North Korea Raises the Stakes

North Korea is already facing new U.N. sanctions for last month's nuclear test. Now it is raising the stakes in a growing confrontation with Washington by sentencing two U.S. journalists to 12 years hard labor for "grave crimes."


The American journalists are Euna Lee and Laura Ling, of U.S. media outlet Current TV. They were arrested in March working on a story near the border between North Korea and China.



On Monday the US renewed calls for North Korea to release them.



The sentence is certain to deepen the chill between communist North Korea and the United States, which has been trying for years to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear agenda.



Over the weekend, U.S. President Barack Obama called the North's latest nuclear test, followed by a series of missile tests, "extraordinarily provocative."



Scott Snyder is with the Council on Foreign Relations.



[Scott Snyder, with the Council on Foreign Relations]:
"I think the Obama Administration is trying to change the pattern with North Korea itself in such a way that the North Koreans aren't rewarded for bad behavior for crisis escalation."



The Security Council may adopt a new resolution as early as this week, but there is clear division among some members over how tough to be on the reclusive state.