Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un impersonators walked down the streets of Hong Kong to the surprise of tourists in the area.
The pair even pretended to kiss as they demonstrated the unlikely friendship between the two real-life leaders.
Dennis Alan, a 66-year-old musician from Chicago, spent around 1.5 hours achieving the Trump look, with fake hair and lots of orange foundation.
Produced by Claudia Romeo
President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered an abrupt joint statement Saturday night, addressing reports that North Korea test fired a ballistic missile into its eastern sea.
"I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100%," Trump said.
In his remarks, Abe called the launch "absolutely intolerable."
Trump and Abe made their remarks from Mar-a-Lago, Trump's estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and did not take questions from reporters.
The launch was North Korea's first such test of the year and an implicit challenge to Trump's new administration. But details of the launch, including the type of missile, were scant.
There was no immediate confirmation from the North, which had recently warned it is ready to test its first intercontinental ballistic missile. The reports come as Trump was hosting Abe and just days before the North is to mark the birthday of leader Kim Jong Un's late father, Kim Jong Il.
Trump ignored a shouted question about the developing situation as he, Abe and their wives posed for photos before heading to dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. In Washington, public affairs officers for the Defense Department and the State Department had no immediate comment on the report.
The South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the projectile was fired from around Banghyon, North Pyongan Province, which is where South Korean officials have said the North test launched its powerful midrange Musudan missile on Oct. 15 and 20.
The South's Yonhap news agency quoted an anonymous military source saying the missile flew about 500 kilometers (310 miles). But Yonhap reported that while determinations are still being made, it was not believed to be an ICBM.
The missile is believed to have splashed down into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters the missile did not hit Japanese territorial seas. The North conducted two nuclear tests and a slew of rocket launches last year in continued efforts to expand its nuclear weapons and missile programs. Kim Jong Un said in his New Year's address that the country has reached the final stages of readiness to test an ICBM, which would be a major step forward in its efforts to build a credible nuclear threat to the United States.
Though Pyongyang has been relatively quiet about the transfer of power to the Trump administration, its state media has repeatedly called for Washington to abandon its "hostile policy" and vowed to continue its nuclear and missile development programs until the U.S. changes its diplomatic approach.
Just days ago, it also reaffirmed its plan to conduct more space launches, which it staunchly defends but which have been criticized because they involve duel use technology that can be transferred to improve missiles.
Kim Dong-yeop, an analyst at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, speculated the projectile could be a Musudan or a similar rocket designed to test engines for an intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit the U.S. mainland. Analysts are divided, however, over how close the North is to having a reliable long-range rocket that could be coupled with a nuclear warhead capable to striking U.S. targets.
___
Associated Press writer Kim Tong-Hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
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United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council will hold an urgent meeting on Monday on North Korea's missile launch, the first test since US President Donald Trump took office.
The United States, Japan and South Korea requested the consultations after North Korea confirmed it had "successfully" tested a ballistic missile on Sunday.
The council meeting is expected to begin around 5 pm (2200 GMT), said the Ukrainian mission, which holds the council presidency.
North Korea's state-run KCNA news agency said a "surface-to-surface medium long-range ballistic missile" was "successfully test-fired" on Sunday, describing it as a "Korean-style new type strategic weapon system."
The missile flew about 500 kilometers (310 miles) before falling into the sea, South Korea's defense ministry said.
The launch was seen as a test of the response from Trump, who pledged "100 percent" support to Washington's regional ally Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose country would be in range of a hostile North Korean missile launch, called the test "absolutely intolerable" during an impromptu press conference with Trump in Florida.
The reclusive regime carried out more than 20 missile tests last year, one of which reached Japanese-controlled waters after a launch in August.
North Korea is barred under UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile and nuclear technology.
The UN Security Council has imposed six sets of sanctions since Pyongyang's first nuclear test in 2006.
The latest round of sanctions imposed in November includes a cap on Pyongyang's coal exports to China, aimed at depriving the communist state of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
SEOUL/KUALA LUMPUR — The estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been killed in Malaysia, a South Korean government source told Reuters on Tuesday.
Kim Jong Nam, the older half-brother of the North Korean leader, was known to be based mostly outside his home country.
The police in Malaysia told Reuters on Tuesday an unidentified North Korean man had died en route to the hospital from Kuala Lumpur airport on Monday. Abdul Aziz Ali, the police chief for the Sepang district, said the man's identity had not been verified.
An employee in the emergency ward of Putrajaya hospital said a deceased Korean there was born in 1970 and surnamed Kim.
South Korea's TV Chosun, a cable-television network, said Kim was poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport by two women believed to be North Korean operatives, who were at large, citing multiple South Korean government sources.
The South Korean government source who spoke with Reuters did not immediately provide further details.
South Korea's foreign ministry said it could not confirm the reports, and the country's intelligence agency could not immediately be reached for comment.
In 2001, Kim Jong Nam was caught at an airport in Japan traveling on a fake passport, saying he had wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
(Reporting by Ju-min Park and Se Young Lee in SEOUL and Joseph Sipalan And Emily Chow in KUALA LUMPUR; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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North Korea launched on Sunday a land-based version of the KN-11 nuclear-capable ballistic missile that may have traveled further and faster than any North Korean missile before it.
The missile flew about 300 miles before hitting the Sea of Japan, likely further than any test before it and used solid fuel that allowed it to be launched off a tank-like truck in a matter of minutes, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters on Monday.
Older North Korean missiles have used liquid fuel, which requires them to travel with huge convoys and to gas up prior to a launch, which gives observers time to prepare and respond.
