North Korea forbade Malaysians from leaving the hermit kingdom on Tuesday, as tensions between the two countries continue to escalate over the murder of Kim Jong Nam.

The North’s foreign ministry issued the interim ban “until the incident that happened in Malaysia is properly solved,” the state-run Korea Central News Agency said, referring to the fatal poisoning of the globetrotting playboy half-brother of Kim Jong Un at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak blasted North Korea for “effectively holding our citizens hostage” and called an emergency meeting of his National Security Council late Tuesday.

Najib characterized the ban as an “abhorrent act” enacted with “total disregard of all international law and diplomatic norms.”

In retaliation, the prime minister ordered his police force to detain all North Koreans attempting to leave Malaysia until “we are assured of the safety and security of all Malaysians in North Korea.”

There are 11 Malaysians in North Korea, according to a Malaysian foreign ministry official, including three embassy staff, six family members and two others. There are hundreds of North Koreans in Malaysia, the majority of whom are workers and students.

Malaysian authorities want to grill three possible suspects in the Jong Nam slaying hiding out in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, including a senior North Korean diplomat and a state airline employee. Police have identified a total of eight North Koreans wanted in connection with the murder.

Two women were charged last week with rubbing the lethal nerve agent VX into the face of Jong Nam, causing his agonizing, 20-minute death.

Once friendly neighbors, the relationship between Malaysia and North Korea has become frayed over Jong Nam’s death, with the sides not seeing eye to eye on how to investigate the case.

“You’d have to go back a long way for this kind of wholesale diplomatic meltdown,” said Euan Graham, director of international security at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia.

Graham called it “a classic own goal of North Korea’s making” that was triggered “by the most outrageous public murder than you can image, using a chemical weapon in a crowded international airport.”

Making matters worse, South Korean intelligence officials have accused North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un of orchestrating the assassination of Jong Nam — his estranged half-brother. The officials believe Jong Un saw Jong Nam as a threat to his leadership.</s>For a country that thrives on sowing confusion, North Korea has had an unusually productive week.

In little more than 24 hours this week, it successfully fired four missiles, triggered a diplomatic hostage standoff with Malaysia, complete with hurried document burning in Pyongyang, and pushed Seoul and Beijing into new hostilities over the installation of U.S. anti-missile technology.

The mess of angry recriminations has pushed “the most complicated geopolitical quagmire in the world” into dangerous territory, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency warned on Tuesday afternoon. “The exacerbation of rivalry is pricking up the spectre of warfare,” Xinhua said.

Globe editorial: Is China finally losing patience with North Korea? Let's hope so

Donald Trump similarly warned that the North Korean “threat has entered a new phase,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, after speaking with the U.S. President by telephone.

The latest controversy comes as North Korea demonstrates increasingly sophisticated technical skill in building nuclear weapons and firing missiles. Those advances prompted South Korea on Monday night to suddenly allow deployment on its soil of a U.S.-developed system to shoot down missiles.

All the while, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has exulted in the sight of a simultaneous missile launch this week compared to an “acrobatic flying corps in formation” – and the knowledge that he has once again made his impoverished country, with an estimated GDP smaller than that of Nova Scotia, into a global priority.

“North Korea uses chaos as its dominant strategy,” said Jasper Kim, director of the Center for Conflict Management at Ewha Womans University’s Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul.

“Chaos creates instability, and instability is what the international community tries to avoid. By trying to avoid disorder, it will swap things for peace and security. And those things the international community wants to swap are things that North Korea needs.”

Pyongyang, he said, trains government officials whose “sole job is to basically game the U.S., South Korea, Japan and other parties in terms of North Korea getting what it wants.”

This week, whether by design or by mistake, they have succeeded in stoking a series of co-ordinated crises.

North Korea said it would temporarily bar all Malaysian citizens from leaving its borders – 11 in total, including diplomats and their families – until a dispute over an investigation into Kim Jong-nam is “properly solved.” It disputes findings by Malaysian authorities that Mr. Kim was killed with deadly VX nerve agent inside a Kuala Lumpur airport. The travel ban prompted diplomats in Pyongyang to burn documents, Chinese television reported.

Malaysia responded by telling the roughly 1,000 North Koreans inside its borders they also cannot leave. As police guarded the entrance to the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Prime Minister Najib Razak accused Pyongyang of an “abhorrent act” that is “in total disregard of all international law and diplomatic norms.”

