China, Asia | featured news

China's Twitter was raucous Thursday with horn-tooting over Beijing's gold rush at the London Olympics, a digital reflection of the nation's exuberant mood - embellished with flashing emoticons. Earlier passions have been ignited on the site by a deadly high speed rail crash and outrage over factory pollution....

Chinese government to force unprofitable automakers into involuntary bankruptcy... The Ministry said in a note published on Tuesday that it is considering the introduction of a withdrawal mechanism to force near-bankrupt automakers out of the bloated automotive industry. China has around 1,300 automobile makers, including 171 car, truck and bus makers and more than 900 specialty vehicle manufacturers, according to the government.

Tens of thousands of protesters paraded through Hong Kong on Sunday, waving placards denouncing “brainwashing” by China’s Communist Party and calling for the scrapping of plans for “national education” courses in local schools. The protest, organized by teachers, parents and student groups as well as local political organizations hostile to Beijing’s one-party system, demonstrated deep opposition to the introduction of classes that aim to boost knowledge of and attachment to China in this freewheeling former British colony of 7.2 million.

Gu Kailai, the wife of the disgraced political leader Bo Xilai, has been indicted for intentional homicide, in a crime that has triggered China’s most serious political crisis in decades. The official Xinhua news agency on Thursday evening published a brief dispatch announcing that Ms. Gu and an aide employed by the family had been formally charged in the poisoning death of the Briton, Neil Heywood, 41, whose body was found last November in a hotel in Chongqing, the sprawling municipality Mr. Bo led until his downfall.

China's top offshore oil producer CNOOC Ltd has entered into an agreement to buy Canada's Nexen Inc for about $15.1 billion, the Chinese company said on Monday.

Pan Chunyan was grabbed from her grocery store when she was almost eight months pregnant with her third child. Men working for a local official locked her up with two other women, and four days later brought her to a hospital and forced her to put her thumbprint on a document saying she had agreed to an abortion. A nurse injected her with a drug.

The Chinese capital's heaviest rainstorm in six decades killed at least 37 people, flooded streets and stranded 80,000 people at the main airport, state media and the government said on Sunday.

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday pledged African governments $20 billion in credit over the next three years and called for more China-Africa coordination international affairs to defend against the "bullying" of richer powers.

China now believes the Great Wall is 13,171 miles long, more than twice the previous estimation. The new measure elicits skepticism amid territorial disputes.

In a lengthy explainer on Monday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow illustrated how a risky bet and some seemingly shady dealings in China helped earn casino mogul Sheldon Adelson tens of billions of dollars, and possibly even some criminal charges.