JAPAN VIDEO: Japan eases US beef restrictions

Japan is relaxing restrictions on US-imported beef imposed almost a decade ago after the discovery of "mad cow disease" in America.

AUSTRALIA blasts JAPAN after whaling fleet incursion

The Australian government on Friday lodged a protest with Tokyo after a ship from the Japanese whaling fleet entered its exclusive economic zone in the Southern Ocean near Macquarie Island.

Canberra is strongly opposed to whaling and launched legal action challenging the basis of Japan’s so-called “scientific” hunt in December 2010.

The Japanese fleet left for the Southern Ocean in late December, planning to catch up to 935 Antarctic minke whales and up to 50 fin whales and the Shonan Maru No.2, a support vessel, strayed into Australia’s economic zone on Thursday.

SOUTH KOREA: Samsung Chairman Keeps Fortune in Inheritance Case

(SEOUL, South Korea) — The chairman of Samsung Electronics has kept his fortune and control of the Samsung conglomerate after a South Korean court Friday ruled against his older brother in an inheritance battle. The case was watched because a ruling against Samsung’s chairman Lee Kun-hee could have resulted in the unraveling of a cross-shareholding structure that allows Lee, who is South Korea’s richest person, to control the conglomerate as a minority shareholder. (MORE: Samsung May Have Soured on 7-In. Tablets) The high-stakes fight also highlighted a deep discord between the two sons of Samsung founder Lee Byung-chull, who denounced each other in public as the battle unfolded last year. Lee Kun-hee’s brother, Meng-hee, wanted a bigger share of the Samsung cake but the court ruled that a 10-year period for inheritance claims had expired. It also said there was not enough evidence to prove that dividends from Samsung companies were intended as part of the inheritance from Byung-chull. Meng-hee’s lawyers said they would consider an appeal. Before announcing the ruling, the judge said he wished the brothers would reconcile and live in harmony. (MORE: What Google’s FTC Deal Means for the Patent Wars)

CHINA: Outgoing China Leader Cautions on Urbanization

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao warned that the interests of rural residents must not be sacrificed in pursuing urbanization, in a sign of potential tension between China's outgoing and incoming leaders.

CHINA: Fireworks Explosion on Chinese Highway Kills 26

(BEIJING) — A truck carrying fireworks ahead of Chinese New Year celebrations exploded and destroyed part of an elevated highway Friday in central China, killing at least 26 people as it sent vehicles plummeting 30 meters (about 100 feet) to the ground, state media said. The huge blast destroyed an 80-meter (80-yard) stretch of highway outside the city of Sanmenxia in Henan province, and was powerful enough to shatter windows of a nearby truck stop. Emergency crews closed the highway at the accident site, said China National Radio, which reported the death toll of 26. The Xinhua News Agency reported four deaths but said search and rescue efforts were continuing. At least 15 people were injured and sent to nearby hospitals, the Henan Commercial Newspaper reported. Photos posted on the popular news site Sina.com by Chinese netizens showed a stretch of elevated highway gone, with a truck perched precariously at the broken edge. Other photos showed wrecked trucks below and blackened chunks of scattered debris, including collapsed sections of highway, wrecked trucks and cargo containers. (PHOTOS: TIME Picks the Most Surprising Photos of 2012)

CHINA media: Sex videos and houses

Two high-profile corruption cases, involving sex videos and illegal property purchases, dominate Friday's headlines.

NORTH KOREA camouflages nuclear test site

North Korea has covered the entrance to a tunnel at its nuclear test site in an apparent effort to avoid satellite monitoring ahead of a widely expected detonation.

CHINA: Fireworks Explosion in China Kills 26

A truck carrying fireworks exploded on a highway in central China, killing at least 26 people and destroying a bridge.

CAMBODIA begins Sihanouk funeral

Crowds line the streets of Phnom Penh for the start of funeral proceedings for former Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk, who died in October.

CHINA truck blast fells bridge

A truck carrying fireworks explodes on a highway in central China, causing a bridge to collapse, state media say.

CHINA: Yang Xiong named Shanghai mayor

Yang Xiong, Shanghai's acting mayor, was appointed by the city legislature as city mayor this morning.
He was appointed at the session of the municipal people's congress today.

Yang, 59, was previously named acting mayor of Shanghai in December. He was appointed vice mayor of Shanghai in 2003 and had been executive vice mayor since 2008.

As executive vice mayor, he took charge of various sections including development and reform, planning, population management, statistics, commodity prices and social stability.

