Wal-Mart price pressure hurts mainland workers

Wal-Mart Stores’ demand for rock-bottom prices from suppliers in the mainland means some of these companies are forcing their employees to work in sweatshop-like conditions, a new report said on Wednesday.

Crackdown fails to scare Dongguan’s sex-trade veterans

They work in hotels, saunas, massage parlours and karaoke bars; an army of 300,000 whose existence is unacknowledged, whose activities are illegal, and whose industry is irresistibly lucrative and impossible to wipe out.

New issue of Caijing reflects sombre mood in empty newsroom

The latest issue of Caijing magazine - the first since the departure of high-profile editor Hu Shuli, who founded the influential business publication 11 years ago - has appeared, with a sombre mood prevailing in the newsroom.

Saab nears end of the road with no bidders

General Motors Corp does not expect to find new bidders for Saab and may shut the bankrupt unit after Koenigsegg Group cancelled a planned acquisition, people familiar with the matter said.

Minsheng shares fall 3pc on debut

China Minsheng Banking Corp fell a disappointing 3 per cent in its Hong Kong debut on Thursday after raising US$3.9 billion in the world’s fifth largest IPO this year, underscoring how sentiment for mainland banks has soured recently.

Mainland stock bubble to burst next year, says Morgan Stanley

Mainland’s ballooning stock market bubble, fuelled by excessive liquidity, is likely to burst in the first half of next year, punctured by economic concerns arising from higher-than-expected inflation, Morgan Stanley Asia executive director Jerry Lou said on Thursday.

Dubai shocks with debt delay, units cut to junk status

Two major credit ratings agencies downgraded several Dubai government-related entities after the government overnight on Wednesday said it will ask creditors of two flagship firms for a delay on billions of dollars of debt.

Investors jailed in Hong Kong's largest market fraud case

Four investors found guilty in Hong Kong’s largest market-manipulation case were sentenced to 26-30 months in prison by a Hong Kong court on Thursday.

China Tightens Rules on Transfers to Stop ‘Hot Money’

China tightened rules on individuals transferring yuan and foreign exchange between bank accounts after speculation the nation’s currency will strengthen caused a surge in capital inflows.

Asset Bubbles Can Sink Millions Back Into Poverty – Zoellick

The post-crisis world economy faces new risks from investment bubbles that risk plunging millions back into poverty, according to World Bank chief Robert Zoellick.

Taiwan’s dwindling birth rate causes concern

Taiwan, with a population of 23 million, now has the dubious distinction of having the lowest birth rate in the world, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a think tank based in Washington DC.

Men's Dream?

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City expats receive security blanket

Foreigners and overseas Chinese who hold a Shanghai residence card and stay in a work contract with a Shanghai employer can now enjoy the city’s social security and benefits, just as their local counterparts do.

Taiwan concedes territorial waters near mainland

The Taiwan government said on Monday it was not claiming the territorial waters around two small islands that have long been part of its frontline defence against political rival China.

Global carmakers look to China for continued growth

Car makers from General Motors to Toyota Motor expect mainland to keep providing much-needed relief from feeble car sales elsewhere next year, even as local brands raise their game to grab a bigger slice of their home market.

HSI will break 30,000 mark, says BNP analyst

Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index will break 30,000 points by next year, while property prices will rise 30-40 per cent in the next 18 months, BNP Paribas’ leading analyst for the region predicted on Monday.

China Should Stop Property Stimulus Now: Central Bank

China should immediately halt some of its real estate stimulus policies, or risk inflating a bubble that in its bursting would wreak financial and even social trouble, a central bank newspaper said on Monday.

Guangzhou high-speed rail debate gains pace

As China introduces its nationwide high-speed rail network, the debate about whether Hong Kong should foot the bill for an express line to link into the mainland’s rail grid in Guangzhou is heating up.

Airlines lose ground to high-speed trains

Mainland airlines are facing stiff competition from high-speed railways that are set to cover 80 per cent of the airlines’ current network by 2020 and offer passengers a cheaper and more reliable ride.

Sticking to large caps may be a safer bet

Formerly heavily traded penny stocks seem to have faded completely from the market

Morgan Stanley rules out multi-year bull runs

The bear market may be over, but Morgan Stanley does not see catalysts that could trigger a multi-year bull run.

Placement details food for thought

It wouldn’t be in the least bit surprising if the institutions which subscribed to China property developer Ying Li’s placement last week were less than happy with post-subscription events.

Chinese official wants to ban banquets

A Chinese legislator fed up with lavish banquets and official wining and dining has proposed making the ‘squandering of public funds’ a crime, state press said yesterday.

Hong Kong implicated in US report on Chinese spying

A US congressional advisory panel has voiced concern about Hong Kong’s export controls, fearing the mainland could use the city to import sensitive technology.