While Davis said the launch made clear the “grave threat to our national security,” he added that the US is "capable of defending against a North Korean ballistic missile attack."
Experts on North Korea and missile defense told Business Insider a different story about the US's ability to defend against North Korean attacks.
The US is "certainly capable of addressing the North Korean threat both regionally and to the homeland," Abel Romero , the director of government relations at the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, told Business Insider. But he added that the systems in place have considerable flaws.
Though the US has guided missile destroyers and local missile defense batteries in the region, missile defense is not "solely the answer" to stopping threats from North Korea, Romero said.
Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation at the Arms Control Association, told Business Insider that missile defense isn't a good enough response to North Korea's missile tests — diplomatic engagement is needed.
The latest test "underscores the urgency for a new approach to North Korea," Davenport said.
"The major issue with relying on the missile defense system is capacity," Ian Williams, associate director at the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Business Insider.
The US has 25,000 troops deployed to South Korea, and more than 50,000 in Japan. While most military sites have ballistic missile defenses, North Korea could potentially trick missile defenses by using decoys, exhausting the US's supply of interceptor missiles, which can knock out incoming missiles.
The US just doesn't "have enough interceptors to sit and play catch with everything that North Korea can throw," Williams said. "US and allied missile defenses could likely absorb a first wave, but there would need to be coordination with strike forces to start knocking out North Korea’s missiles out before they could be launched."
The second major issue, according to Williams, is coverage. The US uses multiple layers of missile defense systems like Patriot missile defense batteries and guided-missile destroyer ships, but they provide uneven coverage in the region.
The US has been pushing to deploy a larger range missile defense system to South Korea, known as Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD), as a kind of admission that the current systems have weaknesses and flaws.
But like other systems, THAAD isn't perfect. It has an excellent track record within it's range, but North Korea could simply send a submarine outside of range and fire away.
"Missile defense is not a surefire way to negate the threat posed by another country's nuclear-capable ballistic missiles,"said Davenport.
For example, while the US may have systems in place to counter North Korea, it has no defenses built specifically to counter Chinese or Russian nuclear missiles, which are far more advanced and capable, according to Romero.
"As of right now I've never heard anyone come out and say we need to build a missile defense system to defend us from Russia and China," said Romero.
Instead, the US uses diplomacy and the doctrine of mutually assured destruction to coexist with Russia and China. As the nuclear missile threat grows from North Korea, the US must find a way to coexist with them as well.
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The U.S. government strongly believes that North Korean agents murdered the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Malaysia, U.S. government sources said on Tuesday.
American authorities have not yet determined exactly how Kim Jong Nam was killed, according to two sources, who did not provide specific evidence to support the U.S. government's view.
A South Korean government source also had said that Kim Jong Nam had been murdered in Malaysia. He did not provide further details.
South Korea's foreign ministry said it could not confirm the reports, and the country's intelligence agency could not immediately be reached for comment.
In Washington, there was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Trump administration, which faces a stiff challenge from a defiant North Korea over its nuclear arms program and the test of a ballistic missile last weekend.
Kim Jong Nam was known to spend a significant amount of his time outside North Korea and had spoken out publicly against his family's dynastic control of the isolated state.
If confirmed as an assassination, it would the latest in a string of killings over the decades at home and abroad meant to silence those perceived by North Korea's leaders as threats to their authority, one of the U.S. sources said on condition of anonymity.
In a statement, Malaysian police said the dead man, 46, held a passport under the name Kim Chol.
Kim Jong Nam has been caught in the past using forged travel documents.
Malaysian police official Fadzil Ahmat said the cause of Kim's death was not yet known, and that a post mortem would be carried out.
"So far there are no suspects, but we have started investigations and are looking at a few possibilities to get leads," Fadzil told Reuters.
According to Fadzil, Kim had been planning to travel to Macau on Monday when he fell ill at the low-cost terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).
"The deceased ... felt like someone grabbed or held his face from behind," Fadzil said. "He felt dizzy, so he asked for help at the ... counter of KLIA."
Kim was taken to an airport clinic where he still felt unwell, and it was decided to take him to hospital. He died in the ambulance on the way to Putrajaya Hospital, Fadzil added.
The U.S. government sources said it was possible that Kim Jong Nam had been poisoned. They said it could not be ruled out that assassins used some kind of "poison pen" device.
South Korea's TV Chosun, a cable-TV network, reported that Kim had been poisoned with a needle by two women believed to be North Korean operatives who fled in a taxi and were at large, citing multiple South Korean government sources.
Reuters could not independently confirm those details.
Malaysia is one of a dwindling number of countries that has close relations with North Korea, which is under tightening global sanctions over its nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches, the latest of which took place on Sunday.
Malaysians and North Koreans can visit each other's country without visas.
A phone call to the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur late on Tuesday went straight to an answering machine.
Kim Jong Nam and Kim Jong Un are both sons of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who died in late 2011, but they had different mothers.
Kim Jong Nam, the elder of the two, did not attend his father's funeral. His mother was an actress named Song Hye Rim, and Kim Jong Nam said his father kept his parents' relationship secret.
The portly and easygoing Kim Jong Nam was believed to be close to his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who was North Korea's second most powerful man before being executed on Kim Jong Un's orders in 2013.
In an embarrassing 2001 incident, Kim Jong Nam was caught at an airport in Japan traveling on a forged Dominican Republic passport, saying he had wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland. He was known to travel to Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China.
Koh Yu-hwan, a professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, said Kim Jong Nam had occasionally been the subject of speculation that he could replace his younger half-brother, the country's third-generation leader.