During the World Expo in 2010, he served as executive deputy director of the Shanghai World Expo Executive Committee and took part in preparations both at the World Expo site and across the city.
Yang earned a master's degree in economics in 1985 from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

He worked as deputy director of the Economy Research Center of the city government after graduation.
Yang once served as president of Shanghai Airlines Co Ltd and chairman of the supervisors board of Shanghai Airlines Co Ltd until February 2001, when he became vice secretary-general of Shanghai Municipality.

CHINA: The People's Republic of Hacking

Adam Segal says the recent Chinese cyberattacks on Bloomberg and the New York Times highlights both the willingness of Beijing to shape the narrative about China, as well as the vulnerability the top leadership feels about how they are portrayed.

CHINA: Change in China Inevitable, Says Dissident Chen

Despite years of imprisonment, harassment and physical abuse by the authorities, activist Chen Guangcheng says he is hopeful about China.

“I am actually optimistic that change will come,” said Chen, at an event Wednesday in Washington D.C.

Earlier this week, the blind activist, known by many in his country as the “barefoot lawyer, was presented with the Tom Lantos Human Rights award at a ceremony on Capitol Hill.  It comes just nine months after he made a dramatic escape from ...

CHINA: Chinese Hackers Targeted Wall Street Journal's Computers

The Wall Street Journal said its computer systems had been infiltrated by Chinese hackers for the apparent purpose of monitoring the newspaper's China coverage.

CHINA: 14 charged over riot in Qidong, Jiangsu province, plead guilty

Fourteen people pleaded guilty to encouraging a riot in Jiangsu province last year in which a Communist Party chief was stripped half-naked in a mass protest that ultimately forced the local government to scrap a waste-water treatment project.

Xinhua said the defendants were prosecuted on Wednesday on charges of encouraging mass violence against government buildings and intentionally damaging property in the eastern city of Qidong . Scores of police were hurt in the melee.

The sentences would be announced later, Xinhua said.

CHINA: Woman in Chongqing sex-tapes scandal charged with extortion

The woman at the centre of a sex scandal that has been the downfall of 11 officials has been arrested and charged with extortion, according to her lawyer.

Zhao Hongxia was detained in November after screen shots from a video showing her having sex with Chongqing district-level party official Lei Zhengfu were posted online, Zhang Zhiyong said.
Lei was fired after the shots went viral, and Xinhua reported yesterday that he would be handed over to judicial authorities following an investigation into allegations he was involved in economic crimes and bribery.

HONG KONG: Jackie Chan named on list of CPPCC delegates

Action star Jackie Chan, who stirred controversy with his comments on limiting people's right to protest, has been named a Hong Kong delegate to China's top political advisory body.

Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference standing committee member Chan Wing-kee, who has seen the proposed list of members who will serve for the next five-year term, said yesterday the Hollywood actor's name was on the list.

HONG KONG: Shine is fading fast from CY's policy address

The public continues to pour cold water on Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's maiden policy address, as the latest poll reveals that 45 per cent of Hong Kong people are dissatisfied - making it one of the worst received policy addresses since the handover.

Leung's attempt to focus on the housing problem also drew heavy criticism from lawmakers across the political spectrum in the debate on the traditional motion of thanks yesterday.

CRUISE News from Cruise Line International Association

Calling all cruisers: yesterday in New York at its State of the Industry Conference, Cruise Line International Associatio...

NORTH KOREA: ‘Under Martial Law’ Ahead of Likely Nuclear Test

Activists wear the face masks of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and his wife Ri Sol-Ju (L) as they 'beg' for money during an anti-Pyongyang rally urging North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons in Seoul on Jan. 31. (Kim Jae-hwan/AFP/Getty Images)

North Korea is now under martial law and leader Kim Jong Un has told frontline troops to prepare for war, amid reports that Pyongyang will carry out its third nuclear test, according to South Korean media on Thursday.

Kim gave the secret order to “complete preparations for a nuclear weapons test between Tuesday and yesterday,” reported the JoongAng Ilbo, a South Korean national daily. “The country will be under martial law starting from midnight Jan. 29 and all the frontline and central units should be ready for a war,” Kim reportedly said.

An inside source in North Hamkyung Province told the Daily NK website that on Jan. 30, “the status change to preparation for combat mobilization was declared today at midnight.”

According to the Daily NK, North Korea has several readiness states for its military: “alert, combat alert, preparation for combat mobilization, combat mobilization, quasi-state of war, and state of war.” It means that out of the six stages, North Korea is currently at the third step.

