North Korea Kills Chinese Citizens

In further attempts to shrug off its image as a country run by deranged and psychopathic leaders and to appear normal, North Korea has shot dead three Chinese citizens across the DPRK-China border at Dandong.

This has even tested the patience of the Beijing government which tries hard not to get excitable about such things.

BBC

The ever-excellent Barbara Demick has a report on this story in the LA Times:

The irony of China's protest over last week's shooting was not lost on South Korea.

"This time it is their citizens who are killed, and they show they are not so naive after all about North Korea," said Kim Tae Jin, a North Korean defector and human rights activist in Seoul. However, he applauded China's protest of the shooting. China needs to show North Korean leader Kim Jong Il "that he can't get away with whatever he wants," Kim said.