The families of Euna Lee, left, and Laura Ling greet them Wednesday in California.

Suvro Banerji
AC360° Intern

American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are finally back home with their families after nearly five months of imprisonment in North Korea. Tonight, we will show you the emotional family reunion, the tears of joy and then Laura Ling in her own words talking briefly to the reporters.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to call former President Bill Clinton’s dramatic 20-hour long trip a private humanitarian effort. Tom Foreman will have more on Clinton’s role in this release and what impact this could potentially have on U.S. foreign policy in future. CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen and Peter Brookes, a former defense department official and currently a senior fellow on National Security Affairs at the Heritage Foundation will join us live to talk more about this issue.

Also tonight, we have new details on that killing spree at a health club south of Pittsburgh we reported on last night. The police now reveal a possible motive. The insight coming from an online diary, as well as notes they found at the scene and at his home.

Plus, the drug cartels in Mexico have kidnapped and killed thousands of people. There are dozens of cartels, but one clearly stands out – Los Zetas. The group is accused of murdering a Mexican police commander, his wife and four children. Surprisingly, many of their leaders were once military commandoes. Michael Ware will join us live from across the border to give more details on this ruthless drug cartel.

And, our week-long series on the Manson murders continues tonight as Ted Rowlands talks to people who believe Charles Manson and his followers are guilty of more crimes. We will also bring you Erica’s interview with Vincent Bugliosi, the attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson. The big question: Were there more killings?

All these stories and much more tonight on 360° at 10pm ET. See you then!

Editor's Note: In early June Anderson spoke to the families of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, American journalists detained in North Korea. A couple of days later, Ling and Lee were sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of entering North Korea illegally. Former President Bill Clinton is in North Korea, unannounced, to negotiate their release.

Supporters rally for U.S. journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling on June 4 in Seoul, South Korea.

Mallika Chopra
Intent.com

I wanted to share a story about Euna Lee, who along with Laura Ling, has been held in N. Korea for 4 months. As a mother, the story has been haunting me since I heard it. It haunts me because I can totally relate to Euna's actions.

Several weeks ago, we had Euna’s husband, Michael, over for dinner. I have never met Euna, and it was the first time I met Michael. Because of my brother’s close friendship with Laura Ling, it seemed natural to connect with Euna’s family, as well.

Michael is wonderful – vivacious, smart, funny. It was the first day, since this ordeal started, that he had left their 4 year old daughter, Hana. She was spending a night with his father. It was also the first time– at that time, the girls had been in captivity for about 3 months – that he was alone and could process his feelings. As other parents will relate, we often put aside our own emotions to focus on our children’s emotions.

Read more...

Mallika Chopra
Intent.com

In the last 114 days, my little daughter graduated from pre-school. My elder daughter completed 1st grade. My little nephew began to speak in full sentences. My husband and I have fought and made up several times. I have traveled to NY, Colorado, SF, Paris and London. We have had several dinner parties, and watched exciting finals in the NBA Finals and Wimbledon.

I have watched the Iran elections unfold into a potential revolution. I have watched with bated breath N. Korea test nuclear missiles. I have mourned the loss of Michael Jackson, who will go down in history as a legend, but who was also an old friend.

It has been 114 days since Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained in N. Korea. 114 days of captivity in a foreign land, with almost no exposure to family or information. Two girls with a full life, with loving families.

Read more...

Euna Lee, left, and Laura Ling

Jami Floyd
In Session anchor

Two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, have been convicted of “severe crimes” in North Korea. North Korea is not a country known for its fair trials, so we don’t know what these “severe crimes” are; but we do know that the women had previously been charged with “hostile acts” and espionage — which, of course, fuels rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea and calls for a delicate diplomatic balancing act.

There is the humanitarian issue: trying to get these women out; and there is the political issue: North Korea, its nuclear testing and relationship with the rest of the world.

There are no diplomatic relations between the U.S. and North Korea.

This whole mess with Laura and Euna started when they were filming a documentary on the North Korean border with China.

Keep reading

Editor's Note: Two U.S. journalists who were detained in North Korea while covering the plight of defectors living along the China-North Korea border have been sentenced to 12 years in labor prisons, the country's state-run media said Monday.

The Central Court of North Korea sentenced Laura Ling and Euna Lee for the "grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing," the Korean Central News Agency said.

As a result, the court sentenced the women to "12 years of reform through labor," meaning they will serve out their sentence in a labor prison. Watch Anderson's report on the situation as Ling and Lee were about to go to trial last week.

Editor’s note: CNN’s award-winning Planet in Peril returns this year to examine the conflict between growing populations and natural resources. Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Lisa Ling travel to the front lines of this worldwide battle. Ling has been a co-host of The View, correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show, National Geographic and Channel One. She filed this blog from Nigeria.

