China stops N.Korean deportations over rocket

China has stopped sending fleeing North Koreans back across the border, in retaliation for Pyongyang failing to consult its ally over last week's rocket launch, a Japanese report said Wednesday.

The Yomiuri Shimbun quoted two Chinese officials as saying the long-standing policy of swiftly returning any North Korean who made it across the border and into China -- despite the punishment they face -- had been put on hold.

"If refugees are sent back, that's the end of their lives. We can't ignore it," one official in Liaoning province, which borders North Korea, told the paper, adding that deportations had been halted.

Another official said the move was because Pyongyang had not consulted its patron about the botched launch of a rocket which the hermit state said was carrying a satellite, but which the West condemned as a banned missile test.  CONTINUE . . . . .