"Loyalists may have wanted to get rid of him," he said.
Kim Jong Nam said several times over the years that he had no interest in leading his country.
"Personally, I am against third-generation succession," he told Japan's Asahi TV in 2010. "I hope my younger brother will do his best for the sake of North Koreans' prosperous lives."
His cousin, Lee Han-young, who defected to South Korea through Switzerland in 1982, was shot and killed by North Korean agents in Seoul in 1997, according to South Korea.
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Intelligence officials believe North Korean agents assassinated leader Kim Jong Un's exiled half brother, but if the whodunit seems settled, a very big question still looms: Why now?
Kim Jong Nam, reportedly killed by two female agents in a cloak-and-dagger operation in a Malaysian airport, had long been an embarrassment to North Korea's government — humiliated during a failed attempt to sneak into Japan to visit Disneyland and outspoken in opposing the rise to power of his brother, who had his uncle executed after taking over.
But the overweight gambler and fading playboy had kept his head down in recent years from his base in Macau. Kim Jong Nam was seen by many outsiders as only a minor distraction for North Korea's leaders, and certainly not an existential threat worth the risk of a potentially embarrassing assassination caper on foreign soil.
The spotty South Korean intelligence community ascribed the North's motivation in killing Kim Jong Nam, without any elaboration, simply to Kim Jong Un's "paranoia." There is a more intriguing possibility floating around Seoul, however: The tipping point in North Korea's bloody calculations may have been a largely ignored South Korean news story from last week.
A national daily, the Kyunghyang Shinmun, reported that Kim Jong Nam tried to defect to South Korea several years ago and had served, in the 2000s, as a middleman between disgraced current South Korean President Park Geun-hye and officials in North Korea.
Kim Jong Un may have clenched his teeth and carried on when he heard reports of his half brother's exploits in Macau casinos, and even when Kim Jong Nam, often photographed in an expensive, untucked, button-down shirt and newsboy cap, questioned in 2010 the need for a third generation of the Kim family to rule in Pyongyang.
But public reports in rival South Korea of alleged close dealings between a direct relative of North Korea's ruling dynasty and high officials in Seoul — and possible attempts to defect to the South — could have represented a serious challenge to a leader who portrays his family as the only legitimate power on the Korean Peninsula.
If a person with the blood of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung flowing in his veins was considering defecting to prosperous, democratic South Korea, what message did that send to North Korea's elite, or to the millions of poor and dissatisfied?
South Korea's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, which has a spotty record in reading the goings-on in North Korea and often tries to paint the leadership as unbalanced, denied any defection attempt by Kim Jong Nam.
But Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Korea's Sejong Institute, raised the possibility that the assassination was linked to the newspaper report, which cites interviews with anonymous officials from the Europe-Korea Foundation, where Park served as a board member for a decade before stepping down ahead of the presidential election in late 2012, and computer files and emails that showed exchanges between Kim Jong Nam and the foundation's officials.
The newspaper reported that Kim Jong Nam, who was then living in Beijing, delivered a letter that Park wrote to Kim Jong Il, North Korea's second leader and Kim Jong Un's father, in 2005. The letter, according to the newspaper, showed Park requesting help on cultural exchange programs pushed by the foundation.
Jeong Joon-Hee, the spokesman of South Korea's Unification Ministry, previously said the government doesn't believe such a letter from Park, who has been impeached over a corruption scandal, was delivered to North Korea.
The newspaper also cited anonymous sources to report that Kim Jong Nam explored the possibility of defecting to South Korea, and also to the United States and Europe, in 2012 before giving up. The sources said Kim's talks with South Korea and the United States eventually fell through because of his excessive demands.
While the South Korean news report is a fascinating potential explanation for Kim Jong Nam's death, there are other possibilities — including that Monday's killing was the culmination of years of effort by North Korea.
Seoul's spy service told lawmakers Wednesday that North Korea had for five years tried to kill Kim Jong Nam, who had kept a low profile since his uncle and former protector, the North's former No. 2, Jang Song Thaek, was executed by Kim Jong Un in 2013.
The NIS, according to lawmakers, cited a "genuine" attempt by North Korea to kill Kim Jong Nam in 2012, but didn't elaborate. The lawmakers said the NIS told them Kim Jong Nam sent a letter to Kim Jong Un in April 2012, after the assassination attempt, begging for the lives of himself and his family. The letter said, "I hope you cancel the order for the punishment of me and my family. We have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and we know that the only way to escape is committing suicide."
Kim Jong Nam's links with China may have also played a role.
Beijing had long protected Kim Jong Nam, according to South Korea's intelligence service. China may have been interested in propping up Kim Jong Nam as a future North Korean leader should the current government in Pyongyang collapse.
Kim Jong Un would not have been pleased by knowledge that his brother was being used by Beijing as a pawn and potential replacement.
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian police arrested a woman Wednesday in the apparent assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean leader's exiled half brother who South Korean spies say once begged his sibling to spare his life.
The astonishing killing, which reportedly came at the hands of two female assassins, set off waves of speculation over whether North Korea had dispatched a hit squad to kill a man known for his drinking, gambling and complicated family life.
Kim Jong Nam, who was 45 or 46, was estranged from his younger brother, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and had been living abroad for years. He reportedly fell out of favor when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport in 2001, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
According to two senior Malaysian government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case involves sensitive diplomacy, the elder Kim died en route to a hospital on Monday after suddenly falling ill at the budget terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
He told medical workers before he died that he had been attacked with a chemical spray, the Malaysian officials said. Multiple South Korean media reports, citing unidentified sources, said two women believed to be North Korean agents killed him with some kind of poison before fleeing in a taxi.
