The United States' top diplomat for Asia arrived Tuesday in China on a tour that will also take him to South Korea and Japan to discuss developments in North Korea after the death of Kim Jong-il.
Observers trying to divine the real power behind the new leader of North Korea's totalitarian regime are resorting to an old Cold War technique called "Kremlinology."
South Korea's president urged rival North Korea on Monday to use the transition of leadership after Kim Jong Il's death to usher in a new era of peace on the tense Korean peninsula, even as he warned the North against any provocations.
North Korea's power brokers publicly declared Kim Jong Un the country's supreme leader for the first time at a massive public memorial Thursday for his father, cementing the family's hold on power for another generation.
North Koreans on Thursday bade a final farewell to "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il during an elaborate memorial ceremony that established his son Kim Jong-un as his successor and "supreme leader" of the secretive, totalitarian regime.
The Obama administration's cautious response to the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il reflects unease and uncertainty about the leadership transition in the reclusive country that has confounded U.S. presidents since Harry S Truman.
North Korea's next leader escorted his father's hearse in an elaborate state funeral on a bitter, snowy day Wednesday, bowing and saluting in front of tens of thousands of citizens who wailed and stamped their feet in grief for Kim Jong-il.
U.S. intelligence agencies are busy assessing the new power structure emerging in North Korea as Kim Jong-un, son of the late Kim Jong-il, takes over.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans lined the snowy streets of Pyongyang on Wednesday, wailing and clutching their chests as a black hearse carried late leader Kim Jong-il's body through the capital for a final farewell.
