Let’s Not Forget the Billionaire

One name that is conspicuously absent from the final chapters of Laura Ling and Lisa Ling‘s excellent new book Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home, pseudonymously or otherwise, is that of octogenarian Hong Kong billionaire Eric Hotung. And yet, without his behind-the-scenes maneuvering, it is possible that the Bill Clinton happy ending would never have occurred.

Filed under: Euna Lee, Laura Ling, Somewhere Inside

The Kindness of Mr. Yee

The most welcome gift in the thoroughly compelling new book Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home (Harper Collins, May 18th) is not the revelation of how a certain Hollywood movie star figured in the college education of one of Laura Ling‘s female guards, that Laura and her producer Mitch Koss first visited Pyongyang in 2002 (!), or that Lisa at a certain point had a preliminary phone conversation with a member of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Rather, it is the character of Mr. Yee, Laura‘s main interrogator.

Filed under: Euna Lee, Laura Ling, Somewhere Inside

Winding Down the Year of the Ox

Those who pay attention to the Chinese calendar know that we are at the tail end (pun intended) of a Year of the Ox, which began January 26th, 2009 and ends February 14th, 2010. However, over the past few days, formerly imprisoned reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling have been doing their best to embrace a new year of the X-O-X-O-X-O.

Filed under: Commentary, Euna Lee, Laura Ling

Robert Park’s Misguided Criticism

In an interview given to @Reuters by Robert Park shortly before he wandered across the North Korean border on Christmas Day (video of interview here), the Tucson, AZ Christian activist – who had previously been ministering to Hermit Kingdom refugees along the Chinese border – had harsh words for Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

Filed under: Euna Lee, Laura Ling, Robert Park

Euna-Laura Trumps Linda-Monica

Last Wednesday evening at Fleming’s Prime Steak House in Sarasota, Florida, Bill Clinton received yet another impromptu standing ovation from a group of restaurant patrons. This time at the close of a day’s worth of golf playing and speech-making sponsored by the parents of Doug and Roger Band, close confidants who accompanied the President on his trip to North Korea.

It was the latest vivid reminder of just how dramatically the conclusion brought about by Clinton to the arrest of Laura Ling and Euna Lee on March 17th, 2009 has eclipsed the stain of the Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp mess unleashed by Matt Drudge on January 17th, 1998.

Filed under: Euna Lee, Laura Ling