The northeastern Chinese city of Yanji sits a quick 30 minute drive from the border of North Korea, and is one of the best posts for trying to glean the goings-on in that eremitic totalitarian state. Thousands of North Koreans, now refugees, live in the city as well as other cities and small villages in the area, a reward for escaping across the narrow and heavily guarded shallow Tumen River that marks the border between China and the brutal regime of Kim Jong Il. But untold numbers of North Koreans have been shot and killed there as well, and as two American reporters on assignment discovered last week, the waterway can also be treacherous for journalists.