Using high pay to ensure honest, clean govt won’t work

Is it possible to ensure an honest and clean government by paying high salaries? The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) asserted that a number of elected representatives were involved in taking bribes and commissions as well as misappropriating funds because their salaries and allowances were inadequate to meet their needs.

Sino-Env slams sacked financial controller

The crisis at Sino-Environment has intensified with the management claiming that its sacked financial controller threatened the firm’s survival by diverting funds earmarked for bondholders to pay professional fees.

New home for Buddhist group after 10-year wait

Headquarters is up after delays caused by 1997 crisis, Sars and priority for school projects

Illegal to quiz witnesses beyond office hours, KL court rules

A Malaysian court yesterday said it was illegal for the anti-corruption agency to question witnesses beyond office hours, dealing a blow to the authorities’ insistence that this was within its right.

High Court dismisses Hengxin suit

The High Court yesterday dismissed cable-making firm Hengxin Technology’s lawsuits against former executive directors Jiang Wei and Qian Lirong, who was also its executive chairman and CEO.

Give us what our homes deserve

Signs of more assertive middle class as home owners prepared to take control of their estate

Drink-driving conviction quashed

In a significant ruling, the High Court has quashed the drink driving conviction of a motorist found sleeping in his parked car on an expressway shoulder - even though his breath alcohol level was above the legal limit.

Catch the buzz, fine-tune the theme park pricing

It is just a matter of months now until the grand opening of the Universal Studios theme park in Singapore, but that excitement was tempered somewhat when the much-awaited ticket prices were finally made public on Wednesday.

Asia Tiger takes controlling interest in Think Greenergy

Asia Tiger Group is taking a controlling interest in UK-based waste-to-energy specialist Think Greenergy Ltd (TGE).

Sino-Environment exec directors hit back at IDs

In what may be the start of a war of words, executive directors (EDs) at Sino-Environment Technology Group have hit back at the company’s independent directors (IDs), hurling accusations against them and its sacked financial controller.

Upgraders fuel demand in Qingdao

Market growing as rising affluence leading residents to look for bigger flats

Obama’s China trip shows power shifting

President Barack Obama’s first visit to China underscored a shifting balance of power: two giants moving closer to being equals.

Abundant land supply key to mainland property prices

The mainland’s property markets have become popular investment targets for investors from around the world and both developers and analysts warn that they should bear in mind that a plentiful supply of land in the country could have a bearing on the future price performance of property assets.

Six ways to get inspired

Staying inspired is a tough job for most people, if not all. Even entrepreneur may sometimes find it difficult to stay inspired because he may also be caught in the circumstances that are unfavourable. As such, knowing that life is getting tough and the tough get going. Therefore, he has to continuously find something to inspire himself.

Game for Chinese class?

Teachers use games, websites, films and pop music to get students interested

Chen’s son had key role

Information from the Swiss authorities indicates that the son of Taiwan’s convicted ex-president played a ‘leading role’ in laundering US$21 million (S$29 million), a newspaper reported on Sunday.

Who says HK and Singapore can’t co-operate?

Can rivals Hong Kong and Singapore work together rather than just face off over who deserves the title of Asia’s top financial centre?

Pitted against the big boys

Wenzhou’s coal barons tell Ren Wei that a corrupt, greedy and overbearing state is throttling their entrepreneurial zeal

Arrogance and fear drives currency policy

What drives China’s currency policy? Is it arrogance, fear or a mix of the two?

It pays to be a soldier in Tibet

Soldiers from Guangzhou newly assigned to Tibet will get a “special allowance” of up to 160,000 yuan (HK$182,000) for serving there.

There was just too much rain

Bukit Timah canal bursts its banks in intense storm

Attention Shifts to China for Private Equity Industry

“Now, many entrepreneurs are starting to turn away foreign currency funds,” Mr. Wang at China Equity said. “They say they can take an RMB investment and not go through a lengthy process to list offshore. And they see the Shanghai or ChiNext exchange as viable listing places.”

Speculators, and mothers-in-law, drive property prices ever higher

Rampant stimulus-induced speculation, soaring prices, Mickey Mouse and evil mothers-in-law: Shanghai’s property market has become a brutal and unforgiving world for first-time buyers.

No place for hypocrisy on national security

As the world’s only superpower, the United States is accustomed to setting standards of conduct across a range of issues. These include human rights, free trade, currency manipulation and illicit drug control. Whether the US is in a position to moralise depends, to a large extent, on the countries being praised or criticised. One area where Washington has been most vocal has been its persistent criticism of Chinese espionage against US interests. In the world of intelligence, everyone spies on everyone else. Is the complaint from the US not a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black? Perhaps there is an acceptable espionage threshold beyond which spies from one nation should not go against another. But no one has specified what that might be.

