News of the Day (April 18)

Communist Chinese weapons shipment to Zimbabwe blocked by South African dockworkers: In an unexpected twist, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union is refusing to unload a Communist Chinese vessel loaded with weapons for Zimbabwe (BBC). The weapons were ordered three days after the March election in Zimbabwe (Guardian, UK). South Africa's government had no objection to the Communists arming Mugabe, but the SATAWU did, and for now, the weapons, including "three million rounds of ammunition for small arms, 3,500 mortar bombs and mortar tubes, as well as 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades" (Independent, UK) aren't going anywhere.

More on Communist China and the rest of the world: Is Kevin Rudd about to become the most ironic and unexpected anti-Communist of 2008? Sonya Bryskine (Epoch Times) gauges Australian opinion on the question. Meanwhile, more Europeans are seeing Communist China as "the greatest perceived threat to global stability " (Speigel, Ger., via Weekly Standard Blog), a trend likely to continue as the EU takes another look at exported Communist toys (BBC).

Communist China orders the "spontaneous" citizen reaction to end: The cadres clearly believe the anti-Tibet/pro-Communist-Olympiad propaganda has served its purpose, or perhaps it became too embarrassing (BBC for the report, and WS Blog to get an idea of how things went off the rails).

Japanese Buddhist temple won't host the Olympic torch: The stunning rejection was due in part to security issues and "concern over recent unrest in Tibet" (BBC). One temple official was specific: "Indiscriminate killings were undertaken in Tibet. We were concerned about Buddhists in Tibet who rose up and a subsequent crackdown against them" (CNN).

More Olympic news: Canadian Rob Anders, en route to meet the Dalai Lama today (CBC), took aim at the "torch goons" (CanWest via Boycott 2008) who have already darkened the Olympic relay (Stratfor, also via Boycott 2008). Officials from the Flemish region of Belgium will skip the opening ceremonies (Epoch Times). Amnesty Int'l asks the Int'l Olympic Committee to clarify its ban on athletes' "propaganda" (Epoch Times).

Persecution news: Between Heaven and Earth reprints a Nigerian Times post on the casualties from the Falun Gong War.

Communist stock market hits 12-month low, dragged down mainly by PetroChina (BBC).

Washington Post editors aren't happy with the Singapore surrender either, and their editorial highlighting the problems with the disaster win them Enlightened Comment of the Day honors. Meanwhile, the deal actually got worse as the U.S. has agreed to keep the Stalinists' nuclear disclosures secret (Washington Times) - I can't wait to see how One Free Korea reacts to this.

More news on "another Chinese province": The Democratic Chairman and Republican ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee co-sponsor a new North Korea human rights bill (and OFK approves). Meanwhile, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak reveals his plans (Washington Post) for dealing with the Stalinist regime, while Sung-Yoon Lee reveals what should be our plans (OFK).