Al Gore's Reporters To Go On Trial in North Korea

I still haven't heard a word about these two from the bloated environmental crusader. Makes me think he just doesn't care about their fate.

Apparently the smart diplomacy from Team Obama isn't making any headway, either.

As global powers debate how to punish North Korea for its nuclear defiance, two American journalists seized nearly three months ago face a trial this week in Pyongyang on charges that could land them in one of the country's notorious labor camps.

North Korean guards detained Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's Current TV media venture, at the northeastern border with China on March 17. Activists who helped organize their trip say they had been reporting on North Korean women and children who fled to China for an uncertain life as refugees.

Pyongyang accused the Americans of engaging in "hostile acts" and crossing into communist North Korea illegally, and announced two weeks ago the women will stand trial June 4 in the nation's top court. Legal experts say conviction for "hostility" or espionage could mean five to 10 years in a labor camp.

Their detention and trial comes at a sensitive time in the diplomatic scramble to rein in an increasingly belligerent Pyongyang, which conducted an underground nuclear test last Monday and punctuated the defiance with an array of short-range missile tests. Diplomats at the U.N. are discussing a new Security Council resolution.

Oh my, another piece of paper sure to get the Norks in line.

In the meantime, get ready for another fireworks show.

North Korea also appears to be preparing to launch a long-range missile, a South Korean defense official confirmed Sunday. He asked not to be named, citing the sensitivity of the issue. U.S. military officials say there are signs of activity at North Korea's nuclear reactor that could indicate work to restart the facility and resume production of nuclear fuel.

Analysts warned North Korea could use the trial of the Americans to better its hand in the weeks before Obama and South Korea's Lee Myung-bak hold a White House summit June 16.

"Having two journalists detained in the North leaves the U.S. very little maneuvering room since Washington now has to take the women's safety into account," said Yoon Deok-min, a professor at South Korea's state-run Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.

Al Gore's Reporters Facing Harsh Time in North Korean Prison Camp

Strangely enough, the former Vice President still hasn't commented publicly about his employees being detained in North Korea. Whatever the case, these two may never again see the light of day.

In a state “guest house” on the outskirts of Pyongyang, Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been held for more than a month: valuable pawns in an growing international nuclear stand-off.

Hanging over the heads of the American journalists is the possibility of a show trial and ten years in a notoriously harsh North Korean prison camp. The outside world knows little about how they are holding up — because North Korea is not saying and the United States, while trying to free them through diplomacy, has tried to impose a blanket of silence.

The signs, though, are not good for the employees of Current TV, a web-based television channel founded by Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, because their future appears bound up in the widening rift between Pyongyang and much of the rest of the world over its recent missile launch. The reclusive regime of Kim Jong Il has halted all talks and expelled international experts monitoring its nuclear activities after the United Nations condemned its decision to fire a rocket over Japan.
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The US State Department has said that it is making every diplomatic effort to free the two women and Mr Gore is said to have contacted Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, to ask for her assistance. The US has no embassy in North Korea but a representative of the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang is said to have seen the journalists at the end of last month.

Koh Yu Hwan, a professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, said that Pyongyang was unlikely to release the journalists soon. Having two Americans was like having a “piece of rice cake rolling in for free”, he said.

“They’re going to make maximum use of this for multiple purposes. Rather than a trial by a criminal code, it will be a political trial.”

Between this and Roxana Saberi, I suspect our enemies sense weakness in our current leadership and their smart diplomacy.

Does Al Gore Care His Employees Are Held Hostage in North Korea?

Is it just me or is it just a bit unseemly that Al Gore has had no comment over the fact two of his employees are being held hostage in North Korea and are reportedly undergoing intense interrogation? This story was first reported about five days ago and I've yet to see a single news account where he's commented. Does anyone even know where he is?

Two American journalists detained at North Korea's border with China are under investigation by North Korean military intelligence officers who suspect they were engaged in espionage activities, a report said Tuesday.

North Korea has said its border guards arrested two Americans on March 17 for "illegally intruding" after they entered the country from China. The two have been identified as Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's San Francisco-based media outlet Current TV.

South Korea's mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said Tuesday that the American women had crossed the border from China while reporting on North Korean refugees.

They were taken to Pyongyang a day after their arrest, and were being held at a guest house run by the military intelligence agency on the outskirts of the capital, the newspaper said, citing an unnamed South Korean intelligence officer.

North Korean investigators were checking the journalists' cameras, video tapes and notebooks to try to establish if they had been spying on the North's military facilities, the report said.

North Korea "will not treat the female journalists harshly, although they will undergo intense interrogation," the paper quoted another unnamed South Korean intelligence officer as saying.

South Korea's main spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said Tuesday that South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities had been keeping a close watch on the case, but that it could not immediately confirm the JoongAng Ilbo report.

Seoul's Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the North, also said it could not confirm the report.

A U.S. official said Saturday that the U.S. has been in touch with North Korean representatives about the journalists and was awaiting a reply. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of the issue, said the U.S. did not know where the North was holding them.

It's entirely possible there are some back channel negotiations going on that the media isn't privy to, but has anyone even reached Gore for comment?

Searching around this morning, the most recent item I see mentioning his name is yet another tedious profile in the Boston Globe claiming he's been proven right on mythical global warming.

Frankly, the intervening years have been good to him in other ways. Science generally has borne out his early concerns over global warming. His dogged quest for environmental awareness led to his best-selling book "An Inconvenient Truth," as well as an Academy Award-winning documentary of the same name, and, topping it all, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Maybe this author from the Boston Globe ought to step outside. On the fifth day of spring it's currently 27 degrees with a wind chill of 16 degrees.