Three North Koreans were shot dead by their own country's troops as they tried to cross the border into China, an activist in South Korea told a news agency Tuesday.

The men, who were in their 40s, were crossing the Yalu river near the city of Hyesan, Do Hee-Youn told the AFP news agency.

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"People waiting at the Chinese side across the river to help the three defect saw the scene. The guards took with them the bodies which were lying on the ice," Do told AFP.

Do added that it was "very rare" for guards to open fire immediately on seeing people trying to flee and linked this to increased security following Kim Jung-il's death and the transfer of power to his son Kim Jong-un.

"I'm afraid it will become much harder for North Koreans to defect for a while," he told AFP."They are trying to let people know that those trying to flee will be shot dead right away."

Repression, hunger
AFP said about 23,000 North Koreans have fled repression or hunger since the 1950-1953 war with South Korea.

Earlier, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called on Kim Jong-un to seize the opportunity and return to dialogue, saying he was prepared to offer help to revive the North's shattered economy if it suspends its nuclear activities.

"We have left the window of opportunity open," Lee said in a New Year address broadcast from South Korea's presidential Blue House. "If North Korea comes forward with sincerity, we will be able to open a new era for the Korean peninsula together.

"As soon as North Korea suspends nuclear activities in progress, six party talks should be able to resume. Through a six-party agreement, we are prepared to ease the North's security concern and provide necessary resources to revive its economy," he added.

Experts who study the North said it was unlikely it would take a dramatically different path under its new ruler, who at around 27 is believed to lack the experience or political support to initiate his own line of policy.

Reuters contributed to this report.

ISLAMABAD - After a decade of diplomatic crises, see-sawing tensions, and increasing frustration on both sides, 2012 promises to mark the re-defining moment for the alliance between the U.S. and Pakistan.

The last decade has seen a growing sense of dissatisfaction in American circles at Pakistan's unwillingness or inability to tackle its extremist elements in the way the U.S. wishes, combined with deepening resentment in Pakistan about what's seen as America's "imperial" attitude.

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"We are blamed for U.S. failures, all that happens in Afghanistan is attributed to Pakistan," said one Pakistani military official. "We have had enough. The U.S. should take their business elsewhere."

To that end, Pakistan recently kicked a leg out from under the American mission in neighboring Afghanistan, shutting down the NATO supply routes after a deadly cross-border attack in late November in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed at two border posts. After a year of diplomatic clashes and public tongue-lashings, it is this incident that seems to have caused the most severe rupture in relations and made the alliance much more difficult to mend.

• STORY: Pentagon admits errors in deadly Pakistan air strike

The U.S. military investigation into the episode found that Pakistani troops had fired first, but laid blame with both sides for an inherent mistrust and subsequent miscommunications that led to the exchange of fire. The Pakistan military, which declined to participate in the American investigation, has yet to release its own detailed findings, but did issue a terse statement in response to the initial U.S. release, calling their inquiry "short on facts." 

Documents shared with NBC News from the Pakistan military's internal incident briefing show a significant divergence of narratives that could prove problematic for the two countries to ultimately reconcile. 

The U.S. report, based on an unclassified version released publicly last week, stated the Pakistan military "did not provide information identifying" the locations of the border posts that were attacked. In contrast, the Pakistani military's incident briefing concluded: "It is not possible that ISAF/NATO did not know these to be our posts." A Pakistani military official told NBC News in early December that the posts had been established "almost three months ago," and "soon after" they were established, "ISAF forces are notified through Liaison Officer at BCC [Border Coordination Center] and were provided with all necessary information."

The timeline established in the U.S. report includes the determination that the first shots were fired from Pakistan's side of the border, stating that "Machine gun and mortar fire…from the border ridge line was the catalyst for engagement." Subsequent firing by Coalition forces, the investigation found, "was executed in self defense." Pakistani officials have maintained, both in public statements and in internal military documents, that the attack "was an unprovoked act of blatant aggression."

• STORY: Air strike tension could hurt war on terror

Though cross border attacks have occurred before, the reaction by Pakistan's establishment to this latest attack has been much more fierce than in years past -- a function, some analysts say, of the higher death toll, as well as the country's current state of affairs. 

Defense analyst Ayesha Siddiqa, author of "Military Inc.", believes Pakistan's own evolution over the last decade contributed to its response.

"It no longer sees itself as this tiny, timid country, always on the defensive," said Siddiqa. "It's a country which has a medium-sized military power, nuclear weapons, and the vanity which comes with having this non-conventional defense. So it wants to be taken more seriously. And it doesn't want to compromise on that."

The U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, insists that despite the tensions, the lines of communication "at the highest civilian and military levels" remain open. 

