BEIJING EMBASSY UPDATE

Good news for the start of the weekend... Canada has not screwed up (yet):

The Canadian government on Friday rejected China's demand that it hand over 44 North Koreans who have taken refuge in the Canadian embassy. Canada has in the past escorted North Korean refugees out of China and helped them find asylum in other countries.

The Asian Wall Street Journal (no link) today also reported that Embassy officials were trying to negotiate with the Chinese on securing transit to a third-party state for the refugees. This is a pleasant surprise after after the complete lack of balls Canada's foreign service demonstrated after the torture of Bill Sampson and murder of Zahra Kazemi.

The above report comes from Voice of America, it only mentions the refugees at the Canadian embassy as a sidebar. The main story is this:

Chinese security forces have reportedly captured North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il's family doctor outside Beijing, after what was described as an attempt by the elderly physician to escape his Stalinist homeland.
South Korea's Munhwa newspaper says North Korean security forces alerted the Chinese police to the doctor's presence in the outskirts of the Chinese capital.

Kim Il-sung's doctor is no doubt a high-ranking official, so his attempted – albeit aborted - defection is good news.

It would have been much better had he escaped, but as I've noted before the top echelon of a society generally does not flee unless things are grievously amiss. Given the recent rise in the number of refugees, I hope we are seeing the early stages of the regime's collapse.