A widening corruption scandal in China’s southern economic powerhouse of Guangdong Province has snared two senior anti-graft officials in the boomtown of Shenzhen, a newspaper reported yesterday.
Anti-graft officers from Beijing had taken into custody two officials from Shenzhen’s Discipline Inspection Commission last weekend, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported, citing unnamed sources. It did not name the officials.
This comes amid a deepening investigation into alleged financial misconduct by Huang Guangyu (黃光裕), the Guangdong-born founder of GOME Electrical Appliances (國美電器控股), which has also led to the detention of two senior officials with Guangdong links.
GOME is China’s top electronics retailer.
Corruption investigations in China can be proxies for political struggles, with some analysts saying the latest campaign appeared to be orchestrated by Guangdong’s party chief Wang Yang (汪洋), a Beijing-backed outsider who took up the job around two years ago.
“There had been a political battle between Mr Wang and the Guangdong clique of officials. And Mr Wang had won,” the South China Morning Post reported, citing Shenzhen-based political analyst Zhu Jianguo (朱建國).
The province’s top political adviser, Chen Shaoji (陳紹基), and the former head of Guangdong’s anti-corruption body, Wang Huayuan, had been put under shuanggui (雙規) a form of party discipline before being turned over to prosecutors, the Post reported.
Chen and Wang Huayuan (王華元) — who now heads a disciplinary body in eastern Zhejiang Province — had both been detained for investigation in relation to Huang’s case, China’s respected Caijing magazine reported.
The two detained Shenzhen officials were related to Wang Huayuan’s case as they had been his subordinates, the Post said.
It added that many local officials and scholars considered the cases of Chen and Wang Huayuan to be “the most significant in Guangdong in at least 30 years.”
In a market in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, customers flock to Ache Moussa’s stall to have their long plaits smeared with a special paste in an age-old ritual. Each strand of hair, from the root to the end, is slathered in a traditional mixture of cherry seeds, cloves and chebe seeds, the most important ingredient of all. Users say the recipe makes their hair grow longer and more lustrous. Local and natural hair products are gaining popularity across Africa as people turn away from commercial cosmetics. Moussa applies the mixture and shapes the client’s locks into a gourone — a traditional hairstyle consisting of
‘ONE FELL SWOOP’: Overturning a landmark ruling that said judges should defer to experts would ‘cause a massive shock to the legal system,’ a dissenting opinion said Prosecutors overstepped in charging Jan. 6, 2021, rioters with obstruction for trying to prevent certification of the 2020 presidential election, the US Supreme Court said on Friday, throwing hundreds of cases into doubt, while another controversial ruling struck down 40 years of legal precedent on federal agencies’ ability to regulate critical issues. The matter was brought to the court through an appeal by former police officer Joseph Fischer, a supporter of former US president Donald Trump who entered the Capitol with hundreds of others in 2021. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said prosecutors’ interpretation of the law would “criminalize
The US yesterday wrapped up its first multidomain exercise with Japan and South Korea in the East China Sea, a step forward in Washington’s efforts to enhance and lock in its security partnerships with key Asian allies in the face of growing threats from North Korea and China. The three-day Freedom Edge increased the sophistication of previous exercises with simultaneous air and naval drills geared toward improving joint ballistic-missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance and other skills and capabilities. The exercise, which is expected to expand in years to come, was also intended to improve the countries’ abilities to share missile warnings —
RALLYING CRY: Former US president Donald Trump has raised suspicions about why Chinese migrants are going to the US and advocacy groups worry about his rhetoric The US Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday said that it sent 116 Chinese migrants from the US back home in the first “large charter flight” in five years. The flight, which happened over the weekend, comes as Chinese immigration has become the subject of intense political debate in the upcoming US presidential election. “We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. The department said it was working with China to “reduce and deter irregular migration and to disrupt