"General Dempsey has spoken with General Kayani. General Mattis has spoken with Kayani. I have met with Foreign Minister Khar," said Munter. "We are committed to our relationship." 

That relationship, according to Pakistani military and government officials, will have to take on a different form in the year ahead.

"The arrangement will now be formalized and reduced to writing," said a Pakistani government official. "Even if the Government was to restore some concessions, the Army will not forget the spilling of blood."

Pakistan's Parliamentary Committee on National Security is said to be reviewing the US-Pakistan relationship and is preparing recommendations to present to the government. Back-channel negotiations are reportedly ongoing at all levels, but so far, the supply lines remain closed and the public sentiment remains strongly anti-American. 

Siddiqa believes the longer this continues, the more difficult it will be to bring on board the general population with any attempt to reconcile political and military relations. 

"There is this narrative that's been built, vis-a-vis the U.S. in the past four or five years," said Siddiqa. "It's been so negative, that socially, it will be difficult to build back up that relationship."

In these early days of the new year, there is not yet a clear indication of how and when that rebuilding will occur. 

"We could not be good allies," said one Pakistani military official. "At least let us be better strangers."

Two men have been arrested in central India for allegedly killing a 7-year-old girl and cutting out her liver in a ritual sacrifice to ensure a better harvest, police said Monday.

Lalita Tati disappeared in October and her dismembered remains were found a week later, Rajendra Narayan Das, a senior police officer in the Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh state, told The Associated Press.

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Police arrested two men, both poor farmers, last week and they told police they killed the girl to appease their gods and get a better harvest, Das said.

Tati was walking home after watching television at a neighbor's house when she was kidnapped, Das said. The two men confessed to cutting her open and removing her liver as an offering.

Das said the police had gathered enough evidence, apart from the confessions, to charge the two with murder. They would face life in prison or even the death sentence if convicted.

The men were described as "tribals," a term referring to the region's indigenous people, most of whom remain mired in poverty and illiteracy.

Human sacrifices are rare in India but get prominent attention every few years. A deep belief in traditional healers, or witch doctors, is common in mostly tribal Chhattisgarh.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Nigerian villagers say oil washing up on the coast comes from a Royal Dutch Shell loading accident last month that caused the biggest spill in Africa's top producer in more than 13 years.

Shell denies that any of the oil is from its 200,000 barrel per day Bonga facility, 120 km offshore and accounting for 10 percent of monthly oil flows, which was shut down by the spill on Dec. 20.

Shell says five ships were used to disperse and contain the spill and that this kept any oil from washing ashore.

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But local villagers, as well as environmental and rights groups, dispute this account, saying the oil is still at large, coating parts of the coast, killing fish and sparking protests.

On Saturday, a Reuters team visited two of 13 villages whose residents say they were affected by the spill in the steamy swamps of the Niger Delta. In both, there were stretches of beach coated in a film of black sludge with a rainbow tint.

In one, two children skipped along the beach, dodging the puddles of sticky ooze.

Villagers in Orobiri, Delta state, spent much of the day scooping crude from the water in plastic buckets and jerrycans.

"When this spill occurred, we called on Shell to come and do a clean up, ... but since then, they have not turned up, so we the communities now did a clean-up instead," said Jacob Ajuju, the paramount chief of Orobiri village, surrounded by rows of assorted buckets and containers full of crude.

As he spoke, dozens of women villagers marched in protest at the spill, their heads adorned with leafy branches to symbolise unhappiness. Others continued to tip the oil from jerrycans into large plastic drums.

"On Christmas day, all the women you see here, were just at the seaside parking this oil into the jerrycans," said Dennis Igolobuabe, Orobiri community youth president.

Shell says no oil from the spill washed up on the coast.

"We believe the oil on the beach is not from Bonga. We made significant progress every day to disperse the oil that leaked from Bonga," Shell Nigeria spokesman Precious Okolobo told Reuters in an emailed statement.

"We are confident that any oil of that age, colour and consistency that hits the beach is not ours. We are taking samples ... which will be reviewed to provide evidence that this is not Bonga oil on the beach," he added.

Okolobo suggested the oil may have been from "a third party spill which appeared to be from a vessel, in the middle of an area that we had previously cleaned up".

Spills by all oil companies operating in the region are common, and it is sometimes hard to tell whose is whose.

On another beach near Agga village, a man on a motorbike paused to look at scores of silvery fish washed up dead.

"Before this spill came, we were already been informed by Shell in Warri (the main town in the region) during a meeting that this is what is coming ... It's a calamity," said Joseph Gbuebo, community secretary for Agga.

"On the 25th of this month, we saw some helicopters flying, dropping some chemicals along the shore, but this has been injurious to our health," he added.

