News of the Day (May 12)

From the China Freedom Blog Alliance: The Korea Liberator reviews The Two Koreas and comments on the latest "Battle of the Hump" news (Cybercast News).

More on the Communists' Korean colony: South Korean Assemblyman Park Jin (Grand National Party) talks to Daily NK about U.S. policy toward Stalinist North Korea. South Korea runs away from President Roh's promise of unconditional aid to SNK (Washington Times).

East Turkestan government in exile praises Albania: The new Friendly Site also thanks the Bush Administration for keeping the five former Uighur detainees out of a Communist jail (fifth and third items).

U.S. criticizes Communist China's military spending again: State Department spokesman Sean McCormack became the latest official from Washington to express concern about the Communist military budget. McCormack called the Communist military buildup "outsized to its needs" (Washington Times).

Regime-owned bank hosts phishing sites targeting Americans: China Construction Bank's website "is hosting phishing sites targeting US banks and financial institutions" (vnunet). Customers of Chase Bank and EBay were specifically targeted. CCB has a history of corruption (sixteenth and seventh items) and bad loans (twenty-first item), for which it needed for tens of billions in bailout money (twenty-fourth item).

New Jersey Governor drops human rights concerns for trade deal with Communist China: John Corzine had been a vocal human rights supporter when he was a U.S. Senator, but now he chose "not bring up rights or political freedoms before renewing a special trade agreement with a province in China" (Courier-Post, full-disclosure: the reporter sought and printed yours truly's response to the news).

America's de facto Ambassador to Taiwan calls island democracy a close friend: Stephen Young commented on the Alaska stopover flap (eighth and fourth items) thusly: "We have had our disagreements, as close friends inevitably do . . . But such issues can never be allowed to distract us from our enduring common interests" (Washington Times, last item). President Chen Shui-bian, meanwhile, stopped at Indonesia on his way home from his trip to Latin America (Washington Times).

British Education Minister tells UK students to go to college in Communist China: UK Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell "said that the British Government and universities had to do far more to promote China among British students as a place to study" (London Times). Perhaps Rammell could take a look at Edward Cody's Washington Post piece on the current overcrowding at Communist universities.

More on Communist China and the rest of the world: Anne Bayefsky, of the Hudson Institute, laments the lineup of the United Nations Human Rights Council (fourth item) in the Washington Times. Hugo Chavez sells 18 oil tankers to the Communists (Newsmax).

Reported mass transfer of Falun Gong practitioners raises eyebrows and fears: According to "a single source inside the CCP" cited by the Epoch Times, there has been "a massive transfer of Falun Gong practitioners inside China," in particular toward a region of Sichuan Province that has "a large-scale underground nuclear-military complex" that could become a "new concentration camp" for practitioners, especially witnesses to the atrocities at Sujiatun.