‘Tasting splendour’ ended in tragedy

“There is just one life. Taste all the splendour the world has to offer.”

Those are the words that Ma Chi chose to greet people with on his instant-messaging service.

IMF head Lagarde: Tax-shy Greeks must help themselves

IMF head Christine Lagarde has urged Greeks to pay taxes, saying she worries more about the plight of children in sub-Saharan Africa than the people of the crisis-hit European nation.

And when asked if she was saying to the Greeks and other European nations that they had had a nice time and it was now payback time, Ms Lagarde responded: "That's right."

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After Barreling Ahead in Recession, China Finally Slows

A nationwide real estate downturn, stalling exports and declining consumer confidence have produced what a Chinese cabinet adviser, quoted on the official government Web site on Thursday, characterized as a “sharp slowdown in the economy.”

Chinese couple bury woman alive, sparking outrage

Chinese police have arrested a young couple who buried an old woman alive believing she was dead after their car hit the 68-year-old, newspapers said on Thursday, in a case which has sparked outrage over declining public morality.

愛很簡單 - 陶喆

The bursting of the luxury bubble

It is all going a little flat for China's once ravenous investors. One by one, they are seeing their bubbles burst.

Russian cellist fired for rant on train

Beijing orchestra sacks musician for abusive tirade at woman that has fuelled anti-foreigner sentiment

Beijing orchestra fires abusive Russian cellist

The Beijing Symphony Orchestra has fired a Russian cellist who was caught on camera verbally abusing a female passenger on a train, sparking an online outcry over the behaviour of foreigners in China.

The wines of China

A look at the country's wine-producing regions

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Bo’s feud with police chief: Trio failed to broker peace

Early this year, as then Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai nearly came to blows with his police chief Wang Lijun over his wife’s possible involvement in a mysterious death, three men flew into the south-western Chinese metropolis within a day or two of one another.

Crews held by N Koreans return home

All 28 fishermen are released alive after 13 days in a dark room filled with rotting fish, and some suffered regular physical beatings

Mayor says he defied Bo on axing

Huang Qifan challenged party chief, who yelled and kicked him out of high-level meeting at which Bo Xilai announced decision to sack police chief

Tycoons seek wives in dating contest

More than 300 women are vying to tie the knot with one of 11 super rich men in a contest that takes the dating game to a whole new level.

Heartbreaker by Dionne Warwick

This song for Robin Gibb. A beautiful song written by Bee Gees.

Are consumers’ rights really protected by the Lemon Laws?

When things turn sour: The introduction of the Lemon Laws may lead to a rise in disputes being filed at the Small Claims Tribunal

Staying competitive in a time of transition

The last five years have seen rapid change for Singapore law firms. The next five promise acceleration of change.

An era of new opportunities

Singapore’s position as a leading international arbitration hub and the liberalisation of the legal industry signal the start of an exciting and challenging era which should be welcomed

Leader’s Fall in China Put Allies in Peril

Early this year, as a crisis unfolded in the chambers of power here, three men flew into this fog-wreathed riverside metropolis within a day or two of one another. They were members of the inner court of Bo Xilai, the Communist Party aristocrat who ran the city, and they had come to repair a rupture between the strong-willed Mr. Bo and his equally driven police chief.

China reformer sees his opportunity after Bo’s fall

Wang Yang, leader of Guangdong province and well known for his deft handling of recent civil unrest there, is the first of three provincial-level party bosses who stand to benefit after a murder scandal snuffed out Bo’s career last month.

Singapore should abolish archaic laws

Mabel Au calls on the Singapore government to respect internationally accepted human rights

Law needed to force declaration of assets

Making officials and family members reveal their wealth would go a long way to fighting corruption and boosting transparency on the mainland

Wang Lijun in treason trial

Wang Lijun, the former Chongqing vice-mayor whose attempted defection to the US in February brought down Bo Xilai, may go to court next month

Bee Gees' singer Robin Gibb dies after cancer battle

Bee Gees’ singer Robin Gibb has died aged 62 after a lengthy battle with cancer, his family said.

BBC Obituary: Robin Gibb
CNN News
Reuters
Time 

US-China ties on collision course

Graeme Maxton says America’s provocations to win influence in Asia at the expense of its strategic rival, China, not only highlight its double standards, but also endanger regional peace

Europe stings Asian visitors

Chinese tourists flying off in search of luxury goods that are cheaper than at home will find firms like Louis Vuitton have raised their prices

Shenzhen’s rich buy basics in Hong Kong

Well-educated residents spend HK$24.6 billion a year on items such as toothpaste because of safety concerns about goods at home and high taxes

Shanghai, Beijing to lead commercial sell-off

Developers selling assets to raise cash for housing projects as credit tightens

KL to scrap arrival cards for foreigners

Foreigners entering Malaysia will not need to fill up arrival cards issued by the Immigration Department from June 1, the Home Ministry has said in a statement.

