North Korea Has Ransom on Its Mind

SEOUL - North Korea is playing a new kind of bargaining game in the confrontation with South Korea and the United States. It is holding hostages for ransom under the guise of criminal charges in hopes of extracting even more concessions from both countries.

For the American audience, the victims are a pair of female television journalists, one Chinese-American, the other Korean-American, grabbed by North Korean soldiers along the Tumen River border with China on March 17. North Korea on Friday said it had confirmed "the crimes committed" by the two, Laura Ling and Euna Lee of Current TV, half-owned by the former US vice president Al Gore, and is ready to bring them to trial.