North Korea

W hen President Barack Obama was named winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize in October, the country was in the midst of two foreign wars, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, threats of nuclear proliferation from North Korea and Iran and the specter of catastrophic global climate change. Nothing that has happened in the two months since has fundamentally altered that picture. Thus, the sight of President Obama accepting his award in Norway on Thursday was, on one level, fraught with irony.

Mitchell B. Reiss, an expert in international affairs and former presidential envoy to the peace process in Northern Ireland, will be Washington College's 27th president. Reiss, 52, will succeed Baird Tipson on July 1, the liberal arts college in Chestertown announced Friday. Reiss is a diplomat-in-residence at the College of William & Mary, where he has also worked as a law and government professor and as dean and vice chancellor for international relations. Reiss said he will use his contacts to strengthen ties between the college and Beltway experts in politics, international relations and other fields.

We arrived at the frozen river separating China and North Korea at 5 o'clock on the morning of March 17. The air was crisp and still, and there was no one in sight. As the sun appeared, our guide stepped onto the ice. We followed him. We had traveled to the area to document a grim story of human trafficking for Current TV. During the previous week, we had interviewed North Korean defectors, women who had fled poverty and repression only to find themselves in a bleak limbo in China. Some had found work in the online sex industry; others were forced into arranged marriages.

Was former President Bill Clinton's trip to North Korea to bring home two American journalists wise diplomacy or an unwise reward for the country's bad behavior? Wise 64% Unwise 27% Not sure 9% (1,150 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Will Judge Sonia Sotomayor have a major impact on the Supreme Court? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

North Korea's surprise "special pardon" of two American television journalists may have reopened the channels of communication between the Obama administration and the secretive regime that for years has defied the world with its nuclear tests and political bombast. After a whirlwind 24-hour visit that capped months of quiet diplomatic negotiations, former President Bill Clinton left Pyongyang on a private jet with the reporters today following talks with leader Kim Jong Il, according to North Korea's state news media.

The negotiations that led to former President Bill Clinton's secret mission to North Korea began when two U.S. journalists were seized by the isolated Stalinist state, and were spurred on by the administration's hope that they might lead to a resumption of gridlocked disarmament talks, according to people close to the process. The goal was a specific deal: If the United States showed respect by dispatching a high-level emissary to Pyongyang, the North would release journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were arrested along the border with China on March 17. "This has been an orchestrated diplomatic process, carefully calibrated in both capitals," said a person who has been close to the exchanges since they began.

James B. Foster, a decorated career Army officer who fought in World War II and Korea, where he survived the storied Battle of Chosin Reservoir, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at his Oxford home. He was 90. Colonel Foster was born in Baltimore and was raised in Forest Park and Walbrook. After graduating from City College in 1937, he enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he earned a bachelor's degree in marine engineering in 1941. He was then commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers.

SEOUL, South Korea - -North Korea lashed out at the United States and South Korea on Wednesday, warning that it would attack the South if any of its ships were intercepted as part of a U.S.-led initiative to stem the world trade in nuclear weapons. North Korea's state-run news service reiterated the North's anger over South Korea's decision to join 100 other nations in the so-called Proliferation Security Initiative to blockade any nation suspected of trading nuclear materials. The developments came amid reports that North Korea had staged mass rallies to celebrate its second nuclear test, an event Monday that has brought condemnation elsewhere.

BEIJING - -When is it time to dump a friend who insists on behaving badly? The debate is raging in China. North Korea's latest nuclear test Monday and missile launches the past two days raise the question of just how long the bonds forged between old Communist allies will endure. Monday's test was conducted barely 80 miles from the Chinese border. The ground rumbled in northeast China, and some schools were evacuated because of earthquake fears. "It was quite shocking. The location where they did this test was a lot closer to China than to where [North Korean leader]