Gong Li divorced from Singaporean businessman for 3 years

Singaporean businessman Ooi Hoe Seong has personally confirmed that he has been divorced from actress Gong Li for three years, a Sichuan, China, newspaper reported.

Princelings in China Use Family Ties to Gain Riches

What DreamWorks did not showcase, however, was one of its newest — and most important — Chinese partners: Jiang Mianheng, the 61-year-old son of Jiang Zemin, the former Communist Party leader and the most powerful political kingmaker of China’s last two decades.

Tracking Hidden Frenchman in China’s Political Drama

Throughout the drama this spring revolving around the dismissal of the ambitious Chinese official Bo Xilai and the investigation of his wife as a murder suspect, the most mysterious figure has been a French architect named Patrick Henri Devillers.

Mystery Frenchman in Bo saga seen in Cambodia

Throughout the drama revolving around the dismissal of ambitious Chinese official Bo Xilai and the investigation of his wife on murder charges, the most mysterious figure has been a French architect named Patrick Henri Devillers.

Empires under the red son

Relatives of disgraced former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai are part of an extensive web of foreign firms

China sentences fugitive smuggler Lai to life term

The man once considered China’s most-wanted fugitive was sentenced to life in prison for smuggling and bribery in a lurid corruption case that reached into the highest echelons of the Communist Party and involved a decade-long extradition fight.

Party leaders called on to disclose assets

Three retired officials, including daughter of a revolutionary, post letter online urging top echelon to reveal personal finances before congress meeting

Lai was famous once, but Xiamen has moved on

Some Xiamen residents appeared ambivalent about Lai Changxing after the sentencing, with two saying the case was history.

From Red Mansion to a prison cell

Lai Changxing rose from obscurity to run an illegal empire built on smuggling, before fleeing to Canada, from where he fought for 12 years to avoid justice

Calls for political reform renewed

Political change should focus on people’s rights and limiting power of officials, says People’s Daily a second time since Bo Xilai was swept from power

Passport ban ends on Yunnan women

Young women in three counties in Yunnan will be able to apply for passports like other mainlanders from today after the lifting of restrictions imposed seven years ago due to concerns that many were becoming prostitutes in nearby countries.

Beijing in drive on illegal foreigners

Beijing has launched a 100-day crackdown targeting foreigners who have entered the country illegally, stayed longer than allowed or who are working in the capital illegally.

Chinese wines beat French in tasting, but it's not best vs best

Chinese wines took the top four places in a China vs Bordeaux blind tasting competition on Wednesday, but it wasn't exactly a thrashing of the world's most elite wines by Chinese upstarts.

Chinese wine makers looking to win back local taste buds

While China’s wine lovers continue their obsession with French vintages, a number of local labels are determined to lead the charge to convince them that Chinese winemakers can compete with the very best there is.

In Rise and Fall of China’s Bo Xilai, an Arc of Ruthlessness

“News 1+1” is a sort of Chinese “60 Minutes,” a newsmagazine on state-run China Central Television that explores — as much as the censors permit — the more contentious corners of Chinese society. In December 2009, the program took aim at a much-publicized anticorruption campaign in the metropolis of Chongqing, a crusade that had grabbed national attention for its sweep, but raised deep concerns about its brutality and disregard for the law.

Parents pay the price in grey area of school entry

Despite nine years of free education, Shanghai people pay dear for flats in top schools’ catchment areas

Myanmar villagers want share of energy bonanza

For decades, the islanders of Shweri Chai, a speck of land in the Bay of Bengal, have extracted oil using makeshift pulleys to draw the reddish liquid from the ground.

Wenzhou’s grey loan market in downturn

Private lending sinks 30pc from last summer’s highs, government survey finds, amid concerns about risks and overall drop in business activity

Wealthy Americans get the cold shoulder

The looming Fatca tax evasion law sends global financial institutions running for cover with its ‘draconian’ range of rules and penalties

Wang Yang says the party can't make you happy

Provincial party boss behind Happy Guangdong campaign says citizens should seize the day and stop thinking contentment comes from above

Inherited privilege is a scourge of old China that must be rooted out

Hu Shuli says the excesses of the children of officials are fuelling outrage over the collusion of the rich and powerful, and unchecked government power is to blame

Police probe sophisticated wine-scam syndicate

Hundreds of mainlanders and Hongkongers may have invested in vintage futures that never existed

Malaysian families seek British justice for 1948 massacre

Malaysian relatives of 24 rubber plantation workers killed by British troops in 1948 began a High Court appeal in London on Tuesday against the British government's refusal to hold a full inquiry.