At the same time, the row between China and South Korea over anti-missile defence grew more pointed Tuesday after a U.S. military plane landed at the Osan Air Base south of Seoul on Monday night carrying the first equipment toward deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD. The U.S.-developed system is designed to shoot down missiles, although its effectiveness has been questioned.

For South Korea, “it’s a game of probabilities,” said Go Myung-Hyun, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. If North Korea fires a missile, “we want to make sure there’s a higher chance of failure.”

China had sought to pressure Seoul to forego the system through a pressure campaign that has included banning performances by South Korean singers and forcing the closure of some South Korean-owned retail stores. On Tuesday, it reacted angrily to the presence of missile-defence equipment in South Korea. The THAAD system includes sophisticated radar that, China argues, can be used to monitor a large swath of its own territory.

“This system breaks the regional strategic balance and significantly weakens the deterrent force of China’s strategic missiles,” said Cai Jian, executive director of the Center for Korean Studies at Fudan University.

“When this system is on, the missiles and movements of Chinese troops will all fall under their surveillance. It is like someone installing a telescope or monitoring facility right on the door of your home.”

Expect China, in response, to bolster its own strategic nuclear power, including hypersonic missile technology, Prof. Cai said.

At the centre of the storm lies North Korea, which has shown a remarkable ability to survive – and, often, profit – from the anger it frequently provokes.

In the 1990s, when Gordon Flake was making frequent trips into North Korea as research director for the Korea Economic Institute of America, a local official there told him: “We are more willing to cut off our leg than you are willing to cut off your pinky.”

North Korea, in other words, has a much higher pain tolerance than its counterparts, which tends to mean others back down first. “When push comes to shove, it’s really difficult to imagine a scenario in which North Korea is truly called to task,” said Mr. Flake, now chief executive officer of Australia’s Perth USAsia Centre.

Still, its current provocations come at a time of heightened risk.

Domestic politics in both China and South Korea have made those countries unlikely to back down from a fight at a time when their leaders do not want to appear weak – Beijing, as it prepares for fall meetings where the next leadership lineup will be decided and Seoul, which is mired in impeachment proceedings against President Park Geun-hye.

The Trump White House, meanwhile, has not clearly enunciated an Asia policy, and is led by a president given to dramatic changes of course. Mr. Flake worries about the possibility of a miscalculation, which could provoke grave consequences with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

“The U.S. cannot be assured to be the adult in the process,” Mr. Flake said. And if a misstep happens, the potential “costs are astronomical.”</s>North Korea and Malaysia said Tuesday they have temporarily prohibited each other’s nationals from leaving their countries, as their once-amicable relations further sour following the Feb. 13 murder of the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader.

Local media also reported that Malaysia’s Cabinet will discuss Friday whether to close the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, underscoring that their cozy ties of more than 40 years have become mired in hostility.

North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it has temporarily banned all Malaysians from departing the country until the issue of the death of one of its citizens in Kuala Lumpur last month is settled in a fair manner.

Pyongyang has not acknowledged that the man killed in an apparent attack with the VX nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport was Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of Kim Jong Un. The North has instead referred to him as Kim Chol, the name that appeared on a diplomatic passport he was traveling with.

The announcement carried by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said the prohibition will be kept in place until the safety of its diplomats and citizens in Malaysia is fully guaranteed through a “fair settlement of the case.”

It said North Korea has already informed the Malaysian Embassy in Pyongyang of its decision.

A Malaysian Foreign Ministry official told reporters that at least 11 people, including three embassy staff, their family members and two U.N. staff, are currently staying in North Korea, while no tourists are currently in the reclusive country.

Later in the day, the Malaysian government also said it has banned North Koreans from leaving the country. Malaysian police have sealed off the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur with yellow tape.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak condemned North Korea’s decision, calling on Pyongyang to immediately release all Malaysians.

“This abhorrent act, effectively holding our citizens hostage, is in total disregard of all international law and diplomatic norms,” he said in a statement.

“Protecting our citizens is my first priority, and we will not hesitate to take all measures necessary when they are threatened,” Najib added.

He said an emergency meeting of the country’s National Security Council had been called, although did not say when this would take place.

Pyongyang has urged Malaysia to settle the case “as early as possible,” while noting that, during the period, all Malaysian citizens in North Korea “may work and live normally under the same conditions and circumstances as before.”

