Free Republic

Christmas is a time of joy and discovery, especially for children, but young Florence Widdicombe got more discovery than anyone would wish. After buying greeting cards from UK supermarket giant Tesco, the six-year-old began writing out her Christmas greetings. What she found in one card, however, set off an international dispute over China’s prison-camp operations, trade policies, and called into question just how much the West is prepared to overlook in its relations with Beijing: After a 6-year-old girl found a plea for help from Chinese prison laborers inside a Christmas card she was preparing to send to friends,...

Shanghai police formally arrested Peter Humphrey on Monday, in a sign that authorities believe they have enough evidence for a case to be brought to trial. He and his wife, Yu Yingzeng, were detained in Shanghai on July 10, along with around eight other individuals, as police probed bribery allegations against British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline. Mr Humphrey and Ms Yu, both well-known corporate investigators in China, run Hong Kong-based ChinaWhys, a risk consultancy that focuses on fraud and accounting for multinational businesses operating in the country. Chinese authorities have not given the specific reason behind the pair’s detention, but a...