Free Republic

As the families of U.S. hostages currently held in Iran have struggled for years to rally the determination to bring their loved ones home, newly released emails from the former secretary of State reveal the infuriating truth that those with connections get their case raised to the top. In 2009, Iason Athanasiadis was covering the protests of the disputed election win of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Mir-Hossein Mousavi for the Washington Times. The Greek citizen was detained by Iranian authorities on June 17, 2009, as he tried to fly out of the country. Athanasiadis was thrown in Evin prison and released...

The State Department on Tuesday released 3,000 pages of emails from the private server former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used while in office. The correspondence, released online, covers March through December 2009. Among the messages, on July 11, 2009, Clinton received an email from "Jimmy" — presumably former President Jimmy Carter — titled "N. Korea.” The message seems to be about freeing journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were charged and held with illegal passage into the Stalinist state. It read: "Hillary: As I explained to you on the phone, I don´t think it is appropriate to tell...

The two American television reporters imprisoned in North Korea for over four months have written an article describing the circumstances surrounding their arrests and detention, claiming they were arrested on Chinese soil. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who work for the American Current TV channel, were arrested in March and put on trial after allegedly crossing the North Korean border without entry permits and sentenced to 12-years in a labour camp.... In the lengthy article posted on Current TV's website, the women said they never intended to cross a frozen river into North Korea and were “firmly back” on Chinese...

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two American journalists released after nearly five months in North Korean custody, have been widely portrayed at home as victims of unduly harsh punishment by a repressive government for simply doing their job. But here in South Korea, human rights advocates, bloggers and Christian pastors are accusing them of needlessly endangering the very people they tried to cover: North Korean refugees and the activists who help them. The accusations stem from a central fear repeated in newspapers and blogs here: that the notes and videotapes the journalists gathered in China before their ill-fated venture...

North Korea's Kim Jong Il awarded his son, Kim Jong Un, a special commendation for his direct handling of the 2 captured Americans and Pres. Clinton recently. Internal speech was made by the Domestic Security Bureau, which said "Comrade Kim Jong En in his brilliance is to be awarded for excellent work. He dealt skillfully with the (2 US journalist) spy incident, and even was able to force a former US President to come all the way over the Pacific Ocean to apologize to us."

Bill Clinton's triumphant return from North Korea with two rescued US journalists had Hollywood written all over it -- from the Burbank airport to the big-time producer who bankrolled the expedition to the celebrity public-relations firm that orchestrated the homecoming. A key player in Clinton's high-flying diplomatic mission to rescue Laura Ling and Euna Lee was entertainment mogul Steve Bing, a longtime "Friend of Bill" who lent the ex-president his private Boeing 737. The multimillionaire mogul paid about $200,000 in fuel and other costs that came with the trans-Pacific flight.

Foreign Policy: We're glad former President Bill Clinton returned from North Korea with two American journalists who had been wrongly imprisoned there. But apologizing sets a very bad diplomatic precedent.Who wouldn't be happy seeing the tearful, smiling faces of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the journalists who were nabbed by Kim Jong Il's security forces while on a reporting mission on the China border? The secretive state nabbed them five months ago, and a government tribunal sentenced them to 12 years of hard labor. In North Korea, hard labor means hard labor. Had the sentences been carried out, one or...

Bill Clinton's unexpected and successful trip to Pyongyang to secure the release of two American journalists sentenced to 12-year prison terms was a highly theatrical coup for the former president. His surprise arrival in North Korea, the three hours of face-to-face talks with an ailing though evidently still sentient Kim Jong-il, the tearful dawn homecoming in California – it was a perfectly executed foreign-policy triumph, played out live on the world's TV screens. But who has gained from it? Obviously, Euna Lee and Laura Ling have won their freedom from what was, in effect, a state-sponsored hostage-taking operation by one...

I just have one word: "HUH?"

