Reporters await trial in Pyongyang

US JOURNALIST Laura Ling, jailed for three months in one of the world’s most isolated nations, wrote to her family that she “cried so much” her first few days after being arrested by North Korean border guards.

“Now, I cry less. I try very hard to think about positive things, but sometimes it is hard too,” the 32-year-old Californian wrote in a letter from Pyongyang relayed to her family two weeks ago.

Ling and colleague Euna Lee – reporters for San Francisco-based Current TV, a media venture started by former vice president Al Gore – stand trial on Thursday in North Korea’s highest court, accused of entering the country illegally and engaging in “hostile acts”. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has called the charges baseless.