by Julie G.
My heart is bursting with the news that journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been freed from North Korea. They had been sentenced in June for 12 years in a hard labor prison for the crime of "committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry." They were arrested at the country's border with China.
Ling is 31 and was on her first international assignment with Current TV, the channel for which she was filming. Lee is 36 and has a four year old daughter.
Their arrest, sentencing, and subsequent release was part of the on-going nuclear politics that has pitted North Korea against its cousin, Japan, and the U.S. Less ideologically framed worry emanates from China and Russia, although both responded with concern to N. Korea's May testing of a nuclear device (and have implemented sanctions against the country).
Clinton (Bill) was acting as "a private citizen" when he flew over on a jet owned and volunteered by a long-time Democratic Party supporter. He was requested by the North Koreans. He did this even after the North Korean foreign minister called Clinton's wife (who happens to be our Secretary of State) a "funny lady" who sometimes looks like a "pensioner going shipping."
Continue reading “I love senior statesmen!”
