North Korea detains two US journalists

SEOUL (AFP) - The United States has expressed concern to North Korea after its border guards detained two American journalists along the frontier with China, the US State Department said Thursday.
The incident comes amid rising tensions in the region as Pyongyang prepares a long-range rocket launch for early next month. The pair were taken into custody Tuesday "across the Tumen river by what appear to be North Korean border guards," department press officer Fred Lash told AFP.
"We are working with Chinese government officials in that particular area to ascertain the whereabouts and welfare of the Americans in question," he added. "We've also been in touch with North Korean officials to express our concern about the situation." Washington had also been in contact through the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, which represents its interests in the communist state.
Diplomatic sources and media reports identified the two women as Euna Lee, a Korean American, and Laura Ling, a Chinese American, who work for Current TV in California.
The Tumen River marks the border between China and North Korea and is a common escape route for refugees fleeing the North. It was unclear on which side of the border the journalists were seized.
A diplomatic source told AFP the two were held by security guards over "suspected border violations" after being caught Tuesday shooting video on the North's side of the river.
A human rights activist and Protestant pastor who helped arrange their trip to China confirmed to AFP that they had been held since Tuesday together with their Chinese guide, an ethnic Korean.
"They apparently got too close to the North Korean side of the Tumen River" when they were seized, said Chun Kiwon, speaking by telephone from New York.
Chun said they had met him in Seoul to ask for his advice on their mission, and entered China last Friday.
"They told me they were going to do a programme on North Koreans who have fled the North," said Chun, who heads a missionary group providing assistance to North Korean defectors.
In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman said China was "investigating the issue involving relevant US nationals on the border between China and the DPRK (North Korea)" but did not elaborate.
Tensions are high over the North's plans to launch what it calls a communications satellite sometime between April 4-8.
The United States and South Korea say its real purpose is to test a Taepodong-2 missile, theoretically capable of reaching Alaska, in violation of a UN resolution passed after missile and nuclear tests in 2006.
Pyongyang for its part is angry about a US-South Korean military exercise which it has described as a rehearsal for an invasion. The drill ends Friday.
The North has also told the US that it no longer wants to receive food aid, according to the State Department.
However, it has in the past freed Americans it has detained.
In 1996, then-US congressman Bill Richardson negotiated the release of US citizen Evan Hunziker, who had been detained for three months on suspicion of spying after swimming the Yalu river.
Richardson, who is now New Mexico governor, at the time described Hunziker as a confused young man who had engaged in an "adventuresome frolic apparently under the influence of alcohol."
In 1994 Richardson helped negotiate the release of a US military helicopter pilot shot down after straying into North Korea.