Malaysia started an autopsy Wednesday to determine the cause of death. But a Malaysian government official, who also demanded anonymity because of the case's sensitivity, said North Korea objected to the procedure because they wanted the body back. But the Malaysian official said the autopsy was still continuing.
Also Wednesday, Malaysian police arrested a woman carrying Vietnamese travel documents bearing the name Doan Thi Huong at the Kuala Lumpur airport budget terminal, where Kim Jong Nam was attacked. It was not immediately clear whether the passport was genuine. She was identified using earlier surveillance video from the airport, police said.
Still photos of the video, confirmed as authentic by police, showed a woman in a skirt and long-sleeved white T-shirt with "LOL" across the front.
Police said they were hunting for more suspects. No further details were released.
Since taking power in late 2011, Kim Jong Un has executed or purged a number of high-level government officials in what the South Korean government has described as a "reign of terror."
South Korea's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said Wednesday that North Korea had been trying for five years to kill Kim Jong Nam. The NIS did not definitively say that North Korea was behind the killing, just that it was presumed to be a North Korean operation, according to lawmakers who briefed reporters about the closed-door meeting with the spy officials.
The NIS also cited a "genuine" attempt by North Korea to kill Kim Jong Nam in 2012, the lawmakers said. The NIS told them that Kim Jong Nam sent a letter to Kim Jong Un in April 2012, after the assassination attempt, begging for the lives of himself and his family.
The letter said: "I hope you cancel the order for the punishment of me and my family. We have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and we know that the only way to escape is committing suicide."
Details of the Malaysia case were sketchy, but the NIS cited Kim Jong Un's "paranoia" about his half brother. The NIS has a history of botching intelligence on North Korea and has long sought to portray the country's leaders as mentally unstable.
Although Kim Jong Nam had been originally tipped by some outsiders as a possible successor to his late dictator father, Kim Jong Il, others thought that was unlikely because he lived outside the country, including recently in Macau.
He also frequented casinos, five-star hotels and traveled around Asia, with little say in North Korean affairs.
But his attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland reportedly soured North Korea's leadership on his potential as a successor. Kim Jong Nam had said he had no political ambitions, although he was publicly critical of the North Korean regime and his half brother's legitimacy in the past. In 2010, he was quoted in Japanese media as saying he opposed dynastic succession in North Korea.
Among Kim Jong Un's executions and purges, the most spectacular was the 2013 execution of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, once considered the country's second-most powerful man, for what the North alleged was treason.
Kim Jong Il had at least three sons with two women, as well as a daughter by a third. Kim Jong Nam was the eldest, followed by Kim Jong Chul, who is a few years older than Kim Jong Un and is known as a playboy who reportedly attended an Eric Clapton concert in London in 2015. It's unclear what positon he has in the North Korean government.
A younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, was named a member of the Workers' Party of Korea's Central Committee during a North Korean party congress last May.
Kim Yong-hyun, professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in South Korea, said Kim Jong Nam could have faced threats from any number of directions.
He was probably not viewed as a direct threat to his half brother, but as "an obstacle to Kim Jong Un's plan to maintain the regime for the next 20 to 30 years," the professor said.
"So there is a possibility of Kim Jong Un directly or indirectly giving orders to get rid of those who could threaten the plan in the long term," he said. "The other possibility that cannot be ruled out is that of North Korean elites, who are competing against each other to show their loyalty to Kim Jong Un, making a move against Kim Jong Nam."
Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, and Tim Sullivan in New Delhi contributed to this report.
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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean female assassins, armed with good looks and poison tools, are now the weapon of choice for a ruthless regime stalking its opponents, a high-profile defector told AFP on Thursday, after the latest apparent assassination.
Hardy male agents wielding guns or knives have been ditched in favour of their female counterparts, who strike fear into the hearts of enemies, said An Chan-il, a North Korean defector and renowned critic of Pyongyang's one-man rule.
"We are always mindful of young women accosting us for possible revenge killings," An said.
His comments come days after the half-brother of the North's leader Kim Jong Un died in a spy-novel-style assassination that Seoul said was carried out by Pyongyang agents.
South Korean intelligence chiefs believe Kim Jong-nam had toxins sprayed in his face as he walked through Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Two women have been arrested over the killing.
An, a former North Korean commando who defected to the South in 1979, is now a leading researcher on North Korean affairs and a harsh critic of the Stalinist state.
He is one of eight defectors who were given the highest degree of protection by the South. Following Kim John-nam's death, that number has increased to 20, he said.
In recent years, North Korean male agents have increasingly been sidelined into intelligence gathering or building contacts with other spies, An told AFP.
"Female agents are now being trained to do the killing, using poison," he said.
"They can easily hide mini poison injectors made of plastic, either in lipsticks, cosmetics, or under their clothes," he said, adding that such plastic tools go undetected by airport security.
Agent candidates are carefully screened for their intelligence, physical attributes, and family background.
"Good looks are essential, but this is different from any beauty contest," he said. "A girl with a curvy body is not considered ideal to become an assassin who has to engage in physical contact with targets."
Before beginning their careers, the women go through many months of training, including strength work, combat skills, surveillance and weapons use, as well as language courses, he added.
Malaysian police officials investigating Kim's killing have detained a woman with an Indonesian passport and a 28-year-old woman with a Vietnamese passport, who reappeared at the same airport two days after Kim died.
