untested. we simply don't know him. the rules are very different. we have a president in south korea who is a woman, also untested. the first woman to lead a country that has been traditionally very male oriented. so the players are different. but also, the threats are different. they have been rapid-fire, day after day after day. there's been a racheting up. there has been a rapid-fire progression of them. back now what appears to be the good old days of kim jong-il, they were a little more spaced out so it's a bit more unpredictable. put all those factors together and the fact that they're speaking now more directly to the united states, this is a bit of a different game. even though south koreans, piers, may feel more numb to it than the international community. >> thank you very much indeed. christiane amanpour, you've covered this for a long time. how serious do you think it is? is it any different or do you detect it may be different? >> i think for all the reasons that kyung says, it's different