It was meant to be a show of wealth and to bestow good fortune in the Year of the Tiger. But a wealthy family’s firework display in a village in Guangdong went tragically wrong, triggering a huge explosion that killed at least 20 people, including children, and left nearly 50 injured, some critically.
About 70 students have enrolled for the one-year course. It covers areas such as Taoist philosophy, history, scriptures, rituals and liturgy, as well as Chinese calligraphy.
The mainland’s crime rate is on the rise for the first time since 2000, a government think tank warned this week, adding that maintaining social stability will remain a big challenge.
It did not bode well for Google’s trendy upstart image at first, finding out that its Singapore office is located in the steel cuboid jungle of Shenton Way - a sprint away from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, no less.
Supporters of populist former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra denounced a court order to seize $1.4 billion of his assets, and vowed Saturday to pursue a nonviolent struggle for what they said would be a people’s democracy.
China has passed a new law formally granting the military the power to control banking, energy and foreign-invested factories on the mainland in times of war or major disaster.
Tibet’s politics may have grabbed headlines for decades, but the relationship between Tibetans and the dominant Han is far more complex than public arguments suggest.
Around half of Americans believe the US will play a smaller role in global affairs in coming decades, with many predicting a “Chinese century”, a poll said on Thursday.
Australia stepped up pressure on Israel Saturday over fake passports linked to the murder of a top Hamas commander, saying it was yet to receive a satisfactory explanation.
Apple is finally officially acknowledging its iMac yellowing problem after almost five months of silence. Some customers receive three or more consecutive units with the defective yellow tinting.
China, a top owner of US government debt, appears to be secretly buying bonds via third locations to hide its importance as a major creditor to Washington, experts told a congressional forum Thursday.
I like to thank Rony Tan for his public apology to the Buddhist community for the insensitive things he said. However, as a Buddhist I am still concerned. Due to the hype surrounding this incident, many people have watched the video clips where Rony Tan belittled Buddhism. Numerous remarks made against Buddhism were misleading and untrue. If not corrected, this could lead to greater confusion in the general public regarding what Buddhists really believe.
The Chinese Communist Party’s new anti-corruption code bans 52 practices, which include these five:
# Throw a grand wedding, funeral or similar functions # Undertake ‘image projects’ to look good # Pocket public funds or properties # Accept money or gifts under different names # Favour family members, or staff members
As Toyota’s president Akio Toyoda faces American lawmakers, his company will be facing something else here in Japan’s auto manufacturing heartland: an unprecedented level of opprobrium.
David Lim Kay Heng, a 37-year-old former police staff sergeant, has been sentenced to nine months’ jail for accepting a bribe from a man believed to be an operator of illegal gambling outlets. He was also fined S$3,000.
The latest legal tussle involving Horizon Towers looks set to go into full swing, with the High Court having dismissed the action by the two defendants to strike out the lawsuits filed against them.
China has won its highest-ever staff position in the IMF in a reflection of its growing economic might and the clamour by emerging nations for a bigger say in global finance.
International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn notified the fund’s executive board on Wednesday of his intention to appoint the deputy Chinese central bank governor, Zhu Min, as his special advisor.
While all eyes in Thailand are focused on what has been touted as a doomsday Constitution Court verdict on former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s frozen billions, the pro-Thaksin, red-shirted United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) is in the midst of another build-up to street protests against the government.
Bets by some of the same banks that helped Greece shroud its mounting debts may actually now be pushing the nation closer to the brink of financial ruin.
China’s economic growth will plunge to as low as 2 per cent following the collapse of a “debt-fuelled bubble” within 10 years, sparking a regional recession, according to Harvard University professor Kenneth Rogoff.
General Motors said Wednesday it would end its celebrated and scorned Hummer brand of sport utility vehicles after a deal to sell the nameplate to China-based Tengzhong could not be finalized.
The global economy looks set to plunge back into recession as the sovereign debt pressure currently rocking Europe intensifies, Ashok Shah, CIO of London & Capital, told CNBC Wednesday.
Anta Sports Products, whose goal is to become the mainland’s leading domestic sportswear retailer by 2013, said yesterday that net profit rose nearly 40 per cent to 1.25 billion yuan (HK$1.42 billion) last year.
General Motors said on Wednesday that it would shut down Hummer, the brand of big sport utility vehicles that became synonymous with the term gas guzzler, after a deal to sell it to a Chinese manufacturer fell apart.
In late February last year, Robert Prechter of Elliott Wave International said "cover your shorts" and predicted a sharp rally that would take the S&P into the 1000 to 1100 range. That prediction came to pass. Prechter then urged investors to "step aside" from long positions, and speculators should "start looking at the short side."
