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No good deed goes unpunished; this must be what US Ambassador to China Gary Locke must have been thinking as a firestorm of criticism erupted over his embassy’s handling of the Chen Guangcheng case. Under great pressure, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner arriving for high profile talks with China’s leadership, the embassy and colleagues in the State Department including Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Kurt Campbell had negotiated a delicate deal with Chinese counterparts that Chen accepted. Negotiated with the involvement of top legal scholar Jerome Cohen, and based on a...

Took many road trips with my 4 kids. I’d never heard the dead skunk growing up but we all heard it 1st together, immediately loved that ditty as we sang along in the car. So since that song got it's own thread I felt sure both this song and artist deserves a thread as well, we enjoyed most all the Heywood Banks songs. My fav song is: Toast but the kids favorite was: The Cat got Dead

Unlike many other Democrats, he takes its side, reliably. The Democratic Party has always been weak on national security when it comes to China. But some credit is due when it comes to China’s atrocious human-rights record and its theft of American jobs. For a generation, prominent Democrats loudly criticized Beijing on these fronts, well before Donald Trump helped form a new national consensus on China. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have been longstanding China trade hawks, for instance. Even a socialist like Bernie Sanders has been a reliable critic. And Joe Biden? Well, he’s on China’s side — not...

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...

Dozens under arrest in China in connection with Bo Xilai scandal China has detained dozens people with connections to Bo Xilai, it was claimed as the Communist party pledged to "thoroughly investigate" the politician and his wife's alleged role in the death of British businessman Neil Heywood. By Malcolm Moore, Chongqing 5:40PM BST 18 Apr 2012 At least 39 people are thought to be being held, alongside Mr Bo, in the seaside town of Beidaihe, a favourite retreat for Communist party leaders. "The detainees include Xu Ming, who had a very special relationship with Mr Bo, and some of the...

China: Two Incidents Open Pandora’s Box – Analysis May 22, 2012 By Bhaskar Roy Two incidents, one regarding Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai, and the other involving a blind human rights activist and self-taught lawyer Chen Guangchen, destroyed the myth that the Chinese system is a well oiled machine. Policy, individual, and bitter factional rivalries are kept sealed from the public to ensure the Party’s inviolability. This is the biggest political quake the country has experienced since the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. The new age of social communication, the internet, has also damaged the Party’s secrecy. Even people inside the...

Fearful Final Hours for Briton in China The day before his death in the fog-shrouded Chinese city of Chongqing, Neil Heywood sensed that something was amiss. The British businessman had been summoned on short notice to a meeting in Chongqing in early November with representatives of the family of Bo Xilai, the local Communist Party chief, according to an account by a friend whom Mr. Heywood contacted at the time. Mr. Heywood told the friend he was "in trouble." After he flew to Chongqing, he tried to telephone his usual contacts but couldn't get through to any of them, according...

Full Title - FUSION: Hakluyt & Company — with offices in London, New York, Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney — was founded by an trio of former British intelligence operatives that connect to Hillary Clinton. Miss Trial via Thread Unroller

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...

CHINA NEWS Updated April 26, 2012, 10:49 p.m. ET Bo's Son Ticketed in Porsche Boston-Area Traffic Stops Surface as Chinese 'Princeling' Seeks to Play Down Lifestyle By JENNIFER LEVITZ and STEVE EDER BOSTON—In an effort to dispel reports that he led a luxurious lifestyle, Bo Guagua, the Chinese "princeling" at Harvard and son of a deposed Communist leader, this week denied he ever drove a Ferrari. But Mr. Bo has racked up three traffic citations in Massachusetts—and according to a person familiar with the matter, he was driving a black Porsche. Mr. Bo is the son of Bo Xilai, the...

'Jackie Kennedy of China' at Center of Political Drama By JEREMY PAGE, BRIAN SPEGELE and STEVE EDER The wife of sacked Communist Party official Bo Xilai made quite an impression when she showed up in Mobile, Ala., 15 years ago with her young son in tow. Denver lawyer Ed Byrne, whom she had hired to represent Chinese companies embroiled in a legal mess in U.S. federal court, was struck by her brains, charm and beauty. Gu Kailai, he says, seemed like the "Jackie Kennedy of China." Gu Kailai was close to a British businessman who died mysteriously. . The business...

A French national detained in Cambodia, who has been linked to the scandal surrounding China's deposed politician Bo Xilai, will not be extradited, a minister said on Friday. Patrick Henri Devillers will, however, remain in custody. REUTERS - The French architect linked to China’s biggest political scandal in two decades and detained in Cambodia will not be extradited to any country, a minister said, adding another twist to a high-profile case already shrouded in mystery. Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong gave no details on what grounds China had requested the arrest of Patrick Henri Devillers, whose whereabouts is unknown, but...

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...

Mr Obama was briefed immediately on the suspected poisoning of the 41 year-old, which Chinese officials are linking to Mr Heywood’s powerful political allies, when American diplomats were told of the murder allegation. Gu Kailai, Mr Heywood’s former business partner and the wife of Bo Xilai, a senior politician who had been tipped for the highest political office, is suspected of ordering the Briton’s murder in a case at the centre of a political storm in China. The couple have disappeared from sight as the Communist Party attempts to regain stability....... Mr Obama was informed of suspicions over Mr Heywood’s...

President Barack Obama was briefed on a former provincial police chief's overnight stay in a U.S. consulate in China in February while it was in progress or soon after it ended, a senior administration official said Friday, shedding new light on how significantly the U.S. viewed the encounter at the time. The 30-hour visit to the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu by Wang Lijun, who had just been relieved of his job as police chief, rapidly spurred controversy in China and came just a week before Vice President Xi Jinping, who is expected to become China's next leader, paid a visit...

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. It was the first time a specific motive has been revealed for Neil Heywood's murder last November, a death which ended Chinese leader Bo Xilai's hopes of emerging as a top central figure and threw off balance the Communist Party's looming leadership succession.