Lisa Ling
AC360° Special Correspondent

I’m so upset by what I experienced here today that I can barely think straight.

I’m in the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria, a place essential to the U.S. economy.
The communities along the delta literally live atop a virtual goldmine—black gold that literally make’s the world’s engines run. Oil. Underneath the surface of the ground here, lies one of the richest sources of crude oil on the planet.

Nigeria is the 5th largest supplier of oil to the United States and is the 12th biggest oil producer in the world. It was discovered here in the 1950’s, and big oil companies have been pumping hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil out of the ground here ever since. Over the years, it’s made some people colossally rich. Colossally.

Logic would suggest that the people living above this tremendously lucrative resource would benefit from its riches. But the situation here defies logic. The millions of people who live along the delta are considered some of the world’s poorest. There is no electricity and clean water and basic services like medicine and quality education are severely lacking.

How can this be?
The exorbitant amount of money that’s been made here has flowed not into the pockets of the locals, but into the coffers of oil companies and the hands of corrupt government officials. For years, oil companies have been extracting oil from here with little regard for how it’s affected the communities that surround their operations. Allegations of payoffs to local officials here are rife. Anyone with a pair of eyes would see that the fortunes being generated from Nigeria’s abundant oil supply have not been distributed anywhere close to fairly.

It gets worse. Since 1976, there have been well over 6,000 oil spills that have resulted in the contamination of the water and land off of which these communities have lived for generations. The amount of oil that’s been spilled here is 50 times more than what the Exxon Valdez released. Miles and miles of pipeline have been laid underground in the region, some of which are decades old and corroding. While in country, we were told that four months prior, a large oil spill had occurred in the Bodo region, which had only recently been clamped—three months after the breach. Contrary to Shell’s initial reports of sabotage, were told from community members that an old pipeline had fractured resulting a massive spewing of oil into the delta. We traveled by boat to find the source of the spill.

The whole way there we witnessed miles of waterway and territory blanketed by unrelenting thick brown sludge. It is a region surrounded by mangroves that should be incredibly diverse ecosystems. Typically crawling with bugs and mosquitoes, nothing but death wafted in the toxic smelling air—it was devastatingly apocalyptic. If this happened anywhere in U.S., the National Guard would have to be immediately deployed to quell the mutinous uproar that would inevitably ensue. To put it bluntly: heads would roll.

The people who live along the Niger Delta have survived on subsistence fishing and agriculture for decades. When oil spills occur, they cannot even fish for their own survival. Contamination reigns in every conceivable way—it pollutes the water, kills the fish, soils the land, fills the air—it destroys everything. We saw a small group of thin boys wearing tattered clothes and carrying fishing poles. They told us that they had been walking for several miles and were in search of an area that was less contaminated for fishing. They said they hadn’t caught anything since the spill occurred. Our escort whispered that he felt the boys would have to travels for many miles more if they are to find a place even remotely clean in which to fish. I spent only a few hours in the area and my eyes started to water and I began to feel nauseated. Imagine what it’s like for the people who live here. I was told that it will take 10-15 years to clean up, if the process even begins at all. Ten to fifteen years!

We had an interview scheduled with of Shell operations in Nigeria and were promised a visit to their largest off shore site in the country. We traveled all the way to Lagos and incurred large costs to secure the required permits and miscellaneous obligatory extras as per the government and Shell. When the day arrived, we were told that both the interview and the trip to the platform had been canceled. Whether it was their intention or not, we certainly felt like we’d been jerked around.

I couldn’t help but think about the rancorous debate that’s being waged in American over off-shore drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. It’s been pitting environmentalists against the oil industry for years. When oil spills happen in the Niger Delta, hardly anyone—even in Nigeria—hears about it. Yet, it obliterates people’s way of life and literally blackens an entire area that is already severely challenged.

The tension in the region is rising fast. Without other viable alternatives, people are rushing to link up with the many militant groups that have sprung up over the years that proclaim that the only way to get anything is through violent means. Robbery, kidnapping and murder have become rampant in this paradoxically oil rich nation.

I thought about the boys I’d met earlier in the day. I wondered how long they would continue to walk and walk before deciding to just take what they need to live—by force if necessary.

Editor’s note: CNN’s award-winning Planet in Peril returns this year to examine the conflict between growing populations and natural resources. Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Lisa Ling travel to the front lines of this worldwide battle. Ling has been a co-host of The View, correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show, National Geographic and Channel One. She filed this blog from Chad.
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Check out the amazing photographs from the Planet in Peril team’s trip to Chad

Lisa Ling
AC360° Special Correspondent

Today was a day filled with both extreme jubilation and utter horror.

