Euna Lee

SEOUL - Two American journalists were missing yesterday after they were reportedly detained by North Korea for ignoring warnings to stop shooting footage of the country. Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for Al Gore's online media outlet Current TV, were seized Tuesday along the Chinese-North Korean border, according to news reports. Their Chinese guide also was detained, although a third journalist with the group, Mitch Koss, apparently eluded capture. US officials expressed concern to North Korean officials about the reported detentions and said they were working with the...

SEOUL — North Korea confirmed yesterday that it has arrested an American for committing an unspecified crime and is preparing to indict him. The man, identified by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency as Jun Young Su, is the latest US citizen to be detained in the reclusive communist state in recent years. Freeing them has often required high-profile negotiations. North Korea informed Washington about the arrest and said Jun is being given necessary humanitarian support, including consular contact with Swedish Embassy officials in Pyongyang.

SEOUL — North Korea confirmed yesterday that it has arrested an American for committing an unspecified crime and is preparing to indict him. The man, identified by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency as Jun Young Su, is the latest US citizen to be detained in the reclusive communist state in recent years. Freeing them has often required high-profile negotiations. North Korea informed Washington about the arrest and said Jun is being given necessary humanitarian support, including consular contact with Swedish Embassy officials in Pyongyang.

WASHINGTON — Jimmy Carter was to leave for North Korea today to try to gain the freedom of a Boston man imprisoned for illegally entering the communist nation, US officials said last night. North Korea agreed to release Aijalon Mahli Gomes if the former president were to come to bring him home, a senior US official told the Associated Press. Gomes was arrested Jan. 25 after entering North Korea and was sentenced in April to eight years in prison and fined $700,000. Carter was expected to spend a single night in North Korea and return with Gomes on Thursday, a second US...

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday that information her husband brought back from North Korea has been “extremely helpful’’ by providing a window into what’s happening in the reclusive country. But it didn’t change the Obama administration’s position on North Korea, which is under pressure from the United States and its allies to end its nuclear weapons program. “Our policy remains the same. Our policy is consistent,’’ she said.

SEOUL - Prisoners spend long days toiling in rice paddies and factories. Survivors say beatings are frequent, hunger is constant, and clothing is scarce in the freezing winter. But specialists said that based on past experiences, the two American journalists sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean labor prison probably won't see that side of the nation's notoriously brutal gulag. The reporters - Laura Ling and Euna Lee - will likely be kept apart from North Korean inmates as negotiators seek their release.

SEOUL - North Korea’s decision to restart tours run jointly with South Korea and allow reunions of families separated for decades by the peninsula’s war is aimed at drawing much-needed foreign currency and securing the upper hand in negotiations with Washington and Seoul, analysts said. Tours to the scenic Diamond Mountain resort and the ancient city of Kaesong, both located just north of the world’s most heavily fortified border, have been key symbols of reconciliation between the divided Koreas.

WASHINGTON — Jimmy Carter was to leave for North Korea today to try to gain the freedom of a Boston man imprisoned for illegally entering the communist nation, US officials said last night. North Korea agreed to release Aijalon Mahli Gomes if the former president were to come to bring him home, a senior US official told the Associated Press. Gomes was arrested Jan. 25 after entering North Korea and was sentenced in April to eight years in prison and fined $700,000. Carter was expected to spend a single night in North Korea and return with...

SEOUL - North Korea's positioning of a rocket on its east coast launchpad ratcheted up tensions yesterday with Washington, which warned that pushing ahead with the April launch would violate a UN ban and have serious consequences. Pyongyang says the rocket is designed to carry its Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite into orbit, an accomplishment timed for the eve of the inaugural session of North Korea's new parliament, and for the April 15 birthday of the late ruler Kim Il Sung. But regional powers suspect the North will use the launch to test the...

CHICAGO — An American journalist who was imprisoned in North Korea for months after briefly crossing into the reclusive country while reporting about the sex trade said yesterday that she told interrogators in a ploy for mercy that she was trying to overthrow the government. In her first televised interview since her August release, Laura Ling said on “The Oprah Winfrey Show’’ that she was told the worst could happen if she did not confess. Ling said she drew suspicion because she worked for Current TV, a media venture founded by former Vice...

CHICAGO — An American journalist who was imprisoned in North Korea for months after briefly crossing into the reclusive country while reporting about the sex trade said yesterday that she told interrogators in a ploy for mercy that she was trying to overthrow the government. In her first televised interview since her August release, Laura Ling said on “The Oprah Winfrey Show’’ that she was told the worst could happen if she did not confess. Ling said she drew suspicion because she worked for Current TV, a media venture founded by former Vice President Al Gore based in...

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday that information her husband brought back from North Korea has been “extremely helpful’’ by providing a window into what’s happening in the reclusive country. But it didn’t change the Obama administration’s position on North Korea, which is under pressure from the United States and its allies to end its nuclear weapons program. “Our policy remains the same. Our policy is consistent,’’ she said.

SEOUL - North Korea’s decision to restart tours run jointly with South Korea and allow reunions of families separated for decades by the peninsula’s war is aimed at drawing much-needed foreign currency and securing the upper hand in negotiations with Washington and Seoul, analysts said. Tours to the scenic Diamond Mountain resort and the ancient city of Kaesong, both located just north of the world’s most heavily fortified border, have been key symbols of reconciliation between the divided Koreas.

SEOUL - Prisoners spend long days toiling in rice paddies and factories. Survivors say beatings are frequent, hunger is constant, and clothing is scarce in the freezing winter. But specialists said that based on past experiences, the two American journalists sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean labor prison probably won't see that side of the nation's notoriously brutal gulag. The reporters - Laura Ling and Euna Lee - will likely be kept apart from North Korean inmates as negotiators seek their release.

SEOUL - North Korea's positioning of a rocket on its east coast launchpad ratcheted up tensions yesterday with Washington, which warned that pushing ahead with the April launch would violate a UN ban and have serious consequences. Pyongyang says the rocket is designed to carry its Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite into orbit, an accomplishment timed for the eve of the inaugural session of North Korea's new parliament, and for the April 15 birthday of the late ruler Kim Il Sung. But regional powers suspect the North will use the launch to test the...

SEOUL - Two American journalists were missing yesterday after they were reportedly detained by North Korea for ignoring warnings to stop shooting footage of the country. Journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for Al Gore's online media outlet Current TV, were seized Tuesday along the Chinese-North Korean border, according to news reports. Their Chinese guide also was detained, although a third journalist with the group, Mitch Koss, apparently eluded capture. US officials expressed concern to North Korean officials about the reported detentions and said...

SAN FRANCISCO - Two American television reporters imprisoned in North Korea for months said communist soldiers “violently dragged’’ them back into North Korea after they had briefly crossed into the reclusive country from China. In an article posted Tuesday on Current TV’s website, Laura Ling and Euna Lee said that they hesitantly followed their guide when he beckoned them to cross a frozen river into North Korea and that they were “firmly back’’ in China when North Korean border guards grabbed them on March 17. “We tried with all our might to cling to bushes,...

SEOUL - One video recorder set, six tapes, a digital camera, and a stone. North Korea laid out its evidence yesterday against two US journalists sentenced to hard labor for entering the country illegally. The country’s official news agency reported that the journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, documented their journey into communist North Korea, even pocketing a stone to commemorate the illicit trip across the frozen Tumen River from China. “We’ve just entered a North Korean courtyard without permission,’’ the...