News of the Day (December 7)

Hanyuan protest leader executed: Communist China executed Chen Tao, one of the leaders of the Hanyuan County dam protest in 2004, without even telling his lawyer until after the fact (Independent). The Hanyuan protest against a dam project ended in a Communist military massacre that killed as many as 10,000 demonstrators.

Another Chinese Democrat arrested: Chi Jianwei is now in jail (Radio Free Asia via Epoch Times).

Li Ka-shing takes minority stake in U.S. cargo monitoring firm: Hutchinson Port Holdings, a firm controlled by leading pro-Communist Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, has "owns 49 percent of the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that is negotiating . . . to place cargo monitoring sensors along as superhighway stretching from Mexico to Canada" (World Net Daily). More ominously, said highway's point of origin, the Lazaro Cardenas port in Mexico, is also under HPH control.

Communist China using "superpower" status to stoke radical nationalism: Several experts examined the implications within Communist China, but Ma Xiaoping made this important point - "Since the CCP gained power it has been creating lies and fear continuously. Internationally it supports autocratic regimes, domestically it adopts fascist rule. Such an inhumane 'emergence' will only bring disaster to the world, just like Hitler and the former Soviet Union." (Epoch Times).

Taiwan rep warns of Communist China's Africa dealings: David Tawei Lee the island democracy's de facto ambassador to the United States, noted that Communist China's African charm offensive (see ninth, fourth, last, fifteenth, sixth, lead, ninth, eighth, fifteenth, seventh, twelfth, last, fourth, fourteenth, sixth, fourteenth, fourth, seventh, ninth, next-to-last, seventh, seventh, eighth, eighth, and fifteenth items) has an extra objective - "to steal diplomatic allies from us" (Washington Times).

More on Communist China and the rest of the world: Australia moves to sell uranium to Communist China (AAP via Epoch Times), while William R. Hawkins calls on the Congress to pass the U.S.-India nuclear deal (Washington Times). Meanwhile, Singapore's harsh treatment of Falun Gong practitioners comes in for justified criticism (Epoch Times).

From the China Freedom Blog Alliance: South Korea has finally found its enemies - not the Stalinists or their sympathizers, but descendants of long dead Koreans who worked with pre-World War II Japan (One Free Korea). Meanwhile, Communist China continues to tighten its grip on SNK (OFK), and Abduction - the film depicting the plight of families of Japanese citizens abducted by SNK - continues to shock and awe (OFK).

More on Communist China's Korean colony: The Stalinists claim to be focused on the economy now (United Press Int'l via Washington Times), but just in case anyone forgets, "Sacrificing Nukes is Suicide" (Daily NK). Meanwhile, South Korea's youngest generation is growing more skeptical of the Stalinist regime, but we still have a ways to go (Daily NK).

On Middle Eastern Proxies One (Iran) and Two (Syria): The Iraq Study Group's idea of working things out with the Communist-backed mullahs and their Syrian allies ran into some flak from the tyrannies themselves (Washington Times), not that we should have been surprised (Cybercast News and National Review Online - TKS). Meanwhile, Fox News reports on the student protest at Tehran University (see also last item); the mullahcracy prepares to host "a conference that will ask whether the Holocaust actually happened" (The Scotsman); and the Assad regime talks of "finding a settlement in Lebanon" (UPI via Washington Times).

Ignorant Comment of the Day: David Ignatius (Washington Post) gets enough things wrong in his paean to the Iraq Study Group to give yours truly a mosquito-in-the-nudist-colony moment (where to begin?).

Speaking of the Iraq Study Group, it did in fact offered the recommendations we all expected (and which worried me so much I wrote this as a pre-emptive rhetorical strike). The group received wall-to-wall coverage (Times of London, Washington Post via MSNBC, and Washington Times), some praise (albeit not from people they would like - see World Net Daily), and a boatload of criticism (Cybercast News, Cybercast News again, Daily Standard, Israel National News, National Review Online, NRO again, NRO - Corner, NRO -Media Blog, NRO -TKS, New York Post, Washington Post, Washington Times, Worldwide Standard).