Laura Ling

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Sept. 1, 2009 -- The Los Angeles Times today announced the publication of Laura Ling and Euna Lee's first-hand account of the story that took them to the North Korean-Chinese border and the events leading up to their detention in a North Korean prison. The lengthy Op-Ed article will be published on latimes.com tonight and in The Times Wednesday, Sept. 2nd print edition, as well as made available to other publications tomorrow via the LA Times- Washington Post news service.

'The World Is Bigger Now: An American Journalist's Release from Captivity in North Korea' by Euna Lee with Lisa Dickey (Broadway Books: 305 pp., $25.) . On March 17, 2009, Euna Lee, a journalist working in China on a documentary about North Korean defectors and her colleague, Laura Ling, were chased by soldiers and, according to Lee, dragged across the border into North Korea. They were arrested for "committing hostilities against the Korean nation," and imprisoned for 140 days.

Noted journalist Laura Ling became an international cause célèbre last year when she and colleague Euna Lee were held captive in Kim Jong Il's North Korea for more than five months after being arrested while investigating human trafficking. More than a year after being released, Ling is marking her return to the airwaves ? landing at the home of a wholly different Kim. The former investigative correspondent for Current TV's "Vanguard" has joined E! Entertainment, the TV network of former sex tape queen turned scenester Kim Kardashian and other celebrity-oriented series that are snarky ( "Chelsea Lately," "The Soup")

Noted journalist Laura Ling became an international cause célèbre last year when she and colleague Euna Lee were held captive in Kim Jong Il's North Korea for more than five months after being arrested while investigating human trafficking. More than a year after being released, Ling is marking her return to the airwaves ? landing at the home of a wholly different Kim. The former investigative correspondent for Current TV's "Vanguard" has joined E! Entertainment, the TV network of former sex tape queen turned scenester Kim Kardashian and other celebrity-oriented series that are snarky ( "Chelsea Lately," "The Soup")

North Korea's sentencing of two American TV journalists to 12 years of hard labor Monday could imperil the Obama administration's already difficult goal of curtailing the authoritarian nation's nuclear weapons ambitions. If no deal is reached, the two women face a grim future in a brutal prison system notorious for its lack of adequate food and medical supplies and its high death rate. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, were convicted by the nation's top Central Court of an unspecified "grave crime" against the hard-line regime after they were arrested in March along the Chinese-North Korean border while reporting a story on human trafficking.

Former President Clinton arrived in North Korea today in a dramatic bid to negotiate the release of two American TV journalists sentenced to 12 years in prison for illegally entering the secretive nation earlier this year. Clinton, the husband of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, is the highest-profile U.S. official to visit North Korea in nearly a decade.

The statement posted on the lauraandeuna.com website said it all: "Our girls are coming home . . . we are counting the seconds to hold Laura and Euna in our arms." In some circles the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee revolved around complex questions of nuclear security and global politics.

The release came suddenly, heralded by a familiar face. In an emotional homecoming Wednesday at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, journalist Laura Ling told family members and friends about the moment when she and her colleague, Euna Lee, knew they were about to be freed after nearly five months of detention in North Korea. "We feared that at any moment we could be sent to a hard-labor camp," Ling said. "And then suddenly we were told that we were going to a meeting.

A clandestine network that helps North Koreans escape through China has gone deeper underground because of fears over what authorities in both countries have learned from the capture of two U.S. journalists who were released by Pyongyang this month, a missionary said today. When they were arrested in March, Laura Ling and Euna Lee were reporting on an underground railroad that has helped thousands of people escape from North Korea. "Their arrest reverberated through the aid network," said Tim Peters, a missionary in Seoul who oversees aid work in northeast China.

Two American journalists seized by border guards are facing "intense interrogation" for alleged espionage after illegally crossing into the country from China, a South Korean newspaper reported. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, journalists working for San Francisco-based Current TV, were in Pyongyang's outskirts at a guest house run by North Korean military intelligence, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said, citing a South Korean intelligence official. In Washington, a State Department spokesman said North Korea had assured U.S. officials that the journalists would be treated well.

If Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee hadn't followed their guide across a frozen river separating China and North Korea on a fateful morning in March, their story about human trafficking in the region would have likely drawn modest attention. Instead, Ling and Lee were captured by North Korean soldiers, creating an international incident that threw the work of their scrappy documentary unit into limbo and brought newfound attention to the program's brand of often-risky investigative journalism.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Sept. 1, 2009 -- The Los Angeles Times today announced the publication of Laura Ling and Euna Lee's first-hand account of the story that took them to the North Korean-Chinese border and the events leading up to their detention in a North Korean prison. The lengthy Op-Ed article will be published on latimes.com tonight and in The Times Wednesday, Sept. 2nd print edition, as well as made available to other publications tomorrow via the LA Times- Washington Post news service.

We arrived at the frozen river separating China and North Korea at 5 o'clock on the morning of March 17. The air was crisp and still, and there was no one else in sight. As the sun appeared over the horizon, our guide stepped onto the ice. We followed him. We had traveled to the area to document a grim story of human trafficking for Current TV. During the previous week, we had met and interviewed several North Korean defectors -- women who had fled poverty and repression in their homeland, only to find themselves living in a bleak limbo in China.

A clandestine network that helps North Koreans escape through China has gone deeper underground because of fears over what authorities in both countries have learned from the capture of two U.S. journalists who were released by Pyongyang this month, a missionary said today. When they were arrested in March, Laura Ling and Euna Lee were reporting on an underground railroad that has helped thousands of people escape from North Korea. "Their arrest reverberated through the aid network," said Tim Peters, a missionary in Seoul who oversees aid work in northeast China.

The release came suddenly, heralded by a familiar face. In an emotional homecoming Wednesday at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, journalist Laura Ling told family members and friends about the moment when she and her colleague, Euna Lee, knew they were about to be freed after nearly five months of detention in North Korea. "We feared that at any moment we could be sent to a hard-labor camp," Ling said. "And then suddenly we were told that we were going to a meeting.

The statement posted on the lauraandeuna.com website said it all: "Our girls are coming home . . . we are counting the seconds to hold Laura and Euna in our arms." In some circles the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee revolved around complex questions of nuclear security and global politics.

Former President Clinton arrived in North Korea today in a dramatic bid to negotiate the release of two American TV journalists sentenced to 12 years in prison for illegally entering the secretive nation earlier this year. Clinton, the husband of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, is the highest-profile U.S. official to visit North Korea in nearly a decade.

North Korea laid out its evidence Tuesday against two American journalists it sentenced to hard labor for entering the country illegally. The state news agency reported that 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.