The temporary ban was announced a day after the North Korean ambassador, Kang Chol, who was expelled from Malaysia, arrived in Beijing.

Meanwhile, a North Korean “high-level” delegation, in Malaysia since a week ago to discuss the handling of the incident, was at Beijing Capital International Airport on Tuesday. Jounalists witnessed members of the delegation preparing to leave for North Korea.

Malaysia, which established diplomatic relations with North Korea in 1973 when the anti-Western Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was in power, is one of only a handful of nations with an embassy in Pyongyang.

North Korea and Malaysia opened embassies in each other’s capitals in 2003 and 2004, respectively, and later reached an agreement on reciprocal visa-free visits. In 2009, Malaysia became the first nation to allow visa-free entry for North Korean citizens.

Kim Jong Nam, 45, who criticized North Korea’s hereditary succession of power in an interview with a Japanese newspaper, died after two women smeared the lethal VX agent on his face, Malaysian authorities said.

North Korea has rejected the finding that VX was used in the attack, requesting samples taken by investigators be sent to a global chemical weapons body for analysis.</s>SEOUL, South Korea — The bitter diplomatic dispute between North Korea and Malaysia over the poisoning death of leader Kim Jong-un’s estranged half-brother escalated dramatically Tuesday, with Pyongyang saying it had banned Malaysians from leaving North Korea.

That was followed quickly by Malaysia saying North Korean embassy staff were barred from leaving its country. Malaysia had already expelled the North Korean ambassador on Monday.

The North’s Foreign Ministry told the Malaysian Embassy in Pyongyang that it would temporarily ban the exit of Malaysian citizens now in the North, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

It said the exit ban will be valid “until the safety of the diplomats and citizens of (North Korea) in Malaysia is fully guaranteed through the fair settlement of the case that occurred in Malaysia.”

Malaysia is pursuing several North Korean suspects allegedly involved in the killing, including a diplomat at the North’s Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia has not accused the North of being behind the killing of Kim Jong-nam at Kuala Lumpur’s airport three weeks ago, but South Korean has.

Malaysian Deputy Foreign Minister Reezal Marican told reporters at parliament that there are 11 Malaysians in North Korea: Three working at the Malaysian Embassy, two United Nations workers and six family members.

The North said Malaysian diplomats and citizens “may work and live normally under the same conditions and circumstances as before” during the period of the temporary exit ban.

It also said that the Malaysian ambassador would be expelled, although he has already been recalled to Malaysia.

Kim Jong-nam died less than 20 minutes after two women wiped VX nerve agent on his face at Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13, authorities say. The women, one from Vietnam and one from Indonesia, have been charged with murder.

North Korea has denied any role in the killing and accused Malaysia of conspiring with its enemies. North Korean Ambassador Kang Chol rejected a Malaysian autopsy that found Kim was killed with VX, a banned chemical weapon.

On Monday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the decision to expel Kang sent a clear message.

“It means that we are firm in defending our sovereignty and dignity,” Najib said. “Don’t ever insult our country and don’t try to cause disruptions here.”

Malaysian authorities declared Kang “persona non grata” on Saturday and gave him two days to leave the country. He arrived late Monday afternoon at the Kuala Lumpur airport, where he told reporters that Malaysia was doing “great harm” to the countries’ relations.

Malaysia’s finding that VX killed Kim boosted speculation that North Korea was behind the attack. Experts say the oily poison was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, and North Korea is widely believed to possess large quantities of chemical weapons, including VX.

North Korea is trying to retrieve Kim’s body, but has not acknowledged that the victim is Kim Jong-un’s half brother, as Malaysian government officials have confirmed.

Ri Tong Il, a former North Korean deputy ambassador to the United Nations, has said Kim probably died of a heart attack because he suffered from heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said pathologists have ruled that out.

The two women accused of poisoning Kim say they were duped into thinking they were taking part in a harmless prank.

Malaysia is looking for seven North Korean suspects, four of whom are believed to have left the country on the day of the killing. The three others, including an official at the North Korean Embassy and an employee of Air Koryo, North Korea’s national carrier, are believed to still be in Malaysia.</s>North Korea has banned Malaysians inside its country from leaving, in a growing diplomatic row over the killing of Kim Jong-nam.

In response, Malaysia has banned North Korean embassy officials from leaving, saying it “needs to be done”.

