North Korea to try two US journalists for 'hostile acts'

North Korea intends to put on trial two American journalists over allegations of illegal entry and “hostile acts” amid ongoing tension between Pyongyang and Washington over a rocket launch.

The secretive state’s news agency confirmed that Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who work for former vice president Al Gore’s San Francisco based Current TV, are to face charges that could see them confined to the county’s notorious labour camps.

It comes as Pyongyang prepares to launch a rocket, in a move which US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has warned would be taken as a “provocative act”.

The US has sent two destroyers – capable of shooting down missiles – from bases in South Korea to monitor the launch, which North Korea says is of a communications satellite, into orbit.

Japan has likewise deployed battleships in the Sea of Japan. Pyongyang has warned that if Tokyo attempts to intercept the satellite, it would “consider this as the start of Japan’s war of re-invasion more than six decades after the Second World War and mercilessly destroy all its interceptor means and citadels with the most powerful military means”.

Japan has said that it does not intend to shoot down the rocket. US defence secretary Robert Gates said American destroyers would only intervene if an “aberrant missile” was heading to Hawaii “or something like that”.

The arrest and possible trial of the US journalists will act as a further irritant during the stand-off and could be used as a bargaining chip by Pyongyang.

They were detained by border guards on March 17 while on a reporting trip to China. It is not clear if they were seized on North Korean or Chinese soil.