US Journalists Face Trial in North Korea

From the TimesOnline:

Two female American journalists face five years or more in a labour camp, after North Korea announced today that they would be prosecuted for allegedly crossing the Stalinist state’s border with China.

Euna Lee and Laura Ling, of the web-based channel Current TV, were arrested in mid-March while reporting from the Tumen River, which marks North Korea’s northeast border. They were investigating the plight of North Korean refugees and appear either to have crossed the border or been abducted by Chinese soldiers.

Either way, they have now become pawns in a much larger international diplomatic game in which the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, has defied the world by testing a long-range nuclear missile and building a small arsenal of nuclear weapons.

After being held for five weeks, the two have been formally prosecuted on unknown charges, possible espionage or “hostility toward North Koreans”, which carry a sentence of between five and ten years.