“Worker and Peasant Red Guards were issued with real guns rather than replicas, and the security services went out onto the streets to maintain order,” the source said.

In 1993, North Korea withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and then told the military to be in a “quasi-state of war.”

Due to the massive media restrictions in the reclusive, communist state, it is nearly impossible to tell if Pyongyang will take any further steps.

Kim also specifically made commands to take “effective, high-profile state measures,” and he “assigned specific tasks” to officials, reported the JoongAng. These directives were apparently triggered after the United Nations Security Council imposed more sanctions on the regime.

The newspaper also reported that a nuclear test would come sooner than previously expected, possibly being held on Feb. 16, which is the birthday of dead leader Kim Jong Il.

North Korea carried out its first nuclear test in 2006 and conducted another underground test in 2009. The currently planned nuclear test is in response to sanctions and criticism after it successfully launched a rocket, which Pyongyang claimed was to put a satellite in orbit, but later said was basically a ballistic missile.

On Thursday, South Korea warned the North that it would face “grave consequences” if the nuclear test goes through, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

“If North Korea misjudges the situation and pushes ahead with a provocation again, it will cause very grave consequences,” presidential spokesman Park Jeong-ha told Yonhap. “The government urges North Korea to immediately halt all provocative words and actions and comply with international obligations.”

Yonhap quoted a South Korean government official in saying that if the nuclear test is carried out, it will serve to bolster the morale of the military in supporting Kim and will be used to rally the public.

The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 21 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.

CHINA: New York Times Hit by Hackers

 

The New York Times newspaper has accused hackers traced to China of "persistently" infiltrating its computer networks over the last four months, sparking an angry denial from Beijing.

"Chinese hackers have persistently attacked The New York Times, infiltrating its computer systems and getting passwords for its reporters and other employees," the paper reported.

The paper had hired a team of computer security experts to trace the attacks and block any back doors through which they were gaining access to the system, it said.

"The Times and computer security experts have expelled the attackers and kept them from breaking back in," the report said.

It said the timing of the attacks came as the paper's journalists were researching several billion dollars' worth of assets it later reported were held secretly by relatives of outgoing premier Wen Jiabao.

By the time the paper published the results of its investigation on Oct. 25, the security of its' employees e-mail accounts had already been compromised.

The paper hired security experts who had gathered evidence that Chinese hackers breached the paper's network, the report said.

"They broke into the e-mail accounts of its Shanghai bureau chief, David Barboza, who wrote the reports on Mr. Wen’s relatives, and Jim Yardley, The Times’s South Asia bureau chief in India, who previously worked as bureau chief in Beijing," the paper reported.

However, a spokeswoman for the papers said no evidence had been found that outsiders had accessed sensitive information or files from the research effort.

Cover their tracks

According to experts at Mandiant, the security firm that investigated the security breach, the hackers tried to cover their own tracks by routing the attacks through compromised computers at U.S. universities.

"This matches the subterfuge used in many other attacks that Mandiant has tracked to China," the New York Times' own article said.

It said the malware used to install spyware on the paper's network was also of a type previously associated with Chinese hacker attacks.

It quoted Mandiant as saying that the attacks started from the same university computers used by the Chinese military to attack U.S. military contractors in the past.

The paper said there appeared to be a "broader computer espionage campaign" against American news media companies that have reported on Chinese leaders and corporations.

It cited Chinese hacker attacks on Bloomberg News after Bloomberg published an article on June 29 about the wealth accumulated by relatives of president-in-waiting Xi Jinping.

An employee at the New York Times in China, who declined to be named, confirmed that the e-mail accounts of "some colleagues" had been taken over by hackers.

But he declined to speculate on whether the Chinese government was involved.

Meanwhile, a German foreign correspondent based in Beijing said his e-mail had been hacked several times before.

"My e-mail account has been taken over at least four times," the journalist said, including, "Once from Hong Kong, once from Taiwan and once from mainland China."

"My e-mails were opened," he added.

Revenge attack unlikely

Beijing-based scholar Chen Yongmiao, who follows cyber-security issues, said he believed that official military involvement in a revenge attack on the Times' networks wasn't very likely.

But he said that didn't rule out privately motivated attacks by people affected by the Times' recent reporting on China, who might well have a military background.

"I don't think that the military would target a specific company simply because of some media reports about corruption," Chen said.