I’m using the last bit of my computer battery whilst sitting under a mosquito net at the Tinga Camp in the Zakoma National Park in southeastern Chad. We are here to report on the astronomical reduction of Central African Elephants in the region. We’re with Wildlife Conservation Society biologist Mike Fay, who has conducted comprehensive surveys of the region’s elephants over the years. He says over the last four decades, the number of Central African elephants has dwindled from nearly two hundred thousand to several thousand: the pace of the loss has been hugely shocking and disturbing. The global demand for ivory combined with war in neighboring Sudan has nearly killed off the Central African elephant. These elephants are the largest land animals on earth and have roamed the region for thousands of years. They have proven, however, to be no match for man and his gun.

Our day started early. After fueling, we boarded a Cessna airplane in search of elephant herds. Fay says that having an airplane greatly impacts the ability to survey the elephant population but also to defend against poachers. People are not allowed to live in the park, but from the air, we saw camps of nomads living just beyond the borders.

We flew for about an hour and a half without seeing any elephants. I was starting to get sleepy-eyed when Fay surprised us by saying, “I’m seeing a lot of elephant activity.”

What he meant was that he was seeing huge tracts of grass that had been trampled–a sign of the presence of a lot of elephants. And then, we saw them: a huge herd of over two hundred giant grey beasts huddled together moving in collective formation. It was a truly awesome sight to see such an abundance of these massive animals in the wild. I was having a hard time containing my excitement until the plane started tilting so severely that I began to feel sick. I turned around to see our still photographer Jeff sitting in the seat behind me: he was green. Nevertheless, it was a spectacular experience to see these glorious animals and it was an image I will never forget. Fay said that seeing such a big herd made him feel “optimistc.”

Back at the lodge, we all dispersed to our rooms to rest when two French advisors to the anti-poaching patrol came to tell me that there was a dead elephant less than two miles away. They said it looked to be a recent kill as it was still gushing blood.

We rushed to the site and the smell was immediately impenetrable and unlike anything I had ever smelled before. We jumped out of the vehicle and followed the stench through the maze of tall grass. I literally started to gag as we rounded the corner and saw it: a huge mound of grey covered in maggots and crawling with flies: it was a female. Simply put, it was just gruesome. Though the blood was still fresh, Fay said that it looked to have been dead for a couple of days as its body was starting to bloat and vultures seemed to have gotten to it. He observed that it had several bullet wounds and that poachers probably shot into the herd and simply struck this particular elephant. This elephant, however, died for no reason. Its body was left totally intact. It had no tusks – no ivory. Fay thought it probably walked for a while before dying in the place we found it.

I was absolutely horrified by what I was saw and smelled. I asked Fay how many times he had seen this and sullenly replied, “a hundred times.”

It was hard to believe that this day that began with such excitement and hope could end in such tragedy. These magnificent creatures that predate man by thousands of years: victim to him and his mighty weapon.

Editor’s note: CNN’s award-winning Planet in Peril returns this year to examine the conflict between growing populations and natural resources. Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Lisa Ling travel to the front lines of this worldwide battle. Ling has been a co-host of The View, correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show, National Geographic and Channel One. She filed this blog from Alaska

Lisa Ling
AC360° Special Correspondent

Arrived in Anchorage, Alaska yesterday. The burning question I had for everyone I encountered was what people really thought of Governor Palin. But since that question is not germane to the reason why I’m here, I shall refrain from writing about what those conversations entailed.

Almost immediately upon arrival, we set off to interview the General Manager of Shell operations in Alaska. He stressed the vital importance of drilling off shore in the Alaskan Arctic, as it is potentially a source that could reduce our reliance upon foreign oil. When I asked him if the result would be a temporary one, he said, “ we can’t know until we’re actually allowed to drill.”

He was referring to a pending lawsuit between local Inupiat communities and environmental groups who charge that among other things, that seismic activity produced by Shell’s measurement attempts could affect migrations patterns of bowhead whales. This is significant because bowhead whales are the main source of food for the Inupiat population that has relied on it for centuries.

The oil rich, North Slope of Alaska is sparsely populated, but seeped in tradition. Bowhead whales are an intimate part of the region’s indigenous culture. The bulk of its $98 million dollar budget comes from taxing its onshore oil operations. To travel from Anchorage to Barrow—the northernmost city to which airplanes fly—we had to make two stops in other cites. The flight was filled with rugged looking oil workers who spend about two weeks per month laboring in the most challenging conditions. The potentially abundant oil reserve has Americans chomping at the bit to drill to alleviate our reliance on foreign oil.

We finally landed in a place so remote and cold my Blackberry service ceased to function upon arrival in Barrow. I was outside for 3 minutes before my hands lost all color and turned green. My crew immediately rushed to the only store in town where the little California girl had to stock up on much warmer gear. Pathetic I know.

To say this is rough terrain would be to grossly understate how challenging it is. Shell has made a huge investment and is banking on the fact that the off shore potential will pay off huge. If they are able to finally drill here, it won’t be without a much longer fight.

