They were covering a story about human trafficking on the Chinese side of the China-North Korea border when they were forcefully captured by the North Korean border guards. The Korean guards had orders to look for and capture American citizens for use in political bargaining chips, hoping to lessen the severity of the sanctions that will soon be imposed on them in retaliation for their reckless and foolhardy demonstration of their missile and nuclear capabilities (which are laughably minuscule).

North Korea launched it’s 3 stage rocket and told it’s people it now has a satellite orbiting the earth. The launch occured at 2:30 UTC. Actually, the payload was tracked by U.S. intelligence to have fallen into the Pacific, and no payload ever made it into orbit.

The rocket was a Taepondong-2, a rip-off from Soviet technology which has a range of around 4,500 miles and can handle a payload of less than 500 kg. Trying to make their new rocket used for carrying a “satellite” seem less of a  threat, they renamed the exact system the “Unha” before launching this year’s test. According to North Koreans, their mission was a sucess and news of their “triumph” is still being broadcast throughout the country.

Countries around the world are deciding what to do to pushing North Korea, and the ones most adamant about doing so seem to be the South Koreans and Japanese.