The most elite club in the military, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is set to get a new member: the chief of the National Guard. Congress approved the change as part of the defense authorization bill last week and the president is expected to sign the bill into law.

With the death of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, attention has turned to the successor he named before he died. Little is known about his third son, Kim Jong Un. Robert Siegel talks with an author who goes by the penname James Church. Church has written a series of fiction books set in North Korea, and he is a former western intelligence officer who has been to North Korea many times.

This year saw musicians, athletes and actors launching their own lines of beer, wine and mescal. The list includes the boy band Hanson, which premiered an India pale ale called MMMHop.

Kim Jong Un appears likely to inherit power from his father. But it's not clear whether he will be able to maintain tight control over most aspects of North Korean life, as his father and grandfather did.

The death of North Korea's Kim Jong Il leaves many open questions about the secretive country's future. Former Ambassador Christopher Hill and North Korea experts Hazel Smith and Alexander Monsourov discuss how Kim's death may affect the country's relationship with the international community.