speaker, two american journalists, laura ling and euna lee are reporters for current tv. they were in china near the north korean border making a film about the horrible sex trafficking between north korea and china. the north koreans claim they crossed the border illegally. so the communist court sentenced them to 12 years at hard labor. that's some border enforcement polcy. the conditions in these prison camps are harsh. some reports say a quarter of the inmates die of starvation every year. the prisoners do back breaking work in factories, coal mines, and rice paddies. they are also used in experiments involving biological weapons. i he guess the communists didn't get the memo on human rights. now we hear they may have actually been kidnapped and forcibly taken to north korea. anyway they are being used as political prisoners to try to force this administration to give more concessions and american money to north korea. north korea's starving. the communist regime is bankrupt. they want to be able to sell nuclear technology to terrorist nations so they are holding thes

the sentencing of laura ling and euna lee, two young american journalists sentencing them to 12 years hard labor. the ongoing counterfeiting of u.s. $100 bills, missile proliferation out of north korea. drug trafficking and other illicit activities. so many illicit activities i think some of us are confounded by the fact that almost half of the hard currency that goes into that regime is money they make through illicit activities. and now north korea's conducted a second underground nuclear test in three years. we are in the myth of a -- midst of a leadership struggle and many expect as a result more provocations, more missile tests, more nuclear tests over the ensuing months. weeks after the north korean test, the u.n. security council has passed a waterdown -- watereddown resolution. just after the previous admission did -- administration did, this action will be touted, it will be touted by our spokesman, as an effective response. we have heard this story before, unfortunately. it is not an effective response, and it is not because, frankly, with the lowest common denominator u.n.

. >> laura ling any euna lee of current tv were sentenced to hard labor. economic numbers are justin. construction of new homes jumped in may. it is the sign the deep housing recession is beginning to bottom now. wholesale prices were up less than expected in may. there were as a drop in food costs. witnesses testified in the former ceo predicts hank greenberg. he was ousted by the company amid allegations of accounting irregularities. a hearing begins at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. we will have that live for you. president obama is hoping the campaign of creigh deeds. he e-mail hundreds of thousands of supporters urging them to support the state senator who became the democratic nominee for governor. rep from the house oversight committee is asking for all documents related to countrywide financial that benefit government officials including two democratic senators. eight years of documents are due on the hilt by tomorrow. when the boston red sox come to washington next week, they will hold fund-raisers at nationals park. this will be for between -- lobbyist

journalists, laura ling and hanna lee, who were detained earlier in north korea. defense secretary robert gates signed an order yesterday creating a cyber command to oversee pewter networks. -- to oversee computer networks. the new headquarters will be based at fort meade, maryland, just outside washington, d.c., and will be under the offices -- the auspices of the u.s. strategic command and the last -- the u.s. strategic command. finally, south carolina governor mark sanford is telling the newspaper that he was in argentina during his unexplained five-day absence, not hiking along the absent -- not hiking along the appalachian trail. he told a state newspaper that he arrived at the airport today. he said the last minute decision was because he wanted to do something exotic. governor sanford said he returned after a five-day absence because the trip turned into more of a fuss than he ever expected. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our guest is "wall street journal" reporter sudeep reddy. thank you for

commonsense and decency, how deeply concerned we are for the fate of two american journalists, laura ling and euna lee who are under detention in north korea. we are offended by the severity and excess the sentence which was pronounced on them and we hope that commonsense is going to prevail and that north korea will see this not as an opportunity to further dig a hole but as an opportunity to open up and reach out to the world to suggest there's a better way to try to deal with all of these issues. we urge north korea to do what is right. we urge them to do it promptly and unconditionally and to release those young women from custody. senator lugar? >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. for holding this hearing, to review the present situation in north korea. the recent provocative actions by north korea that you've cited are moving their country toward even greater isolation. almost universally the international community has condemned north korea's nuclear test, detention of american reporters and bellicose remarks. there's wide speculation about the motivations for north korea's behav

finally senator boxer sked me to mention that she shares the concern about the imprisonment have laura ling and una lee. and signing with respect to the administration's approach and we look forward to that. senator shaheen. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ambassador, bosworth, thank you for being here and for your service. to be parochial i would say you graduate dartmouth and you do us proud in new hampshire. >> thank you. >> can't still him. he still lives with us. [laughter] >> we're working on that. according to recently released reports, north korean exports jumped 23% last year compared to the previous year. and imports jumped 33%. to follow up a little bit on what senator casey was referencing with respect to china, what do these statistics say about our ability to isolate north korea economically and what affect have sanctions really had on the country? well, i think first of all, senator, it's important to note those are percentage increases off very low base levels. now i haven't personally analyzed the data sufficiently to be able to tell you exactly what it means. i think one thing