Amid all the adulation over Bill Clinton's "rescue" of the two reporters from North Korea, what have we learned since they were released about the circumstances under which they were captured by the North Koreans? Have the two acknowledged whether they crossed illegally into North Korea and thereby precipitated the crisis?

U.S. journalists head home from North Korea (CNN) -- Two U.S. journalists who had been detained by North Korea were traveling back to the United States with former President Clinton hours after being pardoned, a Clinton spokesman said. President Clinton meets Tuesday with North Korea leader Kim Jong Il. "They are en route to Los Angeles [California] where Laura and Euna will be reunited with their families," said spokesman Matt McKenna. Doug Ling, Laura's father, reacted to the news outside his home in Carmichael, California, with, "One of the best days in my life ... I figured, sooner or later,...

My guess is "less than 36 hours."

Never underestimate the power of a former president. Expressing "sincere words of apology," Bill Clinton persuaded North Korean President Kim Jong Il to release two American journalists in Pyongyang Tuesday, the North Korea state media reported. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested last March, while reporting for U.S. news outlet Current TV. The two, who inadvertently crossed a stream bordering China into North Korea, were convicted of "hostile acts" and sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor. The state news agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea announced "the measure taken to release the American journalists...

Now that Laura Ling and Euna Lee are on their way home (to Los Angeles), I have a short list of things I do and do not want to hear from them, starting with any retch-inducing drivel about how well they were treated while they shouldn’t have been in (North Korean) captivity at all. Let’s make that the first thing on our list: 1. Please spare us the Stockholm Syndrome at LAX. Try to remember that you weren’t in North Korea to rob convenience stores, hide a dead hooker, or hand out boxer briefs infected with herpes. If things were...

Now that all the hoopla and nonstop CNN 24/7 type celebrations and TV interviews and book deals will ramp up over the release of two liberal Democrat California-based freelance/Al Gore journalists from communist North Korea, based on a Bill Clinton secret deal and eventual flying to North Korea to apologize and legitimize the dictatorial regime--developing nuclear strike capabilities and exporting said terror--I say "hold your horses", as we have important unfinished business. I would expect the MSM to gloss over these so I raise them here.

B reaKinG N ews on Fox News Channel..

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Obama administration is rewarding North Korea for its bad behavior by sending ex-president Bill Clinton to Pyongyang to win the release of two US journalists, the former US ambassador to the UN said Tuesday. John Bolton, an outspoken hardliner in the previous administration of George W. Bush, told AFP that Clinton's mission to Pyongyang undermines a number of public stands held by his own wife, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "It comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists," Bolton told AFP when asked about Bill Clinton's trip to secure the release of journalists Laura Ling...

North Korea welcomed former President Bill Clinton to Pyongyang with flowers and hearty handshakes Tuesday as he arrived in the communist nation on a surprise mission to bring home two jailed American journalists. Clinton was making his first trip to North Korea in hopes of securing the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV media venture who were arrested along the North Korean-Chinese border in March. But the visit could reap rewards beyond the women's release, with Clinton and North Korean officials broaching the nuclear impasse, diplomatic relations and other...

Former President Bill Clinton arrived Tuesday in Pyongyang, North Korea, on a mission to free two U.S. journalists imprisoned there since March, North Korea's official news agency reported. Mr. Clinton's trip was first reported by South Korea's Yonhap news agency. The State Department declined to comment, but diplomats indicated that the Yonhap report was correct. The journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were arrested March 17 near the Chinese border with North Korea. They were on assignment for Current TV, a cable outlet co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore. Last month, they were sentenced to 12 years of hard...

Former US president Bill Clinton is understood to have landed in Pyongyang earlier today for a surprise visit to North Korea as relations between the United States and the regime continue to sour and mystery surrounds the health of its enigmatic "Dear Leader". The regime's mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency, said in a bulletin this afternoon that Mr Clinton had been greeted at Pyongyang's airport by two senior government figures - the vice president of the presidium of North Korea's parliament and the vice foreign minister. "A little girl presented a bouquet to Bill Clinton," ran the rest of...