An said that would be "bizarre" behavior for a Pyongyang spy, adding that "if she is a North Korean agent, she should have either disappeared or committed suicide when she was in danger of being arrested."
"Her behavior is simply unthinkable in the playbook of spies," he said.
Two North Korean agents attempted to commit suicide by biting cyanide capsules hidden in cigarettes when they were arrested in Bahrain in 1987 after blowing up a South Korean airplane.
The man died instantly, but the other agent, Kim Hyon-hee, survived. She was later brought to Seoul and confessed that the terrorist attack was aimed at hampering the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian police said on Friday it will not release the body of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un until it receives DNA samples from his next-of-kin.
Police are investigating the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
Kim, 46, died on Monday after being assaulted at Kuala Lumpur International Airport with what was thought to be a fast acting poison.
Two female suspects, one an Indonesian and the other carrying Vietnamese travel documents, have been arrested. A Malaysian man has also been detained to help with inquiries.
Police are still hunting four men believed to have been accomplices in Kim's murder.
South Korea's spy agency told lawmakers in Seoul that it believed North Korean agents had killed Kim, acting on orders from North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un. U.S. officials told Reuters they also believed North Korean agents were responsible.
The North Korean embassy officially requested on Thursday, for the body of Kim Jong Nam to be released by Malaysia, having earlier tried in vain to persuade Malaysian authorities not to carry out an autopsy.
Selangor state police chief Abdul Samah Mat told Reuters the body would not be released until next-of-kin DNA had been obtained to confirm the identity of the victim.
"We are still waiting for the next of kin application, we have not received it yet. We have only received the application from the North Korean embassy yesterday," the police chief said. "We need to collect DNA samples from the next-of-kin in order to get conclusive evidence on the victim's identity."
North Korea has made no public reference to Kim Jong Nam's death, and calls to the embassy in Malaysia were unanswered.
Kim Jong Nam had spoken out publicly against his family's dynastic control of the isolated, nuclear-armed North Korea.
South Korea's intelligence agency told lawmakers in Seoul that Kim had been living with his second wife in the Chinese territory of Macau, where he received China's protection.
He had been at the airport to catch a flight to Macau when he was killed.
Cornelia Charito Siricord, director of forensics within the science ministry, told Reuters that an analysis was being carried out on samples taken from the body to help the police establish the cause of death.
(Writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Kim Jong-Nam, the half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, was killed on February 13.
A few days later, the first North Korean to be arrested in connection with the case was a man carrying Malaysian documentation issued to foreign workers, which identified him as 46-year-old North Korean citizen Ri Jong Chol.
Malaysian detectives have also detained a 25-year-old Indonesian woman named Siti Aishah, her Malaysian boyfriend, and a woman carrying a Vietnamese passport identifying her as Doan Thi Huong, 28.
Kim Jong-Nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong Il, was once the favourite to assume the leadership of the hermit-state North Korea.
These are the key events in his life that led to his exile from North Korea and his death:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Preparations are under way to bring senior North Korean officials to the United States for talks with former U.S. officials, the first such meeting in more than five years, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
The talks would be the clearest indication yet that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wants to communicate with the new Trump administration.
Planning for the "Track 1.5 talks" is still in a preparatory stage, the Post reported, citing multiple people with knowledge of the arrangements.
That name, reflecting planned contact between former U.S. officials and current North Korean ones, is a reference to what are known as "Track 2" talks involving former officials on both sides.
The U.S. State Department has not yet approved the North Koreans' visas for the talks, the newspaper said.
A State Department spokesman commented to Reuters only that Track 2 meetings "routinely" take place on a variety of topics around the world and occur independent of the U.S. government.
A White House official commented that the U.S. government had no plans to meet with North Korea.
North Korea's testing of an intermediate-range ballistic missile drew international condemnation last week. President Donald Trump told a news conference after the test: Obviously North Korea is a big, big problem and we will deal with that very strongly."
(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Idrees Ali and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — VX nerve agent, a chemical the United Nations classifies as a weapon of mass destruction, was used to kill the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a bizarre murder in Malaysia last week, the police said on Friday.
Kim Jong-nam was killed February 13, shortly after being assaulted at the airport in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, by two women who wiped the chemical on his face as he prepared to board a flight to the Chinese territory of Macau.
South Korean and US officials have said they believe North Korean agents assassinated Kim Jong-nam. He had been living with his family in Macau under Beijing's protection and had spoken out against the North Korean regime.
The Malaysian police were investigating whether the VX — which is believed to be the most toxic known nerve agent and is banned globally except for research — was brought into the country or made there.
"If the amount of the chemical brought in was small, it would be difficult for us to detect," police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told reporters.
The two female suspects — one Vietnamese and the other Indonesian — are in police detention along with a North Korean man. Seven other North Koreans are wanted in connection with the case, including a diplomat at the embassy in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia has repeatedly urged the victim's family to come forward to help with the inquiry, while North Korea has demanded the body be handed over to its embassy directly, sparking tension between the two usually friendly countries.
Malaysia's chemical-weapons analysis unit found traces of VX, or S-2 Diisopropylaminoethyl methylphosphonothioate, on swabs taken from the eye and face of the victim, according to the police.
"Other exhibits are under analysis," Khalid said in a statement, citing a preliminary report.
The police have said the two women were paid to carry out the assault and had been told to wash their hands before fleeing from the airport. They had rehearsed the attack in shopping malls before carrying it out on Kim.
One of the women had suffered from the effects of the chemical and had been vomiting, Khalid said.