The tit-for-tat actions come amid North Korean fury at Malaysia’s investigation into Mr Kim’s death.

Mr Kim, the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader, was killed in Malaysia last month.

While Malaysia has not directly blamed the North Korean government for the attack, there is widespread suspicion Pyongyang was responsible.

North Korea has fiercely denied this and has accused Malaysia of mishandling the investigation and colluding with its enemies.

The row over the killing – and over who has the right to claim Mr Kim’s body from the mortuary where it is being held – has rapidly escalated over the past two weeks.

Both Malaysia and North Korea have already expelled each other’s ambassadors, when on Tuesday North Korea announced it was temporarily banning any Malaysians currently in its country from leaving, citing security reasons.

The state news agency KCNA said the ban would stay in place “until the incident that happened in Malaysia is properly solved”, but that Malaysians in the country would be able to carry on their lives as normal.

Hours later, Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi responded by saying North Korean embassy staff and officials would not be allowed to leave.

“We don’t mean to do this, but it needs to be done,” the Malaysia Star quoted him as saying.

“We need to take similar steps as they have manipulated the murder.”

It was not immediately clear how many people would be affected by each of the bans.

A post-mortem examination on Mr Kim’s body found he was killed by a dose of VX nerve agent the most potent of all known chemical weapons, as he waited to board a flight to Macau on 13 February.

So far, only two people – an Indonesian woman and a Vietnamese woman – have been charged with murder.

A detained North Korean was released last week because of lack of evidence, but Malaysia is seeking a number of other North Koreans.

On Tuesday, Malaysia’s police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said he believed two of those suspects were hiding inside the North Korean embassy compound in Kuala Lumpur.

“We will wait and if it takes five years we will wait outside, definitely somebody will come out,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Pyongyang has not yet confirmed that the body is that of Kim Jong-nam, acknowledging him only as a North Korean citizen. Mr Kim was travelling using a passport under a different name.</s>Here’s our roundup of the best and brightest stories this morning.

Natural cause of death: A British coroner says George Michael died of natural causes as the result of heart disease and a fatty liver. Darren Salter, senior coroner for Oxfordshire, says a post-mortem has found that the singer died of “dilated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis and fatty liver.” Dilated cardiomyopathy is a condition in which the heart’s ability to pump blood is limited, while myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle. Michael died at his home in Oxfordshire county, southern England, on Dec. 25. He was 53. An initial autopsy failed to determine the cause of death.

A buffet of North Korean tensions: The bitter diplomatic dispute between North Korea and Malaysia over the poisoning death of leader Kim Jong-un’s estranged half-brother escalated dramatically Tuesday, with Pyongyang saying it had banned Malaysians from leaving North Korea. That was followed quickly by Malaysia saying North Korean embassy staff were barred from leaving its country. Malaysia had already expelled the North Korean ambassador on Monday. The North’s Foreign Ministry told the Malaysian Embassy in Pyongyang that it would temporarily ban the exit of Malaysian citizens now in the North, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. Meanwhile, U.S. missile launchers and other equipment needed to set up a controversial missile defence system have arrived in South Korea, the U.S. and South Korean militaries said Tuesday, a day after North Korea test-launched four ballistic missiles into the ocean near Japan. The plans to deploy the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence system, or THAAD, within this year have angered not only North Korea, but also China and Russia, which see the system’s powerful radars as a security threat. China responded quickly, saying it will take “necessary measures” to protect itself and warning that the U.S. and South Korea should be prepared to bear the consequences.

Cereal? Killer! It’s National Cereal Day! So you don’t have to feel embarrassed about having cereal for breakfast AND supper. (Like you’d ever feel embarrassed.) But you could also check out the “funny” tweets that the official Twitter account is retweeting.</s>Malaysia And North Korea Are Heading Toward A Complete Diplomatic Breakdown

North Korea announced Tuesday that Malaysian citizens in the country would not be allowed to leave, and Malaysia retaliated by broadening a previous travel ban on North Korean Embassy officials to cover all North Korean citizens in the country.

So, more than three weeks after the half-brother of North Korea's leader was murdered in a Kuala Lumpur airport terminal, the two countries are in a full-blown diplomatic standoff.

