News of the Day (November 9)

From the China Freedom Blog Alliance: One Free Korea has more on the President’s statements on Stalinist North Korea, realys the heartbreaking story of a South Korean abductee, rips South Korea’s opposition, and endorses CNN’s upcoming program on Communist China’s would-be colony.

Six-party talks begin again in Beijing, as Stalinists push to finish nuclear reactor: The post-debacle round of talks on Stalinist North Korea’s nuclear ambitions began today in Beijing (BBC), with the usual Stalinist “bad cop” bluster and Communist Chinese “good cop” rhetoric. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that SNK “plans to finish building a 50-megawatt nuclear reactor in as little as two years, allowing it to produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for 10 weapons annually.”

Unnamed “senior U.S. officer” says Korea likely to take Communist China’s side: An anonymous “senior U.S. officer” in South Korea wrote “a private memorandum to a network of friends and pro-U.S. contacts in Korea” (relayed to the World Tribune) predicting that U.S. troops would be hounded out of South Korea by dovish political forces “in the next one to five years.” He blamed said dovishness in part on “North Korea's successful information operations campaign,” and says a post-withdrawal invasion from SNK is not out of the question due to the “perception that the balance of military power will favor the north.” Invasion or no, the officer predicted “that (reunified or South) Korea will be pushed into the China camp. The geo-political strategic implications for this I think are obvious.” And how!

Hu Jintao visits Buckingham Palace; protestors follow: Communist leader Hu Jintao continued his European trip with a visit to British Queen Elizabeth II (BBC), during which the cadre who ordered the Hanyuan County Massacre claimed his regime would create “a moderately prosperous society, featuring . . . improved democracy.” Meanwhile, a wide variety of protestors – Falun Gong, Tibetan sympathizers, East Turkestan sympathizers, and at least one Taiwan supporter (BBC) – who met Hu yesterday followed him, and made their case outside. Defectors Chen Yonglin and Hao Fengjun also made appearances (Epoch Times). Meanwhile, Hu will push for an end to the European Union arms embargo against Communist China (Cybercast News).

Japan reports air incidents with Communist China on the rise: Communist China is apparently flexing its muscles in the air. According to an unnamed official at Japan's Defence Agency, the Japanese air force “scrambled fighter jets to see off what it believes were Chinese military planes 30 times in the last six months” (BBC). This was “more than twice the 13 times such an operation was carried out over the same period last year.”

Communist China makes claim of terrorist threat against hotels: Communist China claim “Islamic militants could be planning an attack on luxury hotels in Beijing” (BBC). The trouble is, when the cadres say “Islamic militants,” they’re usually just slandering the people of occupied East Turkestan, who are victims of false Communist claims that they are bin Ladenite terrorists (third, third, second, second, and second items).

Communists earn their place on list of religious persecutors with arrests, sentence: Just as Communist China joined, again, the list of major persecutors of religion in a U.S. State Department report on the subject (Cybercast News), it proved why it belongs there by arresting six “house church” leaders in Henan (China Aid Association via Boxun) and convincting another pastor – Cai Zhuohua (fifth, eighth and sixth items) – to three years in prison for distributing Bibles (Washington Times).

Workers in Shenzhen protest theft of their wages, ex-military members join in: Roughly 5,000 workers in Shenzhen (the city bordering Hong Kong) protested for three days after the construction conglomerate owned by the city stole their wages (Epoch Times). At least two protest leaders were arrested, which brought out 1,000 more protestors – these all from former Communist military units (Asia News).

Another bird flu coverup: As Communist China tries to spin itself clear of covering up the bird flu in Xiangtan County, Hunan Province – including the death of twelve-year old He Yin – Leng Shui Jiang City, also in Hunan, has lost hundreds of chickens to a disease that local cadres swear “was not bird flu” (Boxun), and just in case any one wanted to check, “disease control workers burned the dead chicken and buried (them) deep.”

Hong Kong churches come out against Donald Tsang’s “reform” sham: Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang’s faux reform plan (second and sixth items) ran into more opposition: “eight Protestant and Catholic groups joined the crusade against the government's proposals with calls on their followers to join a planned protest on December 4” (Standard, UK). The opponents of the “reforms” include Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Catholic Bishop Joseph Zen, who called them “a waste of time.”

On human rights in Communist China: Several high profile dissidents, both inside and outside Communist China, wrote an open letter to President Bush pleading with him to “directly and explicitly expresses democratic concerns to China” (reprinted by Boxun). Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders (via Boxun) ripped the Communist shut-down of the Microphone blog (second item).