SEOUL: North Korea on Saturday confirmed that it had detained two American journalists along the border with China earlier this week, amid tensions in the region over Pyongyang's plans for a rocket launch.The US State Department had expressed concern over the fate of the two women, who are believed to have been taken into custody by border guards patrolling the Tumen River, a common escape route for those fleeing the North."Two Americans were detained on March 17 while illegally intruding into the territory of the DPRK by crossing the DPRK-China border," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a three-line dispatch."A competent organ is now investigating the case."Diplomatic sources and media reports identified the two women as Euna Lee, a Korean-American, and Laura Ling, a Chinese-American, who work for a news channel in California.A diplomatic source told reporters the two were held by security guards over "suspected border violations" after being caught Tuesday shooting video on the North's side of the river.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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