"Unless it was someone from one of the families accused of corruption, who used his military connections to get revenge on the New York Times."

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied any involvement in hacker activities, saying it is opposed to them.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Thursday that the suggestion that China was involved in the hacker attacks on The New York Times was "irresponsible."

"To arbitrarily assert and to conclude without hard evidence that China participated in such hacking attacks is totally irresponsible," Hong told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

"China is also a victim of hacking attacks," he said. "Chinese laws clearly forbid hacking attacks, and we hope the relevant parties will take a responsible attitude on this issue."

A similar denial was quoted in the New York Times from the defense ministry in Beijing.

Significant threat

A U.S. security watchdog reported last year that China has advanced its computer network capabilities to the extent that they pose a significant threat to U.S. military operations in the event of a conflict.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report detailed how China is advancing its capabilities in computer network attack, defense, and exploitation and examines issues related to cybersecurity and potential risks to U.S. national security and economic interests.

In August 2011, China rejected suggestions that it was behind a massive cyberspying initiative reported earlier that month by security firm McAfee.

McAfee said in a report titled "Operation Shady RAT" that hackers compromised computer security at more than 70 global organizations, including the U.N. and U.S. government bodies, sparking speculation that China was behind the attacks.

McAfee did not identify any country behind the hacking campaign, but its security experts had said in February last year that hackers working from China had targeted the computers of oil and gas companies in the U.S., Greece, Taiwan, and Kazakhstan.

The “coordinated, covert, and targeted” attacks began in November 2009, and the hackers succeeded in stealing sensitive information, it said.

Reported by Grace Kei Lai-see for RFA's Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

AUSTRALIA: Asia’s Saudi Arabia?

Shale gas may be sparking an energy revolution in the United States and potentially even China , but it has attracted relatively little attention in Australia. All that may have changed with a recent announcement by Brisbane-based energy explorer, Linc Energy.

Linc shares surged 24 percent after it told the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on January 23 that its shale oil assets in South Australia’s Arckaringa Basin had the potential to hold up to 233 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) – an amount not incomparable to Saudi Arabia’s estimated oil reserves of 263 billion BOE.

The announcement sparked excitable headlines too, including the Advertiser’s AUD “$20 trillion shale oil find surrounding Coober Pedy ‘can fuel Australia’”.

Linc’s chief executive Peter Bond, a self-made mining magnate and among Australia’s richest executives, showed little reluctance to fuel media speculation.

“If it comes in the way the reports are suggesting, it could well and truly bring Australia back to [oil] self-sufficiency,” Bond told the Adelaide daily.

He said the discovery could potentially rival the U.S. shale boom, even at the lower end of estimates amounting to 3.5 billion BOE.

"The opportunity of turning this into the next shale boom is very real,” he said. “If the Arckaringa plays out the way we hope it will, and the way our independent reports have shown, it's one of the key prospective territories in the world at the moment."

South Australia’s minerals minister, Tom Koutsantonis was also keen to promote the find, saying “shale gas and shale oil will be a key part to securing Australia’s energy security now and into the future.”

Linc released two independent reports from consulting firms DeGolyer and MacNaughton (D&M) and Gustavson Associates, with the latter estimating “unrisked prospective resources” for unconventional reservoirs of 233 billion BOE. D&M, which used a different methodology, estimated 103 billion BOE across Linc’s 16 million contiguous acres.

The Australian company, which also has oil and gas interests in the United States, said the estimates “compare favorably to prolific U.S. unconventional liquids plays such as the Bakken and Eagle Ford.”
Linc said it had appointed Barclays Bank to advise it on strategic options, including the “introduction of an experienced shale operator to joint venture the development of this emerging world-class shale play,” which is expected to cost AUD$300 million to develop.

However, analysts were less bullish, noting that the Arckaringa Basin lacked the infrastructure and production track record of the Cooper Basin to the east.

Linc shares dropped 10 percent the day after the announcement, with Bond distancing himself from the U.S. $20 trillion resource estimate and investors taking profits given the time frame and cost of development.

Krista Walter, senior energy, oil and gas analyst at RBS Morgans, told The Diplomat there was a long way to go before Linc’s shale dream became reality, given a typical recovery rate of just 5 percent.

“It’s certainly a big number, although we have known the Arckaringa Basin is prospective for both conventional and unconventional oil and gas, without having any real data on the potential size of it,” Walter said.

“It’s a prospective resource so there’s still a lot of work to be done before you can understand how much can be produced commercially.”