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Chen case exposes limits to central power in China

The case of a blind Chinese activist who sparked a diplomatic row with the United States is the latest illustration of the degree of power China’s local authorities have -- and how it can backfire on Beijing.

Escape plan of blind activist detailed

On a moonless night on April 22, blind activist Chen Guangcheng began his mad dash from Dongshigu village.

Status symbol for China’s rich: Mistresses

Public outrage grows over cheating spouses, who include top officials

Coca-Cola apology as drinks canned

Production line shut down at Shanxi plant after chlorine-tainted beverages went out to customers

How to avoid costly fees and enjoy the view

Big increases in entrance charges to scenic sites spark online tips on doing the sightseeing free

Investors take stock of Bo saga

Foreign players head to Chongqing to seek assurance as well as opportunities in the wake of former party chief’s fall from grace

Shandong officials must pay in Chen Guangcheng case

Blind activist’s daring escape highlights need for mainland leaders to accede to his cause and case

Supply of cheap foreign labour drying up

More demanding higher pay; companies going further afield to recruit

Bo's wife dressed as Chinese army general after Heywood death

A woman at the centre of China's biggest political scandal in two decades, wife of deposed political leader Bo Xilai, had once dressed as a military commander last year in a bizarre episode that shines new light on the collapse of Bo's inner circle.

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陈光诚向温总理提出三个要求

Bo Xilai Is Said to Have Spied on Other Top Officials

When Hu Jintao, China’s top leader, picked up the telephone last August to talk to a senior anticorruption official visiting Chongqing, special devices detected that he was being wiretapped — by local officials in that southwestern metropolis.

Hong Kong Probes $2.5 Million Payment in Kwok Case

Hong Kong's anti-graft agency is looking into payments totalling more than US$2.5 million to a former top public servant as part of the city's corruption investigation involving two billionaire brothers who run Asia's largest property developer.

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Statement from Bo Guagua to The Harvard Crimson

Harvard Kennedy School student Bo Guagua corresponded with Crimson staff writers Hana N. Rouse and Justin C. Worland on Tuesday via his Kennedy School and Google email accounts and sent The Crimson a statement, which is published verbatim below.

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Chinese students beaten, robbed in Australia

Australia, land of racists.

Australia's Mandarin-speaking ex-leader Kevin Rudd on Tuesday weighed into the case of two Chinese students who were burned and beaten in Sydney, sparking a media storm in their homeland, reports said.

Probe into Bo family’s Hong Kong links

Beijing sends task force to investigate allegations the disgraced former party boss has assets hoarded here

Review of jail term cut for good conduct

A longstanding scheme that gives prisoners an automatic and unconditional one-third reduction of their jail term for good conduct is set to be replaced, in a move to cut down the number of convicts who keep returning to a life of crime.

Showflats to show fact, not fiction, come May

Developers will have to provide drawn-to-scale plans, inform buyers of changes

After Scandal, China Takes a Moral Inventory

Pleading with mafiosos who had cornered him while he was on a study tour of Italy, Wang Lijun, the former police chief of the Chinese city of Chongqing whose dramatic bolt to a U.S. consulate in February set off China’s biggest political crisis in two decades, explained his mission.

Disgraced Chinese Official’s Loyalists Are Rounded Up for Questioning

Officials in critical Communist Party and government posts in Chongqing who are considered loyalists of Bo Xilai, the city’s deposed party chief, are being detained as part of the wide-ranging investigation into Mr. Bo and his family, according to a Chongqing official and other people with knowledge of political appointments in the city.

Flamboyance of Bo’s son ‘a factor in family’s fall’

His antics are said to have angered leaders of Communist Party

Brazen and eccentric, the cop at centre of China scandal

The raucous diners in a hilltop restaurant in southwest China ignored a waiter’s request to quieten down after a complaint from a petite woman at a nearby table.

Frenzied Hours for U.S. on Fate of a China Insider

On the evening of Feb. 6, a vice mayor of a major Chinese city who had a reputation as a crime fighter turned up at the American Consulate in Chengdu in an agitated state, telling a tale of corruption and murder that has ensnared the Obama administration in a scandal it wants nothing to do with.

