News of the Day (the real May 9)

Yikes! I humbly apologize for yesterday's date error.

Communist "gluten" was actually flour; poison hits fish industry: It turns out the Communist food exporters who sent poisoned wheat "gluten" to the United States didn't send gluten at all, but rather "cheap, unprocessed, low-protein flour" (Washington Post) with the toxic melamine added to give "false high-protein readings." Making matters worse, "some of that contaminated flour, mislabeled as gluten, was mixed into fish food in Canada and exported to the United States, where it was fed to fish raised for human consumption."

Former drug chief to be tried for corruption: Zheng Xiaoyu lost his job as head of Communist China's Food and Drug Administration two years ago. Yet remarkably, the cadres are putting him on trial just after the antifreeze-as-cough-medicine fiasco became front-page news (BBC).

The long arm of lawlessness exposed: Macleans has an absolute must-read piece on Communist China's espionage network in Canada, and how it is used to intimidate Chinese-Canadians into silence.

Enlightened Comment of the Day: Robert Samuelson explains Communist China's trade policies and why they are dangerous - "It is not 'protectionist' (I am a long-standing free-trader) to complain about policies that are predatory; China's are just that" (Washington Post).

ECOD runner-up: Rosa Davis' rhetorical takedown of Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams whitewash of Communist religious persecution is also a must-read (Guardian, h/t Between Heaven and Earth).

Communist China sends military engineers to "peacekeeping" force in Darfur: The regime that has blocked any serious international effort to confront the slow-motion genocide will take part in the force that has done nothing to stop it (Washington Post).

Battle over electoral commission gets physical in Taiwanese legislature: With legislative and presidential elections coming up within a year, the shape of the electoral commission - and the issue of who controls it - is a big deal. Whether it's this big a deal (BBC and Washington Post) is an open question.

Tibetans forced to give up their homes for "socialist villages": In a move straight out of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Backward, Communist China "has relocated some 250,000 Tibetans - nearly one-tenth of the population - from scattered rural hamlets to new 'socialist villages,' ordering them to build new housing largely at their own expense and without their consent" (Real Cities). The cadres' goal is, as one would expect, "to have firmer political control over its population."

Communist China unhappy with critics of its religious persecution: The cadres accused the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom of taking "potshots" at them (BH&E).

Falun Gong death toll at 21 in 2007, and the year is only four moths old (Epoch Times).

Vegetable vendor complains about manager - and is sent to a mental hospital: The local officials who investigated her claims of arbitrary charges by the booth manager "seemed more interested in going out to lunch with the manager" (Epoch Times). The cadres beat up her husband for good measure.

More on Communist China's abuses of human rights: The Chinese Human Rights Defenders release their monthly report (h/t Uyghur American Association). Wei Jingsheng discusses life without freedom in China (Epoch Times).

Huang Ju dies - we think: The London Times is reporting that Haung Ju, deputy premier and Politburo Standing Committee member, has died. Communist China denies this, but the Times is standing by its story.

Ten percent of Communist farm land is contaminated, and that's by the Communists' own admission (Taiwan Central News Agency via Epoch Times). As a result, "approximately 12 million tons of grain produced each year contain heavy metals." How long until that ends up in our pet food and animal feed?

"In 84 days, North Korea has done nothing but extract concessions from the United States": The editors of the Washington Post are souring on the Beijing surrender; sadly, dovish South Korea is not (United Press International via Washington Times).

More news from "another China province": Students in South Korea are bringing the truth to the suffering people in the Stalinist North via short-wave radio. Daily NK has the details.