Shell's pipelines in Nigeria's onshore Niger delta have spilled several times. The company usually blames such leaks on sabotage attacks and rampant oil theft.

BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico ruptured in April last year, spewing nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the sea in what was the worst U.S. marine oil spill. The disaster brought intense negative publicity for BP.

But in Nigera, spills are so commonplace they often go unnoticed by the outside world.

A U.N. report in August criticised Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in a Niger Delta region that it said needs the world's largest oil clean-up, costing an initial $1 billion and taking up to 30 years.

Separately, the cost of fuel more than doubled in Nigeria a day after the government announced an end to fuel subsidies.

Sign posts at a few gas stations Monday morning put the price at nearly $3.60 per gallon (94 cents per liter), up from about $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per liter) on Sunday.

Many more stations were shut down, while bus and taxi fares had already risen.

The subsidy was one of citizens' few government benefits in the oil-rich nation, and its removal follows the government's Saturday declaration of a state of emergency in some parts of the nation over a growing Islamist insurgency.

Nigeria produces over 2 million barrels per day of crude oil but a lack of investment in refineries and infrastructure means almost all of this is exported, while refined products such as petrol have to be imported at great cost.

Labor unions, who ironically described the holiday move as the president's New Year "gift" to Nigerians, vowed they would fight it.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

An Arab League advisory body called Sunday for the immediate withdrawal of the organization's monitoring mission in Syria, saying it was allowing Damascus to cover up continued violence and abuses, Reuters reported.

The Arab League has sent a small team to Syria to check whether President Bashar al-Assad is keeping his promise to end a crackdown on a nine-month uprising against his rule.

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The observer mission has already stirred controversy. Rights groups have reported continued deaths in clashes and tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to show the observers the extent of their anger.

The Sudanese head of the mission also infuriated some observers by suggesting he was reassured by first impressions of Homs, one of the main centers of unrest. 

'Anger'
The Arab Parliament, an 88-member advisory committee of delegates from each of the League's member states, on Sunday said the violence was continuing to claim many victims.

"For this to happen in the presence of Arab monitors has roused the anger of Arab people and negates the purpose of sending a fact-finding mission," the organisation's chairman Ali al-Salem al-Dekbas said.

"This is giving the Syrian regime an Arab cover for continuing its inhumane actions under the eyes and ears of the Arab League," he said.

The Arab Parliament was the first body to recommend freezing Syria's membership in the organization in response to Assad's crackdown.

An Arab League official, commenting on the parliament's statement, told Reuters it was too early to judge the mission's success, saying it was scheduled to remain in Syria for a month and that more monitors were on their way.

The parliament called on the League's Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby to convene a meeting of Arab foreign ministers to adopt a resolution to withdraw the mission immediately.

The continued abuse and killing of innocent Syrian civilians was a "blatant violation to the Arab League's protocol", Dekbas said.

Syria's state news agency SANA said there had been "massive demonstrations" throughout Syria on Friday in support of Assad, and denouncing "the plot which Syria is exposed to."

• Deadly Syria clashes claimed as Arab officials visit

It said demonstrators had denounced "the pressure and biased campaigns targeting Syria's security and stability" and the "lies and fabrications of the misleading media channels."

Syrian authorities have accused foreign powers of arming and funding "terrorists" in the country and say 2,000 of the government's soldiers and police have been killed.

Meanwhile The Associated Press reported that the Swiss supreme court has rejected a demand by a cousin of Assad to visit his lawyer in Switzerland.

Hafez Makhlouf had petitioned Switzerland's Federal Tribunal to grant him a visa so he could discuss with his lawyer how to overturn international sanctions imposed against him.

The verdict published Thursday was reported Sunday by Switzerland's NZZ am Sonntag newspaper.

The 40-year-old army colonel heads the Damascus branch of Syria's General Intelligence Directorate.

European Union sanctions against Makhlouf say he is close to Assad's younger brother Maher, believed to be leading the crackdown against regime opponents.

Last week Switzerland revealed it had frozen some 50 million Swiss francs ($53 million) linked to senior regime officials.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Thousands of people across Europe celebrated the arrival of the New Year by jumping into chilly seas, rivers and lakes Sunday.

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In Italy, several people dived into the River Tiber in a New Year's tradition that stretches back to 1946.

In Netherlands, thousands of people were said to have run into the icy waters of the North Sea near The Hague.

Further north in Scotland, scores of people took part in the annual "Loony Dook" (which roughly translates as mad dive or "ducking" in the water) event in the Firth of Forth, an estuary leading to the North Sea.

And in Germany, New Year's day swimmers in a Berlin lake included a group known as the "Berlin Seals."

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.