News of the Day (April 13)

Has the blogosphere nailed the Communists faking an attack on the Olympic torch? One of the incidents in the Paris leg of the Olympic torch fiasco that has turned into good propaganda for the cadres was an attack on torch bearer Jin Jing by a pro-Tibet protester (BBC, Washington Times, and Weekly Standard Blog). The only trouble with this is that bloggers in Japan "have been doing some research, and Dafydd ab Hugh's wife Sachi, who reads those blogs in Japanese, notes that they made an interesting discovery: there are other photographs of the protester who attacked Jin Jing, taken the same day, including this one, which shows him in the company of a group of pro-China protesters" (Powerline, emphasis in orginial). Given what happened in San Francisco last week, odds are fairly low that the pro-ChiCom folks would have ignored the fellow with the Tibetan bandanna - unless, as Powerline and the aforementioned Sachi susupect, the fellow was a plant for the Beijing regime. TI wouldn't be the first time the cadres have been caught staging events (in fact, both Powerline and Sachi lump this in with more possible, albeit disputed, evidence of the Communists sparking the Tibetan "riots"). Stay tuned for further updates as more information comes in.

Upcoming Olympiad bring focus to the cadres' treatment of refugees from the Stalinist North: One Free Korea has the details. For more news on "another Chinese province," see the end of this post.

More Olympic news: Communist China announces its latest attempt to get the smog out of Beijing in time for the Games (BBC and Washington Post). The torch re-route comes under derisive scrutiny in San Francisco (Epoch Times). New Zealand's leaders face pressure to skip the opening ceremony (Epoch Times).

Olympic Commentary: Anne Applebuam (Washington Post) comments on "the latest Olympic sport: Put Out the Torch." John Tkacik (Washington Times) calls on President Bush to consider, at least, skipping the Games.

Communist China confirmed as the largest carbon emitter: A University of California team has confirmed that Communist China's "greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the US in 2006-2007" (BBC, emphasis added). That's not all: " unless China radically changes its energy policies, its increases in greenhouse gases will be several times larger than the cuts in emissions being made by rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol."

The Canada file: The cadres get their own demonstration in Ottawa (Epoch Times), while the Ontarian government smarts from criticism of its coziness with the Beijing regime (Globe and Mail).

Cadres buy 1% of British Petroleum (BP): The regime didn't even bother to hide behind one of its state-owned enterprises for this one - "The investment was made by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, a unit of the Central Bank managing $1.6 trillion in foreign exchange reserves" (BBC).

Ma Ying-jeou happy with meeting his running mate had with Hu Jintao: Taiwan's president-elect said the meeting "started to thaw the ice" (BBC).

Tibet under "relentless" surveillance: The Communist-run People's Armed Police are practically everywhere (Washington Post); meanwhile, Chen Weijian (Boxun via Epoch Times) sees the recent events within the long-running Communist objective of destroying Tibet's culture and its people.

Communist China continues to lead the world in executions, although this time the cadres hid enough of them that their official number is no longer more than the rest of the world combined (BBC). Communist China's range of capital crimes includes white-collar offenses and others for which no one else would even dream of using a bullet.

Yet another victim of religious persecution tells of her ordeal to the Epoch Times.

Enlightened Comment of the Day: One Free Korea takes the prize for this stinging commentary on the Singapore surrender (the excellent label is his).