As The Two-Way has reported, Kim Jong Nam died on Feb. 13, and his body remains in Malaysia, despite demands by North Korea to release it:

"Malaysia, which was once one of the few countries friendly with North Korea, has had a significant falling out with the hermit kingdom over the death of Kim Jong Nam. Malaysian authorities say Kim was killed with VX nerve agent, a banned chemical weapon, and they have arrested two women who appeared to accost him in the airport's surveillance footage. "Pyongyang, for its part, disputes this account, saying the man — whom North Korea has not officially recognized as Kim Jong Nam — 'probably died of a heart attack because he suffered from heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.' "The U.S. and South Korean officials attribute Kim's death to North Korean agents."

Following Tuesday's announcement that all Malaysian citizens would be barred from leaving North Korea, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak accused the North Korean government of "effectively holding our citizens hostage," The Guardian reported.

Malaysia has an embassy in Pyongyang. "Malaysia's foreign ministry said it had 11 citizens in North Korea, including three embassy staff, six family members and two others," reported the newspaper. "Neither country has announced how many North Koreans live in Malaysia."

The Associated Press estimated about 1,000 North Koreans in Malaysia were affected by the exit ban.

The Guardian also quoted Malaysia's chief of police as saying that three North Korean nationals wanted in connection with the killing were hiding in the country's embassy in Kuala Lumpur as of Tuesday, and that a North Korean diplomat was among those wanted for questioning in connection with the murder.

The two countries already kicked out each other's ambassadors over the murder — Malaysia first, on Saturday, and then North Korea on Monday, according to The Associated Press (although the Malaysian government had beaten Pyongyang to the punch by recalling their top diplomat back on Feb. 20).

That process, in which each country declared the other's top diplomat persona non grata, is in keeping with the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, to which both countries are signatories.

However, the new exit bans and criminal investigation involving diplomats are more murky in their legality under the treaty, which guarantees diplomatic immunity from criminal prosecution.

Only the sending state can revoke that immunity.

The U.N. convention also states that "the receiving State shall ensure to all members of the mission freedom of movement and travel in its territory," and says specifically that:

Don Rothwell, professor of international law at the Australian National University, told Reuters that he believed the exit ban for Malaysian Embassy staff and their families in Pyongyang was a clear violation of the convention.

The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Malaysia has signed, also explicitly establishes the right of every person "to leave any country."</s>Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Kim Jong-nam sought help at the airport shortly after his face was smeared with the deadly VX nerve agent

North Korea and Malaysia have banned each other's citizens from leaving their countries, in a growing row over the killing of Kim Jong-nam.

The extraordinary tit-for-tat actions come amid North Korean fury at Malaysia's ongoing investigation into his death at a Kuala Lumpur airport.

The North Korean leader's half-brother was killed with a potent nerve agent.

Malaysia has not directly blamed the North for this, but there is widespread suspicion Pyongyang was responsible.

North Korea has fiercely denied any accusations of culpability and the row over the killing - and who has the right to claim Mr Kim's body - has rapidly escalated over the past two weeks.

Both Malaysia and North Korea have already expelled each other's ambassadors.

What was North Korea's announcement?

The state news agency KCNA said on Tuesday that "all Malaysian nationals in the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] will be temporarily prohibited from leaving the country until the incident that happened in Malaysia is properly solved".

Image copyright AP Image caption Kim Jong-nam was known to frequently travel to Malaysia and had been waiting for a flight to Macau when he was attacked

It said this was to ensure the safety of its citizens and diplomats in Malaysia.

Malaysians in North Korea would be able to carry on their lives as normal, it added.

How did Malaysia respond?

Furiously. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said it was an "abhorrent act" which was "in total disregard of all international law and diplomatic norms".

Malaysians were effectively being held hostage in North Korea, he said in a statement.

"Protecting our citizens is my first priority, and we will not hesitate to take all measures necessary when they are threatened."

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Kim Jong-nam was poisoned with an extraordinarily potent chemical weapon called VX

Malaysia initially responded by banning North Korean embassy staff and officials from leaving the country.

But Mr Najib later said the ban would extend to all North Koreans.

How many people does this affect?

Malaysian officials have said there are believed to be 11 Malaysian citizens currently in North Korea, mostly diplomats.

They include two Malaysians working with the UN's World Food Programme, the organisation said.

The Malaysian authorities say there are about 1,000 North Koreans currently in Malaysia.

Until last week, North Koreans did not need a visa to enter the country.

Is this legal?

Such actions are highly unusual. Under Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country".

