News of the Weekend (October 16)

Video of Tibet shooting released: Romania's ProTV broadcast the recording of the shooting of Tibetan refugees by Communist border guards. The climber himself put it best: "the police . . . shot them like dogs" (Time). In what may be a related incident, the Communists shut down a Tibetan blog (Boxun).

From the China Freedom Blog Alliance: Boycott 2008 highlights Communist China's other recent human rights abuses. One Free Korea has quite a bit on the reaction to Stalinist North Korea's nuclear test, including the Security Council resolution (see also BBC, BBC again, More BBC, CNN, Daily NK, Newsmax, Time, United Press Int'l via Washington Times, Voice of America via Epoch Times, and Yonhap via Daily NK) and South Korea's politicians (see also Newsmax and Washington Times). OFK also highlighted the plight of Korean refugees in Communist China and the probe of Curt Weldon, one of our least favorite Congressmen.

Communist China votes for UN resolution against SNK, but won't enforce it: Kim Jong-il's colonial masters reached new heights of unmitigated gall this weekend. The Communist regime voted in favor of the aforementioned Security Council resolution - which calls for inspections of shipments to and from SNK - then "said after the vote that it would ignore" the inspection part (Washington Post). The U.S., meanwhile, is hoping Communist China will actually do what it voted to do (CNN, Washington Post, and Washington Times); outside analysts are being far more realistic (Macleans, National Review Online, and Washington Post). In fact, the Communist intransigence may give KJI the opening he needs to "return to stalled six-party disarmament talks" (China Confidential via Epoch Times) and reap the political rewards.

Communist China relents on Wikipedia's English edition: The cadres unblocked Wiki's English-language version, a surprising victory for the net-info service, which stubbornly refused to censor itself (Boxun); however, the Chinese-language version is still blocked.

More on Communist China's human rights abuses: The Epoch Times examines the plight of Gao Zhisheng. The cadres arrest two Catholic priests (Radio Free Asia via Epoch Times). Protests are on the rise due to "land expropriation disputes, election embezzlement, state-owned enterprise reforms, environmental pollution, and denial of justice" (Epoch Times). The Communists are adding carrots to their hideous "one child" policy (Report: BBC, see also see tenth, second, ninth, ninth, thirteenth, lead, tenth, fifth, tenth, sixth, ninth, eighth, ninth, eighth, ninth, sixteenth, ninth, second, fifth, and tenth items).

More on the SNK nuclear issue: The U.S. finds radioactive fallout - albeit not much - from the test (BBC, CNN, and Washington Times). Australia joins Japan in banning SNK shipping (BBC). The Stalinists recalled their nuclear negotiator (Newsmax). Newsmax also reports that SNK is looking to put nukes on missiles next. The pundits used nearly every word in the dictionary (Daily NK, Edmonton Sun, NRO, Newsmax, Newsweek, Time, Time again, third Time, Toronto Sun, Washington Post, Washington Times, and Weekly Standard), but only one (Mark Katz, UPI via Washington Times) was willing to bring up liberation.

More on the Communists' Korean colony: Suki Kim (Wall Street Journal) and David W. Jones (Washington Times) recount their visits to SNK. Future UN Security Council Secretary General Ban Ki Moon - who is a problem in and of himself, as Mario Loyola (NRO) reveals - talks to the Washington Post about SNK. When the Stalinist-in-chief is not conducting nuclear tests, he is overseeing "the killing of disabled infants and forced abortions of babies believed fathered by Chinese men in an obsessive program based on mystical notions of Korean racial superiority" (World Net Daily, emphasis added).

On the Middle Eastern proxies: Syria is militarizing its border with Israel (World Net Daily); Hamas is considering "attacks against the U.S. in the Middle East" (World Net Daily).

More on Communist China and the rest of the world: The Communist regime's skillful use of "soft power" is examined by Pete Engardio (Business Week via Taiwan Security Research) and Joshua Kurlantzick (Washington Post). Asahi Shimbun (via Washington Times, second item) comments on the Abe-Hu summit.

On Taiwan: Time interviews the leader of the movement to oust Chen Shui-bian: Shih Ming-teh.

On matters inside Communist China: Lin Mu, the former secretary to the late Hu Yaobang, has died (Boxun). The National Bureau of Statistics head is canned (Epoch Times). Yan Yan (Epoch Times) examines Communist China's environmental problems. Finally, the Epoch Times examines the Communist regime's past and future.