News

In 1989, Gen. Xu Qinxian defied orders to crush the pro-democracy protests in Beijing. Now, leaked video from his court-martial is on YouTube.

Pandas have stood for friendship between China and Japan since 1972. But the last two are about to go, and a dispute over Taiwan could get in the way of sending more.

From 1 January, contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – part of a carrot-and-stick approach by the government to increase births
China is set to impose a value-added tax (VAT) on condoms and other contraceptives for the first time in three decades, as the country tries to boost its and modernise its tax laws.
From 1 January, condoms and contraceptives will be subject to a 13% VAT rate – a tax from which the goods have been exempt since China introduced nationwide VAT in 1993.

Canadian Centre for Architecture, MontrealThe birth of the People’s Republic is seen as a time of drab buildings. But this dazzling show, featuring a factory in a cave and a denounced roof, tells a wildly different story
In 1954, an issue of Manhua, a state-sponsored satirical magazine in China, declared: “Some architects blindly worship the formalist styles of western bourgeois design. As a result, grotesque and reactionary buildings have appeared.”
Beneath the headline Ugly Architecture, humorous cartoons of weird buildings fill the page. There is a modernist cylinder with a neoclassical portico bolted on to the front. Another blobby building is framed by an arc of ice-cream cone-shaped columns. An experimental bus stop features a bench beneath an impractical cuboid canopy, “unable to protect you from wind, rain or sun”, as a passerby observes. “Why don’t these buildings adopt the Chinese national style?” asks another bewildered figure, as he cowers beneath a looming glass tower that bears all the hallmarks of the corrupt, capitalist west.

In public, the White House says it is confronting Venezuela to curb drug trafficking. Behind the scenes, gaining access to the country’s vast oil reserves is a priority.

Her film “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” earned an Oscar nomination in 1988 and was inducted into the National Film Registry for its cultural significance.

Ex- Miss Universe contestant Sarah Dzafce has drawn backlash in East Asia and in her own country.

Review, focusing on effectiveness of political finance laws, follows jailing of former Reform MEP for accepting bribes

An independent review into the impact of foreign financial influence and interference in domestic politics from Russia and other hostile states has been announced after one of Reform UK’s former senior politicians, Nathan Gill, was for accepting bribes from a pro-Kremlin agent.
Amid growing concern inside the and parliament over the scale of the foreign threat to British democracy, the government-commissioned inquiry will focus on the effectiveness of the UK’s political finance laws.

Closing funding loopholes and re-empowering the watchdog would go some way to tackling an urgent issue

Russia has been attempting to meddle with western democracy for years, but successive governments led by Boris Johnson and others have insisted that the UK’s electoral system can withstand its influence.
That argument was recently blown apart by the conviction of former Reform politician Nathan Gill, .

An underground network of agencies gathers and funnels immigrants that enter the U.S. without legal papers to work at Chinese restaurants around the country.

Jimmy Lai spent decades criticizing China’s rulers. He faces up to life in prison after a court found him guilty of national security crimes.

US president says he feels ‘so badly’ about Lai’s conviction and has spoken to the Chinese leader about it
Donald Trump has said he wants Chinese leader Xi Jinping to release Jimmy Lai as he voiced sadness over the Hong Kong on national security charges.
“I feel so badly. I spoke to President Xi about it, and I asked to consider his release,” Trump told reporters on Monday, without specifying when he asked Xi.