North Korea detains two U.S. female journalists

North Korea has detained two female American journalists working near its border with China, a diplomatic source here said yesterday.

"Two reporters working for a U.S.-based internet news media outlet, including a Korean-American, were detained by North Korean authorities earlier this week, and they remain in custody there," the source said.

The journalists were videotaping a scene near the North`s border with China despite repeated warnings by North Korean border guards, according to the source.

They were arrested after accidentally crossing into North Korea on Tuesday, the source said.

The journalists from the California-based online media outlet Current TV were identified by a South Korean pastor as Euna Lee, editor of the news service section, and Laura Ling, a reporter.

"I warned them that they should not be close to the border," said Chun Ki-won, the pastor who helps North Korean refugees seek asylum.

Speaking by telephone from Washington, Chun said he met with the two in Seoul recently to help them plan their trip to the border to report on North Korean refugees and last spoke to them by telephone early Tuesday morning.

The women told him they were in the Chinese border city of Yanji and were heading toward the Yalu River near the Chinese border city of Dandong, according to the pastor.

The Yalu and Tumen rivers are frequent crossing points for both trade and the growing number of North Koreans seeking to escape through the porous border between North Korea and China.

The United States seems to be trying to resolve the issue quietly due to concerns over the safety of the detainees, observers said, adding that North Korea is likely to release the journalists in the near future.

"A U.S. government official may visit North Korea to bring them back," an observer said.

The incident comes at a sensitive time in U.S.-North Korean relations, with the communist state preparing what it calls a satellite launch early next month.

The United States and South Korea say the launch is a cover for a test of the North`s longest-range missile, in violation of a U.N. resolution passed after its missile and nuclear tests in 2006.

Journalists who wish to visit North Korea must obtain special visas and are accompanied by official guides during their stay. Few such visits have been allowed in recent years.

The North has, in the past, freed Americans it has detained.

Then-U.S. congressman Bill Richardson in 1996 negotiated the release of U.S. citizen Evan Hunziker, who was 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 engaged in an "adventuresome frolic apparently under the influence of alcohol."

In 1994 Richardson helped negotiate the released of a U.S. military helicopter pilot shot down after straying into North Korea.

From news reports