CNN News:美方要求朝鮮立即釋放被判刑美國人

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Fridays are awesome.

Welcome to CNN STUDENT NEWS, my name is Carl Azuz.

First up today, the U.S. and North Korea.

You know, there's been a lot of tension between these countries.

Right now, a U.S. citizen is in a North Korean jail, and he's been sentenced to be held there for 15 years.

Kenneth Bae was arrested in North Korean back in November.

He has documents that let him travel there legally,

but North Korean officials say Bae committed hostile acts against this country, although they've never given any details.

The U.S. government is calling for his to be released immediately.

Dan Rivers has more on the case and how it could play out.

There's curiously little information about Kenneth Bae on line, just this Facebook page started by his friends campaigning for his release from the secretive regime.

He's being jailed for 15 years hard labor for his crimes aimed to topple North Korea.

The official news agency claiming "his crimes were proved by evidence, a possible reference to material reportedly found on a hard drive.

One of Bae's friends suggesting it may have been as innocuous as photos of orphans begging.

Whatever he's done or hasn't done, experts say, he's now a bargaining chip for a new leader Kim Jong-un.

Well, I think North Korea kind of looks at any U.S. citizen, in and around North Korea as a mere asset,

a commodity that can be traded in the open market, and so Kenneth Bae was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And Bae isn't the first.

Scenes like this are becoming all too familiar, cue emotional captives reunited with their families, accompanied by a high profile politician.

These was 2009, journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee celebrate freedom.

Former president Bill Clinton takes the credit.

A year later, it's a different former president Jimmy Carter with another relieved American Aijalon Gomes.

Kenneth Bae is the sixth American in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the North Koreans may once again be holding out for a high profile visitor before they give him up.

What North Korea wants above all are one-on-one talks with the United States, to gain concessions and get an aim to punitive sanctions.

They may see Kenneth Bae as the perfect way to achieve that aim.

With the announcement of their third successful nuclear test in February the stakes couldn't be higher.

North Korea even threatened a preemptive nuclear strike during South Korean and U.S. war games last month.

Those maneuvers are over, but it seems the brinkmanship is not.