A new article has emerged on the Laura – Euna rescue situation.
A new article has emerged on the Laura – Euna rescue situation. It’s from a UK publication Mail on Sunday.
Some interesting takes:
As of last night, the bidding war for the first interview with the two heroines had reportedly reached ‘the mid six figures’. Book publisher HarperCollins is said to have offered a cool $1million for a ‘warts and all’ account of their life during 140 days ‘behind enemy lines’.
Laura, 32, describes herself as a ‘Chinese American’, but a friend said: ‘She was brought up as a true Valley girl [an upper middle-class girl]. She’s about as Chinese as the cuisine at Chin Chin [a popular Californian-Chinese restaurant chain].’
For Euna, who was born in South Korea but moved to California when she was a university student, it was her first overseas assignment. The trip was Laura’s second ‘dangerous’ foreign job for Current, a Left-wing cable television network based in San Francisco that rather grandly aspires to ‘democratise’ the news.
The two women were sent to China in March to do a report about North Korean refugees pouring over the border. A source familiar with Current said: ‘It was the sort of bleeding-hearts liberal story that would play well to their target market. But then Laura decided to take it a step further.’
When the girls were taken into custody, he was preparing to test a ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
A US State Department source said: ‘These two naive girls became useful pawns in a much bigger chess game. The North Koreans’ idea was to put them on trial, sentence them to prison camp and offer to free them for concessions.’
Their ‘ordeal’ appears to have been far from tough. According to Professor Han Park, an American academic who was visiting North Korea at the time, they were housed in a guest villa designed for foreign visitors outside the capital of Pyongyang.
Professor Park said that Korean officials laughed at any suggestion that the women were receiving harsh treatment. ‘We are not Guantanamo,’ he was told.
The women were allowed to receive daily letters from their husbands and parcels from home.
Indeed, her worst complaint was that her rice tasted like ‘rocks’.
The Clinton insider said: ‘Obama’s people suggested sending Al Gore, but Kim Jong Il only wanted Bill.
He idolises the former President because he thinks he is a virile stud with influence in Hollywood. When asked to undertake a ‘sensitive’ mission to ‘rescue’ the pair, he jumped at the chance.
The Clinton confidant said: ‘This wasn’t about the women – this was about a PR coup.
Barack Obama may have defeated Bill’s wife but this is the Clintons’ revenge. The North Koreans are talking about nuclear disarmament but they say they will talk only to Bill. It’s a win-win siteuation for everyone except Obama.