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LONDON (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has granted a “special pardon” to two jailed U.S. journalists which releases them from detention, the official KCNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

“Kim Jong-il issued an order of the chairman of the DPRK National Defense Commission on granting a special pardon to the two American journalists who had been sentenced to hard labor in accordance with Article 103 of the Socialist Constitution and releasing them,” KCNA said in a statement which carried a Pyongyang dateline.