With Prechter firmly back in familiar bearish territory, he joined Aaron and Henry again, armed with scary charts that forecast an imminent "grand, super cycle top" and collapse, mirroring the decline after the 1929 crash. A firm believer in deflation on the horizon, Prechter sees commodity prices falling this year into next.
Prechter admits he hasn't always been right. "The disinflationary period lasted longer than I thought," he confesses. But, this time it's different, he promises.
The UK has produced notable economists over the years, but John Maynard Keynes, the guru of government intervention, was one of truly global significance. So it may be fitting that the UK will also become the deathbed of Keynesian economics.
Why is it that shareholders’ hopes of recovering their investments in China Printing & Dyeing and FerroChina should be dashed when a restructuring deal looks so close to being sealed?
Embattled Sino-Environment Technology Group has issued a long-awaited update to anxious shareholders, just hours after it received a tongue-lashing from the head of a retail investors’ body.
Ballooning public debt is likely to force several countries to default and the United States to slash spending, according to Harvard University Professor Kenneth Rogoff, who in 2008 predicted the failure of big US banks.
Toyota’s top US executive has admitted that global vehicle recalls had “not totally” fixed dangerous safety flaws, as angry US lawmakers looked to grill the Japanese auto giant’s contrite president, Akio Toyoda.
The fiscal time bomb is ticking ever louder, from Greece to Japan and from Britain to the United States, not to mention Portugal, Spain and Ireland. But the ominous sound is being muffled by the clamour for economic growth to be maintained at all costs, even at the expense of bankrupting governments.
Surging home prices on the mainland have shown signs of slowing down as buyers hesitate about entering the market in the wake of government measures to cool property speculation.
In recent days market chatter about the yuan has reached deafening volumes. Lots of people agree; at some point soon Beijing is going to change the way it manages its exchange rate policy.
Mainland’s banking regulator has told commercial lenders to restrict new credit they provide to local governments’ financing vehicles, to ward off potential risks of default, state media reported on Wednesday.
Hong Kong’s government plans to raise the tax on luxury apartment deals and increase land supply to try and prevent the property market from overheating, a trend evident in many Asian markets.
Hong Kong said Wednesday that it will introduce a series of measures to cool the overheating property market, including increasing residential land supply and stamp duty for luxury flats.
One of the mainland’s most successful and popular soccer clubs has been dragged into the sweeping crackdown on the sport, a report said yesterday, as the country’s top football management body announced punishments for three other clubs for match-fixing.
Tucked away in China’s steamy tropical southwest are the villages of the Dai people, famous throughout the country for a raucous annual tradition: a water-splashing festival where the Dai douse one another for three days in the streets using any container they can get their hands on — buckets, wash basins, teacups, balloons, water guns.
Swatch Group’s plan to stop supplying rivals with key components threatens the “Swiss made” seal on which the industry rests and could force watchmakers to source from Asia, notably China, or simply go out of business.
China’s ruling Communist Party has issued an ethics code to curb the widespread corruption that its leaders see as one of the biggest threats to its long-term survival, state media reported Wednesday.
China’s banking regulator has told commercial lenders to restrict new lending they provide to the financing arms of local governments, a measure designed to pre-empt a potential overheating in China’s booming economy.
China’s banking regulator has told commercial lenders to tighten their grip on credit to local governments in an effort to ward off potential risks of default, state media reported on Wednesday.
The mainland property market is so vast that it offers thousands of Hong Kong people the opportunity to make their dream careers possible, as Lawrence Tong, graphic designer-turned-feng shui consultant in Shanghai, testifies.
The massive manufacturing complex in the South China city of Longhua resembles an industrial fortress. To enter the facility, workers swipe security cards at the gate. Guards check the occupants of each vehicle with fingerprint recognition scanners.
Here are a couple of recent tales from friends competing in the ever-growing mainland retail market that no serious corporate dare ignore. Both are about clothing brands that most women have heard of and women like me cannot afford.
Hard-hit by the recession, rising feed costs and the ‘swine flu’ scare, the pork industry in the United States cheered when China announced that it was lifting a seven-month ban late last year.
Genting Singapore shares have been taking a beating, falling almost 30 per cent from its peak of about $1.30 per share a month ago to 94 cents yesterday.
To combat a growing tide of xenophobia in recent months, the Government has used perks and persuasion to hammer home two key messages. First, that when it comes to public policy, Singaporeans will always come first. And second, that as the privileges of citizenship multiply, more permanent residents (PRs) here should consider trading in their blue identity cards for pink ones.