Master of the Media Spotlight Is Now Its Victim in China

Intimidating and courting Chinese journalists, Bo Xilai, an ambitious Communist Party official, fuelled his political career by ably shaping his public image and seizing the spotlight in a way no peer had as he governed a Chinese city. But with his purge from the party’s top ranks this month, Mr. Bo has suddenly found himself the target of the same media apparatus that he once so carefully manipulated, and that now vilifies him in the name of the party’s leaders.

Torture claims emerge in China’s Bo Xilai scandal

The Chinese politician who launched an attack on organised crime is accused of heading a police apparatus that carried out “evil” operations against its enemies.

Party rethinks twin-role postings

Bo’s downfall prompts calls to stop awarding powerful regional positions to Politburo members because the system lacks checks and balances

Political fallout of Bo Xilai probe shows up China’s outdated system of government

Lanxin Xiang says the political fallout of the Bo Xilai investigation exposes a major flaw in China’s governing model - secretive decision-making at the top that is badly out of step with society today

The homes China builds may make or break it

Nine years have passed since Beijing embarked on a programme to cool China’s overheating housing market. Only recently have its tightening measures started to work with new supply stalled and prices no longer rising.

China scandal ‘exposes elite’s impunity’

A sensational political scandal unfolding in China has exposed the high level of impunity enjoyed by elites at a time when social tensions are rising, highlighting the need for change, observers say.

For love or money?

Theories abound in China about Bo family’s link to Briton’s murder

Princelings still rule despite Bo’s ouster

Their political clout will rise further when leadership transition takes place this year

Corruption rampant in state-owned enterprises in mainland China

For talented young mainlanders, they have proved to be secure, safe ... and great avenues for illicit gain

China’s selective reading of history weakens its South China Sea claims

Philip Bowring says China’s ethnocentric reading of the past neither bolsters its territorial claims in the South China Sea, nor helps to promote peace with its neighbours

KMT spies infiltrated colonial police

Special Branch - the counter-espionage arm of the colonial police - was infiltrated by Kuomintang spies plotting terrorist attacks on the mainland and in Hong Kong, intelligence reports released by the British government reveal.

Shoddy schools, grand offices

Audit in wake of Sichuan disaster points to school building flaws, overspending on vanity projects, but fails to mention scale of misconduct nor any sanctions

Taylor Swift - Untouchable Unplugged

Robin Gibb - I Started A Joke

Robin, thanks for your wonderful music. You would be missed.

Eric Clapton Tears in Heaven Unplugged

Briton killed after threat to expose Chinese leader's wife

The British businessman whose murder has sparked political upheaval in China was poisoned after he threatened to expose a plan by a Chinese leader's wife to move money abroad, two sources with knowledge of the police investigation said.

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Gu sisters' US$126m business web

The sisters of Gu Kailai, who is suspected of murdering Briton Neil Heywood, controlled a web of businesses from Beijing to Hong Kong to the Caribbean worth at least US$126 million, regulatory and corporate filings show.

Bo’s links to armed forces probed

Ties between ousted Chongqing party boss and senior officers investigated

An English ‘fixer’ out of his depth in murky waters

Neil Heywood, allegedly murdered by the wife of Bo Xilai, was almost as mysterious in life as in death

China Inquiry Widens to Wealth of Powerful Couple

What began as a scandal involving the mysterious death of Neil Heywood, the British businessman whose body was found in November in a Chongqing hotel room, appears to be evolving into a broader investigation into the wealth of a politically powerful Chinese couple, Bo Xilai and his wife, Gu Kailai, and their financial interests.

Trading with China? Be careful

After-sales services set to boom

Frenzied growth in car purchases is abating on the mainland, creating room for repair chains to expand

China: Developers dangle promise of retirement paradise

Invest at least 350,000 yuan (S$70,000) a year in an insurance policy and get to live for free when you retire in a high-end elderly home at various places across China.

Chinese buy German firms with knowhow

The buyers are looking for growth engines, and not just raw materials or patents

Blinded by prejudice

Chen Yiyu, chief of central government research fund, says that despite enormously improved standards, Chinese research still faces discrimination on world stage

Aussie lawyer found guilty over insult in Perth

An Australian lawyer who abused a security officer at a Perth courthouse and told him to go back to Singapore was found guilty of professional misconduct by a tribunal in her country.

Pressure on local cadres to combat counterfeit goods

The central government has pledged to combat fake and shoddy products by monitoring local governments’ efforts to counteract them as part of their annual achievement appraisals.