Free Republic

China braces for next act in leadership drama By Chris Buckley and Benjamin Kang Lim BEIJING | Wed Apr 11, 2012 6:02pm EDT (Reuters) - "We can't keep a lid on this," China's disgraced leader Bo Xilai was reportedly told by his police chief when the murder scandal now engulfing Bo's family first began to unravel. With a once-in-a-decade leadership handover months away, the Communist Party's elite must be thinking the same thing as they confront the first very public turmoil at the centre of power in more than 20 years. Revelations about the former Chongqing party chief issued by...

Gu Kailai, the wife of ousted Communist Party official Bo Xilai, was found guilty and given a suspended death sentence on Monday for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood in the southwestern city of Chongqing last year, according to observers in the courtroom. They said the Intermediate People's Court in the eastern city of Hefei gave Ms. Gu a death sentence with a two-year reprieve—a penalty that had been widely expected and is normally commuted to a life sentence in prison after two years of good behavior. Zhang Xiaojun, a Bo family aide, was also found guilty but given...

US President Barack Obama was told of the alleged murder of British businessman Neil Heywood before foreign secretary William Hague. The president was briefed about the 41-year-old's suspected poisoning within hours of Chinese police chief Wang Lijun walking into a US consulate to tell officials he was murdered. The decision to inform the President so soon after the killing of a British citizen overseas so soon after it happened was described as 'almost unprecedented'. John Tkacik, who worked for the US state department in China for 20 years told The Sunday Telegraph: 'This was a very high official with extraordinary...

Bo Xilai's wife 'was in the room when Neil Heywood was poisoned' Bo Xilai's's wife Gu Kailai, accused of murdering the British businessman Neil Heywood, confessed to police that she was in the room when he was poisoned, according to an account given to American diplomats. By Damien McElroy, Malcolm Moore in Beijing 9:00PM BST 24 Apr 2012 Wang Lijun, the former chief of police in Chongqing, told US officials that Gu Kailai had confessed that she was responsible for the killing with the words: "I did it." Mr Wang gave his account of her alleged confession to diplomats at...