Lisa Ling
AC360° Special Correspondent

Planet in Peril: Battle Lines special correspondent Lisa Ling travels to Cocos Islands, located about 330 miles off the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, to investigate the threat to the shark population brought on by the demand for shark fin soup.

Lisa Ling
AC360° Special Correspondent

On our last night in Taiwan, we visited a restaurant that proudly serves Shark Fin Soup. A couple from Japan came specifically because they had seen an ad for it in a popular Japanese magazine. It was a Thursday night and the restaurant was full—every table ordered it. What was once only consumed on special occasions for wealthy people has become so commonplace that we saw shark fin products in a gas station mini-mart.

It seems the best way to save the world's shark population will be to educate people about how shark fin soup is made. I know that I was totally shocked when I learned of the process and what happens to so many sharks as a result of our desire to consume this insignificant soup. Sure, it's tasty, but so is a twinkee.

Editor’s note: CNN’s award-winning Planet in Peril returns this year to examine the conflict between growing populations and natural resources. Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Lisa Ling travel to the front lines of this worldwide battle. Ling has been a co-host of The View, correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show, National Geographic and Channel One. She filed this blog from Taiwan on how shark-finning operations that have helped deplete the oceans of more than 90 percent of shark species.

Lisa Ling
AC360° Special Correspondent

This experience has been quite an education for me. I, frankly, have been terrified of sharks all of my life. That's because pop culture and sensational news reporting have perpetuated the notion that sharks are the fiercest attackers of humans in the animal world. I was surprised to learn that this is to the contrary. Worldwide sharks kill an average of 10 people every year. According to WildAid, humans kill up to 70 million sharks over the course of a given year. Who's the bigger killer?

Because of films like "Jaws," humans have been conditioned to fear sharks. They are considered to be the most maligned animals in the world. Sharks predate dinosaurs and have roamed the oceans for 400 million years.

They are the ocean's top predator and essential for the ocean's ecosystem.

We spent the morning at Taiwan's largest port in Kaoshiung yesterday. A fishing boat that had been at sea for more than a year came in to unload. We watched them take out what seemed to be hundreds of sharks and thousands of fins.

Often shark bodies are thrown overboard because they take up valuable boat space and have little value. It's the fins that are the prize. Of a sharks about 8 fins, only 4-6 of them kept. That means that an entire shark is often killed for 4 or 6 fins.

In Taiwan, shark finning is not illegal but because of the attention is getting, people are very sensitive about talking about it. At the Kaoshiung Port, our cameraman was pushed around and we were repeatedly told not to shoot the fins.

The market for shark fin soup has exploded in recent years. It has such a high value, that mafias have allegedly sprung up to get in on the action.

With China enormous population and it's booming economy, more and more people are wanting to consume shark fin products as a symbol of wealth. China's middle class alone is a population the size of the U.S. The size of this new consumer is having a devastating impact on the world's sharks and thus, on OUR oceans.

Editor’s note: CNN’s award-winning Planet in Peril returns this year to examine the conflict between growing populations and natural resources. Anderson Cooper, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Lisa Ling travel to the front lines of this worldwide battle. Ling has been a co-host of The View, correspondent for The Oprah Winfrey Show, National Geographic and Channel One. She filed this blog from Taiwan on how shark-finning operations that have helped deplete the oceans of more than 90 percent of shark species.

Lisa Ling
AC360° special correspondent

Arrived in Taipei after flying 13 hours from LA. After looking for lost luggage and equipment–which is standard these days–we hopped into a car for a 4-hour drive to the south.

I have spent a fair amount of time in Taiwan as my mother is from here. It's one of my favorite countries to visit primarily because the food is so excitingly exotic and delicious.

The irony is that we are here to report on the impact that the overfishing of sharks is having on the overall shark population and how it's affecting the ocean's ecosystem. Shark meat and shark skin are used for food and textiles, but the most desirable part of a shark is its fins. Shark Fin Soup is one of the great delicacies in Asia–particularly China. It symbolizes wealth and prosperity. One is not considered a good host if he/she omits Shark Fin Soup from a celebratory dinner.

As a Chinese American, I grew up eating shark fin soup on special occasions. Like many people, I had no idea that shark finning was such a devastating procedure. The fins are 1/20 of the entire shark, yet they are being stripped off the animals leaving the sharks to sink to the ocean floor and die horribly slow torturous deaths.

Now, with Asia's rapid economic rise, shark fins are being consumed not just for special occasions, but are becoming commonplace.

While en route to southern Taiwan today, I asked to stop for my favorite snack: fish ball dumplings. Yes, I love a fish ball.

In Taiwan, the gas stations have fabulous foodcourts that sell every kind of dumpling imaginable. Three of my team ordered an assortment of dumplings and sure enough, a couple happened to be shark fin. The total for about 10 dumplings was about $7.