North Korea plans to put American citizen on trial
North Korea has announced the trial of an American citizen who was mysteriously arrested six months ago while leading a tour group into the country.
The announcement focused attention back on Pyongyang after a near two-week lull in North Korea's sabre-rattling rhetoric.
Kenneth Bae (Pae Jun-ho), a 44-year-old ethnic Korean with US citizenship, was arrested last November as he accompanied five Europeans into the Rason Special Economic Zone, a pilot region on the border of China and Russia which is open to foreign companies.
Since then, almost nothing has been heard of him. In January, Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, and Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, travelled to North Korea to try to secure his release but were not allowed to see him.
Mr Bae's crime is not clear. However, the Korean Central News Agency announced on Saturday that a "preliminary inquiry" had been completed and that Mr Bae had "admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with hostility toward it".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10022366/North-Korea-to-put-American-Kenneth-Bae-on-trial.html