Chinese commuters in their millions are turning to electric bicycles -- hailed as the environmentally-friendly future of personal transport in the country’s teeming cities.
China aims to land its first astronauts on the moon within a decade at the dawn of a new era of manned space exploration -- a race it now leads thanks to the US decision to drop its lunar programme.
Last November, a sharp-eyed Israeli woman named Niva Ben-Harush was alarmed to notice a young man attaching something that looked suspiciously like a bomb to the underside of a car in a quiet street near Tel Aviv port. When police arrested him, he claimed to be an agent of the Mossad secret service on a training exercise: his story turned out to be true - though the bomb was a fake.
Singapore may be best known as a hub of electronics manufacturing and transportation, but as it plans for its next stage of economic growth, its leaders are looking toward a radically different sector: the arts.
In the hard, exhaust-choked reality of his days trawling Longhua’s clogged roads, taxi driver Zhang Bo’s ambition to buy a small flat for his young family has slipped out of reach for now.
Beijing says it wants to spur Chinese inventions with a “Buy China” policy that gives preference to domestic technology companies. But the tactic has provoked an outcry from Washington and business groups that say it will choke off access to the massive market for goods from software to clean power equipment.
Today’s dilemma is familiar to China. That means Beijing may opt for a familiar solution: a variation of the compromise approach it took in July 2005 when it moved off a de facto peg to the dollar. That involved making a small appreciation, then setting the currency on a path of gradual gains. Authorities also widened the yuan’s daily trading band, in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to convince markets that the yuan could go down as well as up.
It’s become apparent from recent events that America’s political, business and scholarly elites have fundamentally misjudged China. Conflicts with China have multiplied. Consider: The undervalued yuan and its effect on trade; the breakdown of global warming negotiations in Copenhagen; China’s weak support of efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; its similarly poor record in pushing North Korea to relinquish its tiny atomic arsenal; the sale of US weapons to Taiwan; and Google’s threat to leave China rather than condone censorship.
China is bounding into the year of the tiger with a sense of self-confidence it has never felt before, secure in the belief that its rise is inexorable and that its voice, and soon its power, will extend into every corner of the earth. This month, statistics showed that China overtook Germany as the world’s largest exporter in 2009, confirming its growing economic clout.
For years, ships from other countries, laden with oil, machinery, clothes and cargo, sped past this small town near India as part of the world’s brisk trade with China.
Now, China is investing millions to turn this fishing hamlet into a booming new port, furthering an ambitious trading strategy in South Asia that is reshaping the region and forcing India to rethink relations with its neighbours.
Former Gome Electrical Appliances Holding chairman Wong Kwong-yu has been formally charged in Beijing with insider trading, bribery and unspecified business crimes after 15 months in police custody.
Deep inside a Chinese military engineering institute in September 2008, a researcher took a break from his duties and decided — against official policy — to check his private e-mail messages. Among the new arrivals was an electronic holiday greeting card that purported to be from a state defense office.
China’s economy will slow down and may even be at risk of a crash because of the nation’s excess capacity and as loan growth slows, investor Marc Faber said.
China Milk Products Group Ltd., a supplier of raw milk and dairy cow embryos, said it’s defaulting on some repayment obligations because it hasn’t enough money outside China to pay for early redemption of its bonds.
For the second time in less than five weeks, China’s central bank has moved to limit lending to consumers and businesses by ordering big commercial banks to park a larger share of their deposits at the central bank.
China ordered banks Friday to increase reserves for a second time in a month to cool a credit boom without resorting to interest rate hikes that might derail a recovery in the world’s third-largest economy.
More than 130,000 websites have been closed in the mainland’s crackdown on internet pornography, although less than 12 per cent of them were actually pornographic.
The one-child policy may have reined in China’s population growth but it has done nothing to change the preference for sons deeply rooted in traditional culture. And an official crackdown on fetal sex determination and sex-selective abortion has had limited impact, as evidenced by Hong Kong’s emergence as a mainland birth hub since a landmark Court of Final Appeal ruling gave permanent resident status to children born in Hong Kong of mainland parents.
Feng Zhenghu arrived on a flight from Narita International Airport, where he camped from early November until last week to protest China’s refusal to let him enter the country.
Tony Chan Chun-chuen has launched a court challenge to the seizure by police of documents that he claims are covered by legal professional privilege. This follows a police search of the premises of Chan’s former law firm Haldanes, as part of their investigation into suspected forgery by the fung shui master after he lost the court battle for Nina Wang Kung Yu-sum’s fortune.
Last April, when global financial markets were collapsing, a Chinese Web site named Sohu.com made a bold move to spin off its online gaming unit and list it on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
