Journalist Lisa Ling's Sister Captured in North Korea

Update Aug. 5 Reunion videos and Obama speaks
Update Aug. 4: Bill Clinton succeeds in freeing the journalists.

Update 3-30: Ling and Lee to be tried. Read about that here.

Lisa Ling making calls for Obama during campaign
Laura Ling, a journalist and sis of Lisa Ling, Oprah's world correspondent and journalist for National Geographic, was detained with fellow reporter Euna Lee in N. Korea. Hillary is on the case.

Jakarta Post: Tales about life on the run from repressive North Korea - women who end up at the mercy of human traffickers, children who grow up in hiding - drew the team of American reporters to the Chinese-North Korean border.

"Spent the day interviewing young N. Koreans who escaped their country. Too many sad stories," journalist Laura Ling of the San Francisco-based online news outlet Current TV wrote on her Twitter page.

But their quest to document the plight of North Korean refugees may have put them in danger. Ling and fellow reporter Euna Lee were still missing Saturday, four days after they reportedly were seized by North Korean soldiers along the border.

A third member of the crew, cameraman Mitch Koss, and a guide eluded capture but were being held in China, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Friday. Their whereabouts were unclear.

Washington is in contact with North Korea about the two detained journalists, State Department officials said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "is engaged on this matter right now," spokesman Robert A. Wood told reporters Friday. "There is a lot of diplomacy going on. There have been a number of contacts made." Read more

Hillary's spokesman Robert Wood talks about the capture as part of his daily briefing:

QUESTION: The journalists – do you know where they are? Any update on what’s happening?
MR. WOOD: No, Jill. What I can tell you is that we are working diplomatically to try to resolve this issue. Secretary Clinton is engaged on this matter right now. Our view, given the circumstances, is that the less we say about this publicly, the better for those parties concerned. It’s a sensitive matter right now. And I just, for right now, would like to leave it there. We will, of course, once we have much more in the way of details that we can provide we will certainly make them available. But right now for the sake of this particular case, I’d like to leave my comments where they are.
QUESTION: Robert, did Al Gore contact the Secretary about how to help?
MR. WOOD: I would just like to keep my comments where they are, Desmond. I don’t really want to go beyond that. What I will say is that there is a lot of diplomacy going on. There have been a number of contacts made. But the less said about this issue right now, we think, is best.
QUESTION: You cannot even confirm direct contacts between the U.S. and North Korea, say, through the New York channel?
MR. WOOD: I just – I don’t want to go further than what I said.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) the circumstances? You said – yesterday you were a little nebulous about it.
MR. WOOD: We’re still, again, in that process as well of gathering more information about the facts, so --
QUESTION: When you say the Secretary is directly engaged, what – in what sense?
MR. WOOD: As I said, she’s directly engaged. I don’t want to go beyond that at this point.
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