The Obama administration is working "through all possible channels" to win the release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in North Korea.

UPDATES June 8, 2009 -

US working all possible channels to win the release journalists in North Korea

The real question as reported by Christian Science Monitor correspondent Don Kirk, is whether the North would be willing to talk further about their fates in a period of worsening confrontation between North Korea and the United States and between North and South Korea.

June 7, 2009 -

Associated Press reports North Korea's Central Court sentenced the women to 12 years of reform through labor.

Larry King talks with Lisa Ling and the families of detained U.S. journalists held in North Korea.

Embedded video from CNN Video

Images from the Los Angeles candlelight vigil for Laura Ling and Euna Lee.
Photos courtesy Natasha Bishop.

If you know Rain, BoA (shown left), and Sistar, then you already know K-Pop, Korea’s contemporary pop music and its artists.

K-Pop music is one of the fastest growing music genres in the world, and along with Korea’s popular TV drama serials, films and comic books are a growing source of export revenue for Korea.  

The growing global fan base of Korea's entertainment and cultural offerings, known as "Hallyu" or the "Korean Wave" feels more like a tidal wave in some countries. In France, for example, fans mostly in their youth sold out a concert in Paris reportedly in fifteen minutes. Several hundred fans who missed out on tickets held a rally and danced to K-Pop music in front of the Louvre Museum campaigning for a second concert. They got their wish for a second concert which also sold out in minutes. Aflash mob as witnessed by this YouTube video shows hundreds of fans from all ethnicities crowding the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris last June, 2011 to welcome their favorite K-Pop artists. (image right)

On December 31, 2011 Korea's Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choe Kwang-shik announced a 2012 policy to expand support of Hallyu, to help keep the wave of Korean pop culture surging across its borders. The Korean government also hopes to attract more Hallyu fans into the areas of food, tourism, fashion and other cultural and entertainment offerings.

Leaders from Hollywood and S. Korea’s entertainment industry and academia convened in...

St. Paul, Minnesota -

On July 22, 2006, 19 year old Fong Lee was shot and killed by a Minneapolis police officer.

On May 28, 2009 a Federal jury ruled that Officer Jason Andersen did not use excessive force when he shot and killed Lee, ruling against Fong Lee's family's wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis. Lee's family asserts that Fong was unarmed and running away on foot from the police officer.

Elvis Thao, a member of the Hmong community in Minnesota, and actor, hip-hop performer and musician in Clint Eastwood's award-winning 2008 movie Gran Torino, contributes this poem in tribute to Fong Lee.

St. Paul, Minnesota -

On July 22, 2006, 19 year old Fong Lee was shot and killed by a Minneapolis police officer.

On May 28, 2009 a Federal jury ruled that Officer Jason Andersen did not use excessive force when he shot and killed Lee, ruling against Fong Lee's family's wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis.

Elvis Thao, a member of the Hmong community in Minnesota, and actor, performer and musician in Clint Eastwood's award-winning 2008 movie Gran Torino, contributes this poem in tribute to Fong Lee.

"In the Memory of Injustice" is written and performed by Tou SaiKo Lee ft. Xaiesque and Proto-J

The Verdict:

News story by Brandt Williams Minnesota Public Radio.

The Case:

News story by Rochelle Olson Star Tribune

The poetry is accompanied by music, however we are only able to reprint the text-only version here:

In the Memory of Injustice

In the...