Airport camera footage released Monday by the Japanese broadcaster Fuji TV shows the moment Kim Jong-nam was assaulted.
In later clips he is seen asking airport officials for medical help and rubbing his eyes and stumbling as he entered an airport clinic. Authorities said he complained of dizziness and died on the way to a hospital.
Authorities raided an apartment in an upscale Kuala Lumpur suburb on Wednesday in connection with the killing, but no chemicals were found, an official with direct knowledge of the matter said.
VX is tasteless and odorless, and it is outlawed under the Chemical Weapons Convention, except for "research, medical, or pharmaceutical purposes." It can be manufactured as a liquid, cream, or aerosol.
Experts say it has no commercial uses.
"This is not something you make in a kitchen lab. This is something that is made in a very sophisticated chemicals weapons lab," said Bruce Bennet, a senior defense researcher at the California-based RAND Corporation.
North Korea is believed to have the world's third-largest stockpile of chemical weapons, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative project, which analyses weapons of mass destruction.
South Korean analysts have identified sarin and VX as the focus of the North Korean chemical weapons program.
VX in liquid form can be absorbed into the body through skin or eye contact and does not evaporate easily.
After giddiness and nausea, exposure to VX quickly progresses to convulsions and respiratory failure before death, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It can be fatal after 15 minutes, according to the US Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center.
Police chief Khalid said authorities intended to sweep Kuala Lumpur airport, and other locations the suspects had visited, for "radioactive" material.
VX is not known to contain radioactive elements and Reuters calls to the police for clarification went unanswered.
Malaysian authorities on Thursday requested Interpol to put an alert out to apprehend four North Korean suspects who are believed to have fled from Malaysia on the day of the attack.
They also want to question the second secretary at the North Korean embassy, though he has diplomatic immunity.
The murder has strained relations between North Korea, which has been increasingly isolated in response to its nuclear and missile programs, and Malaysia.
North Korea has said Malaysia should be held responsible for the killing of one of its citizens, though it has not acknowledged that the victim is the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Malaysia has recalled its ambassador from Pyongyang for consultations.
(Additional reporting by Tom Allard, A. Ananthalakshmi, Liz Lee and Joseph Sipalan; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor and Praveen Menon; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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The Indonesian woman who is one of the suspects arrested over the killing of the half-brother of North Korea's leader, has reportedly told authorities she was paid 400 Malaysian riggits ($90) to carry out what she believed was a prank, The BBC reported.
Kim Jong-Nam died on February 13 after he appeared to be attacked by two women in a Kuala Lumpur Airport. Malaysian officials said test showed he had been poisoned using VX, a highly toxic nerve agent the United Nations classifies as a weapon of mass destruction.
Indonesian embassy officials say Siti Aisyah — a 25-year-old female Indonesian spa masseuse — said she was paid to smear Kim Jong-Nam's face with "baby oil" as part of a reality show prank.
According to The BBC, Andreano Erwin, the Indonesian deputy ambassador who met with Aisyah on Saturday, said: "She only said in general that somebody asked her to do this activity. She only said in general she met with some people who looked Japanese or Korean. According to her, that person gave her 400 ringgits to do this activity... She only said she was given a kind of oil, like baby oil."
The poison does not appear to have affected Aisyah, official said.
A Vietnamese woman — who was seen wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words "LOL" in CCTV footage of the airport attack— and a North Korean man have also been arrested in connection with Kim Jong-Nam's murder.
Malaysian police also announced on Wednesday that it wanted to question more suspects, including North Korean embassy official Hyon Kwang Song, along with other nationals Kim Uk Il, 37, and Ri Ju U, which prompted an angry response from North Korea. Malaysia has not, however, directly accused North Korea of masterminding the attack.
On February 15, South Korean government officials claimed North Korea's government had been planning to assassinate Kim Jong-Nam for the past 5 years.
North Korea denies any involvement in Kim Jong-Nam's death.
Kim Jong-Nam is the eldest son of Kim Jong-Il and was once the favourite to assume the North Korean leadership. However, he reportedly fell out of favour with his father when he failed in an attempt to enter Japan on a fake passport in 2001. He lived in exile ever since and his been publicly critical of his family's North Korean leadership regime. His half-brother Kim Jong-Un was declared Supreme Leader of North Korea in 2011.
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — The Latest on Malaysia's investigation into the apparent assassination of the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (all times local):
5 p.m.
Indonesia's deputy ambassador to Malaysia says the Indonesian suspect in the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's half brother was paid $90 to help carry out the attack involving VX nerve agent.
But Deputy Ambassador Andriano Erwin repeated Siti Aisyah's previous claim that she was duped into the plot, thinking she was taking part in a prank.
Erwin met Aisyah on Saturday in Malaysia, where the 25-year-old is in custody. Another alleged attacker, a Vietnamese woman, also has been arrested.
According to police, Aisyah rubbed VX nerve agent on the face of Kim Jong Nam amid crowds of travelers at Kuala Lumpur's airport on Feb. 13. Kim was the older half brother of North Korea's ruler.
Malaysia on Sunday declared its international airport a "safe zone" after completing a sweep of the terminal where the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was assaulted with a deadly chemical last week.
Kim Jong Nam died on Feb. 13 after being smothered at the airport's budget terminal with VX nerve agent, classified by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.
Since then, tens of thousands of people have passed through the terminal, with the location of the assault remaining accessible.
The police forensic team, fire department and Atomic Energy Licensing Board swept the budget terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA2) at 1 a.m. on Feb. 26 (1700 GMT on Feb. 25).