Peru arrests ‘human fat killers’

Four people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of killing dozens of people in order to sell their fat and tissue for cosmetic uses in Europe.

Playing with fire

Forget China, the US Federal Reserve is the world’s biggest currency manipulator

US ‘fears’ anti-ship ballistic missile

The People’s Liberation Army is close to fielding the world’s first anti-ship ballistic missile, according to US Navy intelligence.

Why Japan is rethinking its alliance with America

US President Barack Obama’s visit to Japan brought forth renewed utterances of support of their bilateral security treaty, but the new Democratic Party of Japan government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama appears determined to make it a more equal alliance.

A cautionary tale for S-chip investors

One big question that emerges from the whole sorry Sino-Environment saga is why trading of its shares continued for six months after it became likely that the company would be brought down by the problems that beset it.

Taiwan issue, spying hold back ties with US military

Military co-operation between China and the US has been sporadic and limited because of deep mistrust between the two sides, a retired PLA general has said, attributing much of the tension to Washington’s arms sales to Taipei and its surveillance activities in the South China Sea.

Singapore brothers drive US chain’s success in China

Trio grew Days Inn franchise from one hotel in 2003 to 27 now - with more on the way

Short-selling: what exactly should be disclosed?

Some 13 months ago, just after Lehman Brothers went bust and stocks all over the world were crashing, many fingers of blame were pointed in the direction of short-sellers - particularly those of a naked persuasion.

2nd senior ICA officer jailed this week

A senior immigration officer was jailed for 1-1/2 years yesterday for accepting bribes to extend the social visit passes (SVPs) of foreign nationals.

Handling the China trend

The rebound from the recent market dip in the US has been much more rapid than expected. The tests of support near 9,600 on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were successful and have provided a springboard for a rapid rally above the significant technical resistance level at 10,200. This appears to have broken the behavioural nexus between the Dow and the Shanghai Index.

Shareholders need to act in Sino-Env Tech debacle

They should seek EGM to replace executive directors if firm is to be saved

Wind Power Dilemma: Money Blows Away

Rapid, government-subsidized expansion of China’s wind power industry has led to excess capacity and investment waste.

Abuses rampant in secret black jails

State agents regularly abduct citizens and detain them for days or months in secret, illegal “black jails”, subjecting them to physical and psychological abuses, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

80 percent of Caijing staff quit to follow editor

Nearly 150 of the approximately 180 editorial staff members at Caijing have resigned following the departure of Hu Shuli, the founder and editor of the mainland’s most influential business magazine.

Shanghai project builds on the past

Latest redevelopment will turn old architecture into galleries, residential and retail space

Blackwater Said to Pursue Bribes to Iraq After 17 Died

Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.

Supermarket? It only looks like one: owner

URA investigates Mustafa Warehouse for unauthorised change of use

Soccer officials held in graft crackdown

Several high-profile soccer officials have been snared in a crackdown on underground gambling, amid growing frustrations at the highest level of the government at the ugly state of the “beautiful game” on the mainland.

Shanghai Disney park gets go-ahead

After almost 10 years negotiations and weeks of speculation and mounting anticipation, Shanghai has finally been given the green light to build a Disney theme park - but the public is still in the dark over the exact scope of the deal.

Sino-Env CEO faces suits, frozen assets

Liquidation order may implicate Radiance Group

Stick to trading the large-cap ‘haves’

In local market parlance, the key manipulator behind a stock is referred to as the chng kay, a Hokkien term which loosely translates to a croupier in a casino, who is the person who holds all the cards and deals them. This then means that anyone who trades these pennies runs the risk of the chng kay pulling the plug at any time, or risk unforeseen circumstances like an overseas market crash overcoming the manipulators’ ability to deliver the goods.

Ministry enters row over death of doctor

The Ministry of Health has stepped in and ordered the Beijing health bureau to look into the case of a Peking University professor of medicine who died in 2006 after being treated by three unlicensed medical postgraduates at the Peking University First Hospital.

3 years jail for sex with horse

A South Carolina man caught on video having sex with a horse was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison after pleading guilty for the second time in two years to abusing the creature.

Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China

Soong Mei-ling, better known to history as Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, was exaggerating only slightly. Chinese by birth, American by education and cultural inclination, she was a seductive blend of both societies; for a time, no woman in the world was more powerful.

Mainland turns to hi-tech snooping

Take a stroll along the streets of Shenzhen and look up - you will see them everywhere, on building walls, light posts, under bridges, at street corners. Digital surveillance cameras - an estimated 800,000 of them - are peering into every nook and cranny of the border city, analysing the flow of people, alerting police to suspicious gatherings and ensuring no crime is likely to go unseen.

Chinese Trial Reveals Vast Web of Corruption

Wen Qiang had a fondness for Louis Vuitton belts, fossilized dinosaur eggs and B-list pop stars. For a public employee in charge of the local judiciary, he also had a lot of money: nearly $3 million that investigators found buried beneath a fish pond.

