There’s more bad news today for American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

The two women from Al Gore’s Current TV in California will stand trial in North Korea — for what crimes, exactly, we don’t yet know. "A competent organ of [North Korea] concluded the investigation into the journalists of the United States," KCNA, the state-run news service, said Friday. "The organ formally decided to refer them to a trial on the basis of the confirmed crimes committed by them." Ling and Lee have been accused of entering the rogue country illegally, intending to commit "hostile acts." The two women were near the China-North Korea border — exactly what country they were in at the time has not been confirmed — when North Korean border guards snatched them on March 17. They were filming footage for a documentary on North Korean female refugees.

If found guilty of espionage, the two women could face five-to-ten years of forced labor. Gore has asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for help. "She is very engaged and is following the case closely," a US official told SKY News. American officials have voiced concern about the welfare of the two women. Groups like Reporters Sans Frontieres and Amnesty International have been calling for the release of Lee and Ling.

The trial comes at a time of heightened tensions between North Korea and the rest of the world. Pyongyang faces U.N. Security Council censure for launching a long-range rocket on April 5 that some say violated U.N. resolutions. North Korea then quit six-party nuclear disarmament talks and threatened to restart its weapons-grade plutonium plant. Paik Hak-Soon, of the Sejong Institute think tank, told Agence France-Presse that the espionage charges mean "that Pyongyang will actively use them as playing cards to put pressure on Washington to engage in direct negotiations with the North."

The Asia Times says North Korea is playing "a new kind of bargaining game … holding hostages for ransom under the guise of criminal charges."