2 U.S. journalists on trial in North Korea

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea's top court began hearing the case Thursday of two American journalists accused of crossing into the country illegally and engaging in "hostile acts" — charges that could draw a 10-year sentence in a labor camp.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV, were arrested March 17 near the North Korean border while on a reporting trip to China.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch earlier Thursday that the trial would begin at 3 p.m. (2 a.m. EDT) in Pyongyang's Central Court. Hours later, there was no word on the status of the proceedings.

U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Thursday that American officials had seen news reports that the trial had begun but had no independent confirmation. The North has told United States that no observers, including Swedish officials who act as the U.S. protecting power in Pyongyang, would be allowed to watch the trial, he said.

The trial began at a time of mounting tensions on the Korean peninsula following the regime's provocative May 25 nuclear test.

With discussions continuing at the United Nations and in Washington on how to punish the regime for its defiance, there were fears the women could become political pawns in the standoff with Pyongyang.

Analyst Choi Eun-suk, a professor of North Korean law at Kyungnam University, said the court could convict the women and then the government could use them as bargaining chips in negotiations with the U.S.

"The North is likely to release and deport them to the U.S. — if negotiations with the U.S. go well," Choi said.

North Korea and the U.S., former Korean War foes, do not have diplomatic relations, and analysts called Pyongyang's recent belligerence a bid to grab President Barack Obama's attention.

Pyongyang "believes the Obama administration has not made North Korea a priority," said David Straub of Stanford University's Korean studies program.

Back home, the reporters' families pleaded for clemency.

"All we can do is hope the North Korean government will show leniency," Ling's sister, TV journalist Lisa Ling, said in an emotional plea at a California vigil Wednesday night. "If at any point they committed a transgression, then our families are deeply, deeply sorry. We know the girls are sorry as well."