News of the Day (February 7)

From the China Freedom Blog Alliance: Between Heaven and Earth reprints the Enlightened Comment of the Day, an excellent piece by Liu Kin-ming (Hong Kong Standard) that rips the Bush Administration for its soft touch on Communist China in much the same way yesterday's ECOD (fourth item) did. One Free Korea comments on a possible uprising at the northern edge of Stalinist North Korea, Congressional staff reaction to a possible U.S.-South Korea trade deal, and the strange insistence of some that SNK has no uranium-based nuclear weapons program, despite the regime's boast of in 2002.

More on the would-be colony: Lee Eon Joung, Daily NK, talks to Norma Kang Muico of Anti-Slavery International about child labor in Stalinist North Korea.

Reporter beaten to death by police: Wu Xianghu, a journalist with the Taizhou Evening News who exposed corruption in the local police force, was beaten to death by those very cops he exposed (BBC). The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) mourned his passing (via Boxun).

More on the media crackdown in Communist China (and Google's surrender): CPJ also went to bat for Shi Tao (fourteenth, fifth, lead, third, eighth, seventh, third, fifth, eighth, last, third, and fourth items) with a collection of "443 signed appeals calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Shi Tao" (Boxun). The Communist Chinese Embassy did not welcome them. Meanwhile, Dynamic Internet Technology presented in detail how the Communist-approved Google works (via Boxun), and Steven Levy, Newsweek (via MSNBC), calls the actions of Google and other high-tech cadre-enablers "shameful."

Wuxi farmers sue over land seizure; wife of jailed Shanghai eviction attorney threatened: Over one hundred and fifty farmers in Wuxi, Jiansgu, are suing the provincial cadres for seizing their land illegally. No local attorney was brave enough to represent them, so Yuan Shipei, a man who modestly claimed "some knowledge of the law" (Epoch Times) agreed to serve as the farmers' lawyer. He has since received threats that "my house could be demolished." Meanwhile, in Shanghai, the wife of Zheng Enchong, a lawyer for Shanghai evictees who is languishing in Tilanqian Prison for his efforts to help his fellow man (tenth, twenty-sixth, and fifth items), was warned "not to 'defame and slander'" (Epoch Times) the prison where her husband is being subjected to torture and "re-education."

Speaking of lawyers, human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng (sixth, tenth, fifth, lead, third, last, twelfth, eighth, third, second, third, eighth, eleventh, eighth, fourth, fourth, last, fourth, fifth, twelfth, fifth, second, lead, next to last, seventh, and ninth items) has won some support for his hunger-strike plans from Falun Gong friend and former Communist prisoner Huang Boshen (Epoch Times).

Pentagon nearly ignored Communist threat in report; Intelligence Director practically does: The Department of Defense's original draft of the Quadrennial Defense Review (third item) included "no mention of China because some officials argued that China's rise was not strategically significant" (Bill Gertz, Washington Times). Defense Secretary Rumsfeld insisted the threat be addressed. Meanwhile, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte committed a cardinal sin by claiming "that China's rise is similar to that of democratic India."

Brits consider Communist China their biggest economic threat: The story is a bit confusing, as the survey has poll number summing to 124%, but "79% of 2,704 people identified fast-growing China as the largest threat to the UK" (BBC).

More on Communist China and the rest of the world: Morten Messerschmidt, a Danish member of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, talked to the Epoch Times about the history of Communist parties, the Chinese Communist Party, Taiwan, and other matters. Meanwhile, Andrew Carlisle (Epoch Times), pans the latest version of Communist propaganda in Australia.