"We confirm, number one, there is no hazardous material found in KLIA2, number two, KLIA2 is free from any form of contamination of hazardous material and thirdly, KLIA2 is declared a safe zone," Abdul Samat Mat, the police chief of Selangor state who is leading the investigation, told reporters at the airport.
The location of the assault was cordoned off during the sweep but the rest of the terminal remained open.
Security camera footage released by Japanese broadcaster Fuji TV showed the moment two women assaulted Kim Jong Nam with a cloth authorities suspect was laced with the nerve agent.
In later clips Kim is seen asking airport officials for medical help. Airport authorities said he complained of dizziness and died on the way to hospital.
Authorities have said there have been no anomalies in medical cases reported at the clinic since the incident. They also said medical staff at the clinic are in good health.
The two women - one Indonesian and one Vietnamese - have been detained, along with a North Korean man.
Seven other North Koreans have been identified as suspects or are wanted for questioning, four of whom have since left for Pyongyang, police said.
Police are also sweeping other locations in Kuala Lumpur that suspects may have visited.
Police chief Abdul Samah said on Saturday authorities raided an apartment in an upscale Kuala Lumpur suburb earlier this week in connection with the death, and were checking for any traces of unusual chemicals in the apartment.
Kim Jong Nam, who had been living in exile with his family in Macau under Chinese protection, had spoken publicly in the past against his family's dynastic control of the isolated, nuclear-armed state.
South Korean and U.S. officials said he was assassinated by North Korean agents. North Korea has not acknowledged his death.
Malaysia's health minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said at a press conference on Sunday that autopsy findings were consistent with police reports.
The minister said the chemical caused "serious paralysis which led to the death of the person in such a short period of time."
The Indonesian attacker, Siti Aishah, was reported to be unwell, possibly due to contact with the chemical.
Subramaniam said authorities were running tests to ascertain whether Siti was affected by the chemical.
At another event Subramanium said Kim Jong Nam would have died within 15-20 minutes after VX was applied on his face. He added that identifying the body officially is still a challenge.
"Best would be to have the next of kin, blood-related kin, where we can do a DNA profiling...so that is the challenge," he said.
No next of kin has claimed the body. While Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister has confirmed Kim Jong Nam's identity, official confirmation is pending.
Malaysia said on Saturday that it may issue an arrest warrant for a North Korean diplomat wanted for questioning over the case, as diplomatic tensions between the two countries escalated over the killing.
The diplomat is not known to have met the police yet.
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SEOUL (Reuters) - The killing of the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was organized by the reclusive state's ministry of state security and foreign ministry, according to South Korean lawmakers briefed by the country's intelligence agency.
The eight North Korean suspects include four officials of the state security ministry and two officials of the foreign ministry, the lawmakers quoted the intelligence agency as saying.
South Korean and U.S. officials said Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean leader's estranged half-brother, was killed by North Korean agents in an airport in the Malaysian capital on Feb. 13. NorthKorea has not acknowledged his death.
(Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Kim Jong-Nam, the half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, was killed on February 13.
When news of a man getting fatally poisoned at a Kuala Lumpur airport first broke, the event caused a local stir but received relatively little attention worldwide.
Once Jong-Nam's identity surfaced a day later, interest into the mysterious death of the man who had reportedly fallen out of favour with his family and the dictatorial North Korean government became widespread.
With investigation developments coming up daily, this is what we know about the strange death so far.
Jong-Nam, the exiled half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was waiting for a flight to Macau at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia on Feb. 13 when two women ran up to him from behind and appeared to spray an unidentified liquid on him.
He soon started feeling dizzy, collapsed, and died before the ambulance carrying him made it to the hospital. Japanese broadcaster Fuji TV released a CCTV video that captured the attack.
The next day, South Korean television broadcaster TV Chosunreported that the two women suspected of killing Kim Jong-Nam were North Korean operatives who fled the airport in a taxi.
On Feb. 15, South Korean government officials confirmed the death and said that North Korea's government had been planning to kill him for the past 5 years.
Kim Jong-Nam is the son of deceased North Korea leader Kim Jong-Il and North Korean actress Song Hye Rim. As Jong-il's illegitimate son, Jong-Nam spent an early part of his childhood living in secret with his mother's relatives in Pyongyang before leaving North Korea to study in top schools in Moscow and Geneva.
Because Kim Jong-Il's father (self-proclaimed Eternal President of the Republic Kim Il-sung) did not approve of his son's frequent mistresses, Kim Jong-Nam's maternal relatives arranged for the son to live in secret for years before coming back to North Korea.
Upon return, Kim Jong-Nam joined the Ministry of People's Security and worked to bring restricted internet access to the country in the 1990s. As Jong-nam was Jong-il's oldest son, he was considered the favorite to take over for the leader from 1994 to 2001.
Kim Jong-Nam worked at numerous low-level governmental posts during that time, before finally falling out of favour with the North Korean government, Asia Times reports. His father, Jong-il, accused him of turning "into a capitalist," according to an email sent to the editor of the Tokyo Shimbun by Jong-Nam.
"After I went back to North Korea following my education in Switzerland, I grew further apart from my father because I insisted on reform and market-opening and was eventually viewed with suspicion," Jong-Nam wrote.
In May 2001, he was arrested at a Tokyo airport for trying to enter the country on a false passport from the Dominican Republic under the under the name "Pang Xiong"— translating as "fat bear" in Mandarin Chinese. He was reported to be accompanied by two women and a young boy, identifying as his son.
Jong-nam went into exile shortly after.