Rich in coal and gas, Australia is forecast by BP to overtake Qatar as the world’s largest supplier of liquefied natural gas by 2018. However, a U.S.-style shale revolution is still a distant prospect, according to Walter.

“We’re at the early stages of looking at these unconventional shales and deep coals and tight sands in Australia,” she said.

“It’s probably too early to say if it will mimic the U.S., but it’s looking promising as companies are getting gas to surface from these wells.”

However, Linc’s report was castigated by the Australian Financial Review’s Tony Boyd as “an over-the-top ASX announcement that suited a gullible media” and squeezed out short sellers in the stock.
He noted the company’s previous reported AUD$1.5 billion sale of its coal tenements to Chinese investors, a deal which moved its share price but ultimately failed to eventuate.

But while Linc and its founder may be known for bullish statements, the report has awoken Australians to the potential of another “unconventional” resource in an energy-hungry region.

Just a few short years ago, critics panned the prospects of unconventional coal seam gas or coal bed methane, which have now become a AUD$50 billion industry in Queensland state.

SINGAPORE Rate-Fixing Probe Snags Traders

Banks in Singapore are nearing the end of their investigations into whether traders conspired to manipulate exchange rates for Asian currencies, leading to dozens of traders being put on forced leave.

RUSSIAN Court upholds ban on 'extremist' Pussy Riot videos

A Russian court's decision to uphold a ban on 'extremist' videos of Pussy Riot's protest performance in a Moscow cathedral last year, highlights the escalating clampdown on freedom of expression in the country, Amnesty International said.

The Moscow City Court on Wednesday rejected the appeal by band member Ekaterina Samutsevich and upheld the ruling of a lower court in November, banning the videos under vaguely defined counter-extremist legislation.

"The increasing use of loosely-worded counter-extremist laws to crack down on dissent shows the Russian authorities' absolute lack of respect for the right to freedom of expression as one of the foundations of a democratic society," said David Diaz-Jogeix, Europe and Central Asia Deputy Programme Director.

"The ban on Pussy Riot's videos must be lifted and all such attacks on the internationally recognized right to freedom of expression must be stopped along with the narrow application of counter-extremist legislation."

Maria Alekhina together with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Ekaterina Samutsevich, three of the members of the all-female group Pussy Riot,  were charged with “hooliganism on grounds of religious hatred” after they sang a protest song in Moscow’s main Orthodox cathedral in February 2012.

All three were subsequently sentenced to two years imprisonment in a penal colony but later Ekaterina Samutsevich was given a suspended sentence on appeal.

Amnesty International has expressed concern at the court's judgment that the videos contained "images and expressions that were aiming at inciting hatred or enmity and humiliation of persons based on their religion and belonging to social institutions."

The organization believes that there are no indications of violence or calls for violence in the videos.

The members of Pussy Riot insist that their actions, including the performance at the Church of Jesus the Saviour, were not intended to incite hatred, whether of religion, or of those belonging to certain social groups or other minorities.

The court judgment seems to go against a statement by the Russian Supreme Court in June 2011 that the criticism of public officials and professional politicians, their actions and beliefs in itself should not be regarded as actions aimed at humiliating or degrading a person or a group, since boundaries for criticism of such persons are wider than those of private individuals.

The ban on videos of the group's protest in a Moscow cathedral last year, highlights an escalating clampdown on freedom of expression.

The increasing use of loosely-worded counter-extremist laws to crack down on dissent shows the Russian authorities' absolute lack of respect for the right to freedom of expression as one of the foundations of a democratic society.

RUSSIA: Rights group says Russia's 2012 crackdown worst since Soviet era

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian authoritarianism rose to levels unprecedented in recent history in 2012, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday, assessing what it called the harshest crackdown on political freedoms in the country since the Soviet era.

TIBET: First Tibet 'self-immolation' convictions in China, as fiery deaths near 100

Chinese courts start to prosecute as more monks, nuns, and ordinary Tibetans protest policies to shun the Dalai Lama and absorb ancient culture.

JAPAN: Saying UnSorry - By Robert Whiting

Will Japan's new prime minister really take back his country's apology for World War II?

JAPAN ex-minister warns of Okinawa unrest, secession

A former Japanese minister has warned domestic terrorists could strike Tokyo if the government fails to address anger in Okinawa over a heavy US military presence there.

Shozaburo Jimi, minister in charge of financial services and postal reform, under the last government, suggested Wednesday that residents