because they were targeted, don. >> we have heard about the group. called bureau 121 in north korea. what have you learned about the group? >> so, bure

south korea learned the hard way. s across the country were paralyzed, atms frozen for days, media outlets dark, servers jammed or wiped. north korea denied it was the source of the hack but in the wake of the attack, south korea beefed up its own cyber forces declaring the on-line war as dangerous as pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. north korea exists in the land of over the top propaganda while experts say it age wages its parallel war in cyberspace led by a young man of the internet stage, ushering in a new phase of the korean conflict. cnn, seoul. >> amazing stuff. let's continue the conversation with the former u.s. ambassador of the united nations bill richardson. joining us, david rothcough, editor of foreign policy magazine and chief correspondent jim sciutto. governor richardson, i know you've been there several times to north korea. let me play a little clip. this is josh earnest the white house press secretary only moments ago, speaking about what this means, the cyber attack, that cnn is reporting the u.s. go

that's what they saw here in south korea.son from experts to the world is that they are getting bolder and they're getting better. >> they've certainly shown the capability to do this. kyung, it's hard to independently verify this information but the defector you spoke with has documents to back up his claims, right? >> reporter: yes. those documents are financial documents. weird and eerie because we got to see hundreds and thousands of personal accounts, accounts he says he got directly from someone who works inside bureau 121. >> kyung lah, fascinating work. turning to former fbi official sean henry who spearheaded the division and martin williams, founder of northkoreatech.org. that's some information the way the hackers got in by getting someone's information from sony. maybe a system administrator's, not an inside job but stole a credentials, broke in and that i have been the crack in the system. >> that's typical. usually explode code, gain credentials, user and password. then they can move laterally and escalate privi

this is a much more general phenomenon behind south korea, of course.to talk about japan, china, united states, south korea as the regional economy. they all face challenges of aging in the case of japan. japan has already peakeded and started to decline. for china, the working age -- obviously there is uncertainty around these projections. they are projecting recent fertility trends forward. we can be pretty confident about them for the next few decades. demographics change slowly. we public of korea was covered by kathy. it's actually young compared to japan and china. korea's population peaks in 2035 which is later than japan or china. what about the united states? there is aging in the united states as well. what's interesting is the united states population will not peak this century. because of immigration the u.s. is the only one of the economies i'm discussing where population and labor force will grow and the u.s. population is project ed to reach 500 million people by the end of the century. china is projected to be down to a billion people by

south korea learned the hard way. oss the country last year were paralyzed, atms forgotten for days. media outlets went dark, servers jammed or wiped. north korea denied it was the source of the hack. but in the wake of the attack, south korea beefed up its own cyberforce, declaring the online war as dangerous as pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. north korea exists in the land of over the top propaganda, while experts say it wages its parallel war in cyberspace, led by a young man of the internet age ushering in a new phase of the korean conflict. what north korea craves most is visibility on the global map. what this hack of sony has done is given them exactly that. kyung lah, cnn, seoul. >>> well, the attack at sony may not be the only time a major company in the u.s. has been targeted, allegedly by an outside government. we're now learning details of a computer attack on sands casinos. as cnn's brian todd reports, that cyberattack may have been meant to punish the company's ceo for comments he made about iran. >> repor

the backlash in south korea huge.ling on the face book page, calling their nuts instead of korean air ended goes to the point this is a huge controversy in korea where these conglomerates are run like family dynasties. she and her father to kim jong un in north korea. this has become an outraged story. he did resign from the airline but she is with her father's company coming in. charles: this is a big thing. the president of south korea ran on a platform, the irony is her father helped put them together. he was murdered when he was president. after that ferried the accident when all the teenage kids died, there is an anti big business. . it was not on her part, no pun intended. >> politically there's no constituency in south korea arguing for free markets, supply-side economics. >> she is being called a national embarrassment bad this is a national issue to your point that will continue to change south korean business and affect american business. charles: uconn argue they have more power in south korea than kim jong

south korea directors to remake godzilla to force them to. adam shapiro on the story. >> so the north korean government actually put out on one o one of their web pages. sony pictures is going to release on christmas a film called the interview. it stars james franco and seth rogan in a comedy plot where they're hired by the cia to kill kim jong-un. it's an assassination. the north koreans on their website said they called the interview, quote, a provocation deserving stern punishment. hollywood was shaking in their boots. they pulled the release date. there's a belief on the part of sony that the north korean government along with 3,000 hackers in china that go by the name of guardians of peace hacked sony pictures. shut down the computer system, but stole those

practice first in south korea, then aim overseas. ould america be prepared for north korea to try to break into these types of agencies in america? of course, he says. even though the u.s. is one of the best prepared nations, cyber attacks are hard to protect yourself from. they have to constantly be individual lent. >> you want us to kill the leader of north korea? >> yes. >> what? >> reporter: with the stunning decision to pull this movie, it may send a message to north korea, cyber attacks work. south korean government officials are going through 23 of this country's power plants, one by one. just to see if anything has been compromised. this is happening after some hackers, suspected hackers posted on a website that the virus was in place and they could activate it at anytime. now, this could very well be an empty threat. after the spectacular sony hack, natalie, they can't be too careful. >> absolutely. they are worried about their nuclear facilities. what u.s. government agencies do south korean investigators worry about as hack

the hacker could have been in south korea and used malware to make it look like it came from north korea the amazing thing about these hackers, you only need a few of them to really do enormous demonstration, 1,000 or 2,000 people working on it but five or six who know what they're doing can cause a lot of damage. brian, thank you. while the attack on sony is getting all the attention, the u.s. has been the target of tens of thousands of cyber attacks over the past year. the u.s. government now in "the situation room" is chris frates of cnn investigations, helping us better appreciate this stapa of the story. the u.s. government has been hacked? >> that's right. re-reviewed hundreds of pages of documents on security breaches against the u.s. government. what we found was astounding. every day, the government is under attack, cyber attack. there were 61,000 hacks and security breaches throughout the u.s. government last year. >> there's an adversary out there whose job it is to break into our systems. so somebody's trying 24/7, it's going to get much worse than it is today. >> reporter: c

kyung lah now joining us live from seoul, south korea. t is behind the internet outage in north korea? >> reporter: we know what the data was showing us, a problem. it doesn't tell us the origin of this. we've been watching the pattern and cyber intelligence experts say basically on what they see with this pattern is that it certainly looks like it's a rogue hacker. they don't believe it's the united states or some official entity. they think it's probably most like ri given there's a sudden outage and sputtering for hours on end, it's probably a 15-year-old in jersey wearing guy fawkes mask. that's what most of the hacking community believes. >> how's the service tonight? >> reporter: the service is actually the way it was yesterday. there was a complete failure overnight. it was as if north korea was completely wiped off the internet map and throughout the day, we've seen a lot of trouble trying to get on to the state's web sites. they're failing at times. certainly looks like they're struggling to come back online. the interesting thing