N. Korea frees 2 U.S. journalists after Clinton trip

Former President Bill Clinton and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il pose for a picture in Pyongyang in this photo released by North Korean official news agency KCNA Aug 4. Talk about stiff...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea released two jailed American journalists on Tuesday after a visit from former U.S. President Bill Clinton in the highest-level U.S. contact with Pyongyang since Clinton was president nearly a decade ago.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday confirmed that he and the two U.S. journalists who have been freed in North Korea, have left the country. "President Clinton has safely left North Korea with Laura Ling and Euna Lee. They are en route to Los Angeles where Laura and Euna will be reunited with their families," Matt McKenna said in a statement. They are scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles Wednesday morning.

North Korea's KCNA news agency said North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had issued a "special pardon" to the two journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling of U.S. media outlet Current TV, which was co-founded by Clinton's vice president, Al Gore.

The two journalists were arrested on the North Korea-China border in March and accused of illegal entry. A North Korean court sentenced both of them last month to 12 years of hard labor for what it called grave crimes.

Photos of journalists Laura Ling (left) and Euna Lee displayed during a public vigil in San Francisco, June 24.

There were immediate questions about what Clinton had discussed with Kim beyond the fate of the two reporters during a visit that gave Kim what he craved -- direct U.S. attention and a visit from a highly placed emissary.

The news agency insisted that Clinton "courteously conveyed a verbal message of U.S. President Obama expressing profound thanks for this and reflecting views on ways of improving the relations between the two countries."

The White House had denied that Clinton carried any sort of message from Obama, but Obama officials otherwise remained silent while awaiting the diplomatic negotiations to unfold.

Clinton, husband of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was the highest-level American to visit the reclusive communist state since his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went there in 2000.

He was greeted warmly on his arrival and had what KCNA described as an "exhaustive conversation" over dinner with Kim and his top aides.

Former President Bill Clinton is welcomed with flowers upon his arrival at Sunan airport in Pyongyang.

The North Koreans immediately sought to put their stamp on what they felt had happened during Clinton's visit.

"Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it. Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them and send them back home from a humanitarian point of view," KCNA said.

Obama adviser David Axelrod had told MSNBC that Clinton was on a "private humanitarian mission" and that "I don't think it's related to other issues."

KCNA attempted to portray the visit in terms of what was possible in the future, saying Clinton's visit would "contribute to deepening the understanding between the DPRK and the U.S. and building the bilateral confidence."

Side Benefit?

Clinton's visit could have a side benefit of improving the atmosphere between the United States and North Korea that could restart talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons.

North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, was among those greeting Clinton, whose administration was believed to have been close to agreement with the North before he turned over power to George W. Bush in 2001.

Many analysts predicted Pyongyang would use the journalists as leverage to wring concessions from Washington, which sought to place U.N. sanctions on the North for a May nuclear test.

Clinton's trip followed months of military provocations by the impoverished North, which has turned its back on negotiations with regional powers, including the United States and China, to convince it to give up ambitions to build an atomic arsenal.

In Washington, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said it was not clear whether Clinton had been authorized to discuss policy issues.

"It would be nice if it's the foundation for a better relationship," Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told NBC's "Today Show."

People watch a news program at a railway station in Seoul, reporting former President Bill Clinton's visit to North Korea Aug 4.

Yun Duk-min of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul said the visit held out the possibility of "a dramatic turnaround by North Korea that could lead to a new phase of negotiations."

Wrong Signals

It was the second time a former U.S. president went to North Korea to try to defuse a crisis. Former President Jimmy Carter flew there in 1994 when tensions were running high, again over the North's nuclear weapons program.

Carter helped broker a deal at that time in which Pyongyang suspended construction of a 50-megawatt plutonium reactor in exchange for heating oil and other energy aid.

One analyst said Clinton's visit was rewarding North Korea's "bad behavior."

Clinton's arrival coincided with mounting speculation over succession in Asia's only communist dynasty. Several reports suggest an increasingly frail-looking Kim Jong-il, 67, has settled on his third son to take over.