As of 2003, Jong-Nam split his time between Macau, Singapore and China with his six kids. But even while in exile, Kim Jong Nan gave interviews to European and Japanese press and would occasionally make critical comments about the North Korean government. Some outlets reported that this earned Jong-Nam multiple threats over the years.
"He knew his life was at risk … and he was aware his brother was after him,” an anonymous source who knew Kim Jong-Nam for more than 10 years told China Morning Press.
After Jong-Nam's death, Malaysia officials conducted an autopsy against the wishes of the North Korean government. Even though earlier reports claimed that Jong-Nam was stabbed with poisoned needles, the autopsy found no evidence of puncture wounds.
On Feb. 15, Malaysian police announced that it had apprehended 28-year-old Vietnamese national Doan Thi Huong. In CCTV footage from the airport attack, Huong is seen wearing a white shirt with the word "LOL."
Over the next three days, the the Malaysian police stopped Indonesian Siti Aiysah, 25, Malaysian Muhammad Farid Bin Jalaluddin, 26, and North Korean Ri Jong Chol, 26, in connection with the murder.
Over the last week, numerous stories about the identity and potential motives of the suspects have emerged. The police revealed that Huong worked in the entertainment business, which led to speculation about her physical similarity to a former Vietnam Idol contest.
After her arrest, Aisyah claimed that she was misled to believe that she was being filmed for a hidden-camera TV show even though the Indonesian police said that she received money to spray Kim Jong-nam with liquid. Malaysian security forces also announced that the four suspects were hired assassins who did not know each other prior to the attack.
Malaysian police have had to amp up security after someone tried to break into the morgue where Kim Jong Nam's body was being held on Wednesday.
Malaysian police also announced on Wednesday that it wanted to question North Korean embassy official Hyon Kwang Song, 44, along with other nationals Kim Uk Il, 37, and Ri Ju U, which prompted an angry response from North Korea.
Malaysia is one of the few countries whose citizens can travel to North Korea without a visa, but some analysts have predicted that friction over the assassination and Malaysia's refusal to comply with North Korean demands regarding the investigation could lead to a significant diplomatic fallout.
Malaysia announced on Friday that Kim Jong Nam was killed by VX nerve agent, a highly toxic substance — a singly oily drop is enough to kill a person, reports BI's Dave Mosher — classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.
Aisyah, who is still being held custody along with some of the other suspects, later said that she thought she was handling a liquid like "baby oil" to be in a prank TV show for RM400 ($90), according to Indonesia's deputy ambassador to Malaysia Andreano Erwin.
Among widespread suspicions of North Korea's involvement in the murder, Malaysian police forces are continuing to seek explanations for the mysterious death. On Feb. 27, South Korean lawmakers said that the murder was organized by North Korea's ministry of state security and foreign ministry.
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TOKYO — Because of a grainy security camera photo that went viral online, she is now known to many as the LOL assassin.
But as Doan Thi Huong arrived at a courthouse in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to be formally charged with the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half brother two weeks ago, she had a very different look — tear-filled eyes and a bulletproof vest.
For most people, those first images of Huong were as shocking as they were bizarre — apparently showing her lunging at Kim Jong-nam in a crowded airport terminal while wearing a T-shirt emblazoned in big black letters, LOL, an acronym for laughing out loud.
Huong, who is Vietnamese, and an Indonesian woman were formally charged with murder Wednesday.
Her light brown dyed hair disheveled and frizzy, Huong was led into the courthouse handcuffed to a female Malaysian officer. She wore a yellow shirt under the protective vest and jeans. As she looked out at a bank of photographers and journalists waiting outside, her face was puffy and her eyes red and teary.
The Indonesian suspect, Siti Aisyah, arrived dressed in a red T-shirt under her vest and also wore jeans. Outside court, she appeared more somber, her eyes downcast.
The Malaysian police say the two women rubbed VX nerve agent onto Kim's face, possibly at the behest of North Koreans. Kim was dead within 20 minutes.
Both women deny they intended to kill Kim. They say they were hired to play what they were led to believe was a harmless prank on him for a TV show.
If found guilty, they could be executed.
In a dramatic shift from traditional policy, an internal White House review on North Korea strategy revealed that the option to use military force or a regime change to curb the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons was on the table, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
This review comes at the heels of a report claiming President Donald Trump believed the "greatest immediate threat" to the US was North Korea's nuclear program.
Recent provocations from the Hermit Kingdom, including the ballistic missile launch in the Sea of Japan and the killing of Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother in Malaysia, may have provoked this shift in the policy that have many officials and US allies worried.
"North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!"Trump tweeted in January. Several weeks later, North Korea conducted its missile test.
Since then, Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland consulted with other officials to address North Korea's fresh series of provocations. In the meeting, held about two weeks ago, the officials discussed the possibility of a plan "outside the mainstream," The Journal reported.
According to The Journal, McFarland requested for all options to overhaul American policy toward North Korea — including for the US to recognize North Korea as a nuclear state and the possibility of a direct military conflict.
The proposals, which are being vetted before Trump's review, would certainly be met with worry from China, a longtime ally of North Korea that recently responded with an export ban against North Korea's coal industry. Additionally, many experts fear that a direct military conflict would spark all-out warfare, including artillery barrages directed at Seoul, South Korea's capital.
Even more worrisome is the possibility for further North Korean provocations, which may influence the recent policy shift, as early as this month. As the US and its ally South Korea conduct "Foal Eagle" and "Key Resolve," their annual military exercises that involve 17,000 US troops and Terminal High Altitude Air Defense systems, experts say provocations from North Korea will be likely.
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