SEOUL - NORTH Korea stayed silent on Friday on the fate of two US women journalists who went on trial the previous day on charges that could send them to a labour camp for years.

Since a terse announcement on Thursday that the hearing would start at 3pm (0600 GMT, 2pm Singapore time) that day, the communist state's official media has carried no update on proceedings against Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

The case has further raised tensions with Washington following the North's nuclear test last week and its reported plans for another long-range rocket launch.

The TV reporters were detained by North Korean border guards on March 17 while researching a story about refugees fleeing the North. Pyongyang has previously said they would face trial for 'hostile acts' and illegally entering the country. South Korean analysts say 'hostile acts' are punishable by a minimum five years' detention and hard labour.

Analysts have said the North may use the pair as a bargaining chip to open direct negotiations with the United States. Pyongyang has in the past freed captured Americans but only after personal interventions.

The State Department said it understood that no observers would be allowed to attend the trial. Supporters of the pair and a media freedom group have called for leniency, saying that even if Ling and Lee had crossed the North Korean border, they did so inadvertently.

Friends, family and colleagues held candlelight vigils in Washington and seven other US cities Wednesday evening. The families of the pair have appealed for clemency and urged the two governments not to link the case to the nuclear standoff.

Sweden's envoy in Pyongyang, who represents US interests in the absence of diplomatic ties, has been allowed three visits to the women. The North on Tuesday last week allowed them to phone their families in the US.

'We had not heard their voices in over two and a half months,' said Ms Ling's sister Lisa. 'They are very scared - they're very, very scared. 'Now is the time to try and urge both governments to communicate,' she said.

Both detainees are married and Ms Lee has a four-year-old daughter. -- AFP

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