Malaysia has signed that declaration, but North Korea has not.

The ban also breaks the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which both countries have ratified.

Where has the investigation into Kim's death got to?

A post-mortem examination on Mr Kim's body found he was killed by a dose of VX nerve agent, a substance classified as a weapon of mass destruction, as he waited to board a flight to Macau on 13 February.

Image copyright Reuters/AFP Image caption Doan Thi Huong (left) and Siti Aisyah (right) have both been charged with killing Mr Kim

So far, only two people - an Indonesian woman and a Vietnamese woman - have been charged with murder. They have said they thought they were taking part in a TV prank.

A detained North Korean was released last week because of lack of evidence, but Malaysia is seeking a number of other North Koreans, including a diplomat.

On Tuesday, Malaysia's police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said he believed two of those suspects were hiding inside the North Korean embassy compound in Kuala Lumpur.

"We will wait and if it takes five years we will wait outside, definitely somebody will come out," he told reporters.

Armed police have been deployed outside the embassy, cordoning it off, Malaysian media reported.

History of Malaysia-North Korea relations

Malaysia was one of the few countries that had relatively friendly relations with North Korea

Diplomatic ties between the nations were initiated in the 1970s

As trade in resources such as palm oil and steel increased, North Korea eventually established an embassy in Kuala Lumpur in 2003

A former North Korean ambassador to Malaysia, Chang Yong-chol, was executed on Kim Jong-un's orders as part of a purge of the family of his uncle, Chang Song-thaek, who was also the North Korean leader's uncle and was executed in 2013.</s>KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 (Reuters) - Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak rebuked North Korea on Monday as his government expelled its envoy for casting doubt over the impartiality of the investigation into the murder last month of the North Korean leader's estranged half brother.

If North Korean agents did kill Kim Jong Nam, as U.S. officials and South Korean intelligence suspect, the decision to assassinate him on Malaysian soil could cost the isolated, nuclear-armed state one of the few friends that it has.

Malaysia's outrage over the killing of Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport was heightened by the assassins use of VX nerve agent, a chemical so toxic that it is on a U.N. list of weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea has refused to accept that the victim of the Feb. 13 murder was leader Kim Jong Un's half brother, and Ambassador Kang Chol accused Najib's government of colluding with external forces and said the investigation could not be trusted.

Prime Minister Najib had branded Ambassador Kang "diplomatically rude" and, angered by the lack of an apology, the Malaysian government on Saturday gave him 48 hours to leave.

"They should have apologised. So based on principles, we have declared him persona non grata," Najib told reporters at parliament on Monday.

"There is no one who can undermine us or disrupt us as they please," he said.

The expelled ambassador fired a parting shot at the Malaysian authorities as he prepared to leave from the same airport where Kim Kong Nam was killed. "I express grave concern over the extreme measures taken by the Malaysian government, doing great harm to the bilateral relations which has a history of more than 40 years," he told reporters.

Kang said his statements were a stand taken against a "pre-targeted investigation by the Malaysian police."

Kim Jong Nam, who had been living in the Chinese territory of Macau under Beijing's protection, had spoken out publicly against his family's dynastic control of North Korea.

So far, Malaysian prosecutors have charged an Indonesian woman and a Vietnamese woman for the murder of Kim Jong Nam.

But police have identified eight North Koreans, including a senior embassy official and state airline employee, wanted for questioning in the probe.

Police say that four of the North Koreans police they want to interview left Malaysia in the hours after the murder.

Only one North Korean suspect was apprehended, but after several days in custody Ri Jong Chol was deported on Friday after being released due to insufficient evidence.

Until this week Malaysia was one of the few countries that North Koreans could enter visa without a visa. But that privilege has been revoked.

Asked whether Malaysia, which recalled its ambassador to Pyongyang for consultations, would be reviewing diplomatic ties with North Korea, Najib was noncommittal.

"We will see. We'll take it one step at a time."

Malaysia also asked for an Asian Cup soccer qualifier match against North Korea to be moved to a neutral venue, as tensions escalated.

"The relationship has already been affected, it won't be the same," Deputy Foreign Minister Reezal Merican told reporters.

The case has also cast a spotlight on North Koreans living in Malaysia, with authorities vowing to investigate North Korea-linked companies that are suspected of operating a sanctions-busting arms business in Malaysia.

