showing on this show who, for us, has become the face of the massacres and the targets, innocent children by this government, and i think a lot of americans say that s not good enough. we need to do something. well, these pictures are appalling, and the assad regime is carrying on in the long tradition of the assad family dictatorship in murdering its own people. the trouble is that the assad dictatorship doesn t have to worry about u.n. sanctions or violating kofi annan s cease fire or having its diplomats kicked out of the great capitals of western europe as long as russia and iran and others are protecting it, giving it financial aid, arming it and providing political cover for it. and that has been the main problem with our strategy. we have not gone to russia and iran and, basically, said you can forget about better relations with us unless you re prepared to take steps to stop this. and so as long as assad feels
dying. the u.n. estimates well more than 5,400 people have been killed since many. most of them peaceful protesters rising up against four decades of assad s family dictatorship and syria shares borders with iraq, lebanon, and israel today, and it is also a major ally of iran. and our chief fox correspondent jonathan hunt is on it. how scientific is the, how scientific is the study of how bad the crackdown is and how significant, at the same time, is the closing of the u.s. embassy? jonathan: the closing of the embassy is a symbolic move by the united states, not a breaking of diplomatic relations. and that is important distinction. it is a suspension of the u.s. diplomatic presence in damascus, what the u.s. administration hopes is it sends another signal to the syrian people that the international community is on their side and as president obama said in an interview with
today the world is asking what happens next. i m wolf blitzer in washington. we want to welcome our special our viewers through our special coverage of kim jong il s death. we re covering all the angles of this developing story. we have reporters across the world from beijing to the pentagon, to london, to the white house and beyond. instability in the region is a major worry right now. stan grant is in beijing and is joining us now live. stan, just a couple of hours ago we learned north korea test fired a short-range missile. what s the reaction in china, which obviously has the closest of relations with north korea? reporter: no reaction to that report of the short-range missile being fired. we know that north korea has these and has carried out these types of test firings before. out of south korea there have been reports that they don t see this as having been a hostile act towards south korea or anything related to that. however, this once again leads to the uncertai
tearful broadcaster broke the news last night on north korea s state-run tv. she reported that the 69-year-old died of a heart attack on saturday. he was a reclusive dictator who starved his own people while building a nuclear weapons nation. bill richardson who has traveled to north korea many times points to several major concerns now. the peninsula is a tinderbox. this we knew was coming because of the health of kim jong il. the issue is going to be will there be stability in the north korean leadership. will they continue the recent efforts of engaging south korea and the united states over food eight over nuclear snauks. newscasts showed north koreans weeping inconsolably for the man they called the dear leader. kim s youngest son, kim jong un now in charge. very little is known about him, but the ruling workers party has already dubbed him the great successor. the white house says it is closely monitoring the situation in north korea. we are told that president obam
confirming that we ve lost this network, and i just, i mean, it is so it s unprofessional is the minimal you can say about it. it s really outrageous, and i think the white house ought to do something about it. jon: and hezbollah bankrolled by iran. not good for our country. absolutely. and that s just part of iran s continuing effort to keep control in lebanon, to keep the assad family dictatorship in power in syria. we ve got real instability all across the middle east. i m afraid we re just not paying attention to it here in washington. jon: sounds like bad news to me. ambassador john bolton, thank you. thank you. jenna: well, a wild scene in south korea. just as parliament votes on a free trade deal with the united states, what sparked this incredible chaos, next.