I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Gov. Bill Richardson may have kept a low profile in New Mexico in recent days, but he’s edging into the corner of a national spotlight because of events halfway around the globe.
NBC’s “Today” show tapped Richardson as someone to interview after North Korea sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor over the weekend.
Here’s an excerpt from a New York Times story about the sentence and Richardson’s remarks:
“This is a high-stakes poker game,” said Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico who as a congressman helped negotiate the release of American citizens held in North Korea in the 1990s. He was speaking on NBC’s “Today” show and called the sentence “harsher than expected.”
North Korea’s Central Court convicted the two Americans, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, of “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry,” the North’s official news agency, KCNA, said in a report monitored in Seoul.
Ms. Ling, 32, and Ms. Lee, 36, were detained by North Korean soldiers patrolling the border between China and North Korea on March 17.
Over the weekend CNN reported that the Obama administration had floated the idea of sending either Richardson or former Vice President Al Gore, who heads up Current TV, for whom the two journalists work.
Richardson told the “Today” show that “the administration has reached out to me for advice. I’ve talked to the families.”
Richardson added: “Talk of an envoy is premature because what first has to happen is a framework for negotiations on a potential humanitarian release. What we would try to seek would be some kind of political pardon, some kind of respite from the legal proceedings. But now the North Koreans, they have to be part of that too. And they have to accept that kind of discussion.”