Reuters reported this week that a front company run by North Korean intelligence agents ran an arms operation out of Malaysia.</s>Diplomatic relations between Malaysia and North Korea are getting more strained by the day, in the wake of the brazen public murder of Kim Jong Nam.

On Tuesday, Malaysia accused North Korea of holding eleven of its citizens “hostage” after they were told they were not allowed to leave the rogue state.

“This abhorrent act, effectively holding our citizens hostage, is in total disregard of all international law and diplomatic norms,” Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement.

In response, Malaysia announced no North Koreans would be allowed to leave their country either. Both countries have already expelled their respective ambassadors.

But North Korea and Malaysia weren’t especially diplomatically close even before the killing of Kim Jong Un’s half-brother.

“They had a very good relationship — I think Malaysians are just normal, friendly, and trying to maintain a working relationship with North Korea,” said Jong Kun Choi, Associate Professor of the Yonsei University Political Science and International Studies Department.

“You don’t want to call it a friendship … From the southeast Asian states’ perspective is North Korea critical? No, not really.”

Official relations between North Korea and Malaysia were initiated in June 1973, after China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia, but in some ways the two countries have seemed unusually close.

Malaysia is one of fewer than 30 countries to have an embassy in Pyongyang, and it’s also the only country whose citizens can enter North Korea without a visa.

Andray Abrahamian, associate director of research at the Choson Exchange, an NGO working in North Korea, said Malaysia’s visa-free status spoke to their diplomatic competence, rather than any closeness with Pyongyang.

“For a country of its economic development, (Malaysia’s) passport is surprisingly powerful … Part of their image is their openness and they didn’t see fit to exclude the DPRK from that,” Abrahamian said.

There is little indication Malaysians are taking special advantage of their visa-free status. Local media in Malaysia reports that some travel agents in the country don’t even offer North Korean tours, due to lack of interest.

In the past, Kuala Lumpur has hosted informal meetings between the United States and North Korea, said John Delury, associate professor at Yonsei University Graduate School.

“But those meetings are held in other locations around the world, in Europe, sometimes in China … I wouldn’t say those meetings would stop because of problems with Malaysia,” Delury said.

Even trade between the two countries hasn’t been especially strong.

According to United Nations trade data, Malaysia exported only US$2 million of goods to North Korea in 2014, mostly medical supplies and packaging. In comparison, China sent almost US$3.5 billion.

Malaysia imported less than US$200,000 of North Korean goods in the entire year.

“(Still) I would guess Malaysia is in North Korea’s top 20 (trade partners) and that’s the state of North Korea’s trading relationships right now,” Abrahamian said.

Abrahamian said North Korea’s chaotic trading methods have made building connections hard for Malaysian businesses.

“It’s just all very ad hoc … I actually spoke to a Malaysian businessperson who was working a little bit in North Korea. He said he sent them a couple of containers of food products and it went really well and they got paid,” he said.

“(Then) he didn’t hear from him for six months, despite multiple attempts at getting in touch.”

South Korea has accused its northern neighbor of the assassination. In response, North Korea’s state news agency KCNA issued an angry denial to the claims, accusing South Korea of “spreading wild rumors.”

It also lashed out at Malaysia for “picking on” North Korea and accused the Malaysian police of “deciding the direction of their investigation under someone else’s order with no objectivity and fairness.”

If North Korea did attempt a public assassination with diplomatic consequences, it wouldn’t be the first time. In 1983, North Korean agents set off a bomb in Yangon in an attempt to kill then-South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan.

It killed more than 20 people, though Chun escaped. In response, Myanmar broke off relations for more than a decade. There are suggestions it may do the same now with Malaysia.

“North Korea had a pretty significant relationship with Myanmar, I would say more important than its current relationship with Malaysia and it completely squandered that relationship in order to try to assassinate the South Korean president,” Delury said.

Professor Jong said if the assassination was proven to be committed by North Korea, it could lead to the severing of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

“(If proven) it’s essentially a violation of Malaysian sovereignty … North Korea might value the killing of Kim Jong Nam much more than the bilateral relationship (with Malaysia). But it’s speculation at the end of the day,” he said.
North Korea temporarily bans all Malaysian nationals (estimated to be at least 11 people including embassy employees) from leaving the country amid a growing dispute between the two countries over the death of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of Kim Jong-un. Malaysian official Khairy Jamaluddin calls the move "tantamount to taking hostages".