South Koreans reacted to news of a North Korean dictator's death more calmly in 2011 than they did in 1994, writes Yonhap News Agency's Devin Whiting.
Kim Jong Il's youngest son is about to be crowned the "Great Successor," but too many rivals are still around, writes Former Seoul bureau chief for Newsweek Byung Jong Lee.
Journalist Simran Sethi discusses how Japan's nuclear disaster demonstrated the resiliency of the Japanese people to respond to the immediate crisis and reframe their relationship to energy consumption.
Paul French, author of North Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula, says "we shouldn't expect anything of substance to come out of Pyongyang for a year."
Asia Society coverage of the December 17, 2011 death of the North Korean dictator and its regional and global implications.
North Koreans have entered 12 days of mourning in honor of their longtime leader Kim Jong Il. Meanwhile, comedians elsewhere seems to have entered into 12 days of jokes.
It would be surprising if Kim Jong Un can reinvent and sustain the system as his father did after 1994, argues Andrew Gilholm.
For the new leadership of North Korea, its primary goals will be to seek regime survival by consolidating power within North Korea first. This alone is an opportunity for the United States, China and the other parties.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il meets with Korean People's Army personel in September 1988. He died of an apparent heart attack on Saturday at 69. (AFP/Getty Images)