China’s researchers poised to dominate

Chinese researchers have more than doubled their output of scientific papers and are now second only to the United States in terms of volume, according to a report from information company Thomson Reuters.

China’s military making strides in space: US general

China’s military has made dramatic progress in space over the past decade and the goals of its program remain unclear, a top American general said.

Waking up to the world of casinos

In 2010, Singaporeans will wake up to a world that will include casinos, an industry that is sometimes known to have a sleazy underbelly.

Risks and Rewards on China’s New Stock Board

The opening of a Nasdaq-style stock board in China is already being seen as a watershed moment for the country’s capital markets, providing new but volatile opportunities for mainland Chinese investors and an alternative source of financing for start-up companies.

Pheim lawyers warn of investors’ quandary

They claim that a guilty verdict could have implications for average investor

Officials blamed for chaos at Beijing airport

Snowfall causes flight delays, but poor service adds to disruption

Firms wake up to spending power of the elderly

“The gold is among the silver,” say some businessmen involved with an increasingly ageing society in the world’s most populous nation.

Chongqing, SGX mull over listing pact

Singapore Exchange (SGX) and the Chongqing government are mulling over ways to promote listing of Chongqing companies on SGX and boost transparency of listing candidates.

China’s Henry Ford the driving force behind Geely

Li Shufu, the founder of China’s Zhejiang Geely Holdings, has much in common with Henry Ford, from a childhood on the farm to a scrappy determination to build a car-making behemoth from nothing.

China to put weapons in space

The head of China’s air force has said the country has plans to build weapons in space, describing it as a “historical inevitability”.

Car insurance: Two strikes and you’re out?

Car insurers have insisted that it is within their rights to reject policy applications from motorists if they have one too many accident claims within a year.

Dual-listing firms alienate local investors

They feel short-changed when same shares are priced lower in Taipei

Corruption in education a key concern

The mainland leadership’s decision to remove unpopular education minister Dr Zhou Ji over the weekend may seem abrupt, but it was not unexpected. It’s actually a welcome development. As the central government maps out educational reforms for the medium and long term, Zhou’s removal may signal a new start.

China’s enforcement officers turned thugs

A highly publicised case of injustice has led to calls for the reform, or even abolition, of a law enforcement agency found in every Chinese city, and which is notorious for its thuggish behaviour.

Investors shun mainland developers’ share sales

Excellence postpones IPO; Mingfa retail issue 50pc subscribed

515m yuan fraud in river clean-up campaign

Eleven of the 13 provinces in a river clean-up programme across the mainland either misused or faked spending totalling 515 million yuan (HK$584 million) over seven years, a state audit has found.

Top official endorses Chongqing crackdown

The clampdown on organised crime in Chongqing has earned praise from the country’s top law-enforcement official, according to state media.

New mystery in Chen shooting

Taiwanese investigators looking into the 2004 shooting of the island’s former president Chen Shui-bian said yesterday they had found no blood or bullet hole in his trousers, adding mystery to an incident that may have won him a second term.

No blood found in Chen’s 2004 shooting

No bullet holes or blood were found on Taiwan ex-president Chen Shui-bian in a 2004 election eve shooting, raising new suspicion about the incident that preceded a razor-thin victory, investigators said on Thursday.

10 Years Later, a Much Less Expensive Dow 10,000

But the return to 10,000 also serves as a bitter reminder that stocks have gone virtually nowhere, on balance, for more than a decade. It was in March 1999 that the Dow first climbed above 10,000, before soaring as high as 14,164 two years ago and plummeting as low as 6,547 this past March.

China’s Role as Lender Alters Dynamics for United States

When President Obama visits China for the first time on Sunday, he will, in many ways, be assuming the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker.

No bars, no mistresses, Chinese officials warned

Chinese officials are being told to dump their mistresses, avoid hostess bars, and shun extravagances as part of the Communist party’s efforts to clamp down on the corruption that is threatening its rule and sullying its reputation.

Believing in the bears, running with the bulls

Given the strength of the stock market rally over the past eight months, and considering just how supportive conditions are for share prices right now, it might seem surprising that anyone at all is still bearish on equities.

Strong demand shows that Hong Kong IPOs still coveted

Top-end pricing indicates demand; no investor fatigue despite IPO surge

How recent wars shaped the PLA Air Force

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force has grown in leaps and bounds since it was set up with a handful of planes seized from the defeated Kuomintang force.

Unforgettable humiliation led to development of GPS equivalent

An “unforgettable humiliation” the People’s Liberation Army suffered during the Taiwan Strait missile crisis in 1996 prompted the mainland to build its own global navigation and positioning satellite system, a retired senior military official has disclosed.