Laura Ling and Euna Lee Sentenced to 12 Years Hard Labor

Taken while working near the Yalu river, the two reporters were doing a report for Al Gore's current TV. Its widely believed they were taken as a bargaining chip, it appears the North Koreans have decided to up the ante on the United States, especially now as the Obama admin begins turning to a harder line.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Monday sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor in a case widely seen as a test of how far the isolated Communist state was willing to take its confrontation with the United States.

The Central Court, the North’s highest court, held the trial of the two Americans, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, from Thursday to Monday and convicted them 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 and Ms. Lee were detained by North Korean soldiers patrolling the border between China and North Korea on March 17.

“We are deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release,” Ian C. Kelly, a State Department spokesman, said in statement quoted by Reuters. “We once again urge North Korea to grant the immediate release of the two American citizen journalists on humanitarian grounds.”

Sometimes the endings are happy, such as Saberi's release, this case is much more problematic as Iran is a model compared the Stalin'st state of North Korea. With Clinton now hinting that we might take North Korean ships on the water the situation has gotten more serious by the day.

How bad has North Korea been:

1. Threatening another ICBM test.
2. Detonating an Atomic Bomb.
3. Allegedly continuing the extraction of more plutonium.

This could get ugly real quick. There are reports that Clinton and Obama had originally tried to play down North Korea, now we have reached the point that we might seize their ships on the water.