"It's just what they (North Korea's leaders) need," said B.R. Myers, an expert on the North's state ideology at the South's Dongseo University.

(Additional reporting by Yoo Choonsik in Seoul, Lucy Hornby in Beijing, David Morgan and Ross Colvin in Washington; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Patricia Wilson and Peter Cooney)

Source: Reuters, BNO

North Korea ups bully nuclear rhetoric

South Korean protesters burn a North Korean flag during a rally denouncing American journalists detained in North Korea, at a park in Seoul, South Korea, June 9. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

North Korea said Tuesday it would use nuclear weapons in a "merciless offensive" if provoked--its latest rhetoric apparently aimed at deterring any international punishment for its recent atomic test blast, AP/CBS News reported.

"Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means...as well as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country's dignity and sovereignty even a bit," stated a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The current state of affairs reminds me of Bullies in the Sky, the headline of the first N. Korea story I reluctantly posted long before this mickey mouse trial and bogus conviction. At the time, I didn't even know about the arrests. If I had known, I wouldn't have gone out of my way to be so nice to N. Korea and its large tiny-dick male population.

My friends, my fans, my benefactors (there I go talking to myself again...): if you didn't understand the meaning of this blog's name, now you should.

The statement comes as the families of two American journalists sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean labor prison urged it's hard-line government to grant them clemency, amid hopes the U.S. government would send an envoy to negotiate their release.

Regarding journalists Euna Lee, 36, and Laura Ling, 32, it is possible North Korean President Kim Jong Il will "return to a nuclear freeze and the journalists would be freed if the U.S. and the U.N. present a package of incentives," CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk reported.

"Fourteen years ago, Kim Jong Il released a downed American pilot less than a week after President Clinton agreed to ship $2.5 billion in U.S. aid and oil," Falk reported. "North Korea is looking for concessions, and the Obama administration is presented with the same box as was President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush--but now the government of Kim Jong Il is getting closer to being able to deliver a nuclear weapon and the stakes are higher."

CBS News correspondent Barry Petersen reports that Washington's options for negotiating with the communist regime are limited. The U.S. doesn't even have an embassy in the North, and now there is concern for the health of the two women.

The families' statement noted that Ling has a serious medical condition, a reference to her ulcer, and that Lee's 4-year-old daughter is showing "signs of anguish over the absence of her mother."

Lee and Ling, who work for former Vice President Al Gore's Current TV, were arrested March 17 near the China-North Korea border where they were reporting about the trafficking of women. It's unclear whether they tried to sneak into the North or if aggressive border guards crossed into Chinese territory and grabbed them, as has happened before.

Sources: The Associated Press, CBS News
Copyright © 2009

N. Korea might be using journalists to bargain

Ugh.

North Korea again.

Not my cup of tea, to say the least.

All week we've been hearing about the U.S. journalists North Korea arrested on March 17 while they were at the border of China and N. Korea reporting on the trafficking of women.

American TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been accused of illegally entering North Korea and unspecified "hostile acts." To this day we don't know whether they actually strayed into the North or were grabbed by border guards who crossed into China. Surely we can't expect N. Korea to be specific about the exact location and the so-called hostile acts--that would be totally unfair. Perhaps the women were chewing gum or wearing lipstick, and detaining them was matter of national security. Or maybe they had the audacity of asking why they were being arrested, which would no doubt be interpreted as a hostile act by phallocentric men with tiny dicks.

*sigh* As you must know by now, I have no patience for N. Korea and its bullying tactics.

Pyongyong, N. Korea's capital city, has yet to publicly announce the exact charges against the journalists, but South Korean legal experts say that a conviction for "hostility" (whatever this hostility is) or espionage (are you fucking kidding me?) could mean five to 10 years in a labor camp. Great.

N. Korea's latest wanna-be bold move was to announce the two journalists were about to go on trial and then sort of check out of the airwaves.

The "news blackout," as AP calls it, could mean the journalists are being used as "bargaining chips." The North might be dragging out their trial as the communist leadership waits to see what kind of sanctions Washington and the U.N. use to punish the nation for its latest nuclear blast and barrage of missile tests last week, AP reported Saturday.

So am I to understand that N. Korea is terrorizing these women and their families, not to mention the U.S., to avoid a UN spanking? Yet more proof of the lack of testicles evidently prevalent among North Koreans. These undated photos show Laura Ling, right, and Euna Lee, who have been imprisoned in North Korea since March. (AP Photo/Yonhap)

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korean expert at Dongguk University in Seoul, said Pyongyang will likely free the reporters and treat their release as a goodwill gesture (goodwill my ass) that should be reciprocated with a special U.S. envoy visiting the isolated state, AP reported. "It shows how the North makes political judgments, which have nothing to do with laws," Koh said.

Yeah, they're probably expecting a Nobel Peace price for releasing the journalists. Ugh.

The criminal proceedings were supposed to begin two days ago, but instead the "secretive" nation's news agency today filed stories about Sweden's king, American "warmongers" and Syrian Embassy workers helping North Korean farmers weed bean fields. Are we supposed to be panicking now? Penis-less bullying.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday she was "incredibly concerned" about the plight of the two women, AP reported. In working for their release, Clinton said she has spoken with foreign officials with influence in North Korea and explored the possibility of sending an envoy to the North, but suggested that no one would be sent during the trial. I say we send them penile implants.

U.S. officials and others working for the reporters' release have said they've received no information about the defendants and even lacked independent confirmation about whether the trial has started, AP reported. The North has said the proceedings wouldn't be open to foreign observers, including Swedish officials who act as Washington's proxy in Pyongyang because the two countries do not have diplomatic ties. Well, of course not. Opening the proceedings to anyone but themselves is an outrageous expectation and, again, would be totally unfair.

If found guilty, the women won't be allowed to appeal because the case is being heard in Pyongyang's high court, where decisions are final, said Choi Eun-suk, a professor on North Korean legal affairs at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in South Korea, AP reported. Isn't that convenient? It would also be convenient to send the much-needed penile implants aboard a long-range missile.

Choi said the reporters would likely be sentenced to more than five years but less than 10 years in a labor prison, AP reported. Then the negotiations with the U.S. would begin, he said. Then? Then the negotiations would begin? Are you fucking kidding me? Well, of course! The bargaining chip would be much bigger and valuable after a conviction.

Reportedly, that's how previous trials for Americans played out, according to the report. The most recent one involved Evan C. Hunziker, a man with alcohol, drug and legal problems. Apparently acting on a drunken dare, he swam across the Yalu River, which marks the North's border with China, and was arrested after farmers found the man, then 26, naked. He was accused of spying and detained for three months before being freed after negotiations with a special U.S. envoy. Yes, he was spying fish and bugs in the river.

In other words, anyone and everyone who for whatever reason ends up on N. Korea automatically is a spy. Phallocentric and paranoid little men with tiny dicks.

The N. Koreans wanted Hunziker to pay a $100,000 criminal fine but eventually agreed on a $5,000 payment to settle a bill for a hotel where he was detained. How gracious of them.

In another case, Venezuelan poet Ali Lameda was sentenced to 20 years in a labor camp in 1967 when he was working as a translator in Pyongyang. And guess what--he, too, was a spy! N. Korea charged him with spying, sabotage and infiltration, according to the AP report. During the one-day trial, it didn't present any evidence, formal charges or specific allegations but demanded Lameda confess his guilt. And get this: a defense lawyer was assigned to him, but the attorney gave a long speech praising the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung before suggesting his client be sentenced to 20 years (WTF!!). Lameda was released after six years.

I may know diddly squat about N. Korea and its relations with the rest of the world, but if anything happens to those two journalists, the shit is going to hit the fan, and those dimwits can kiss their implants (and only hope to resemble real men) goodbye, if you ask me.

Sources: The Associated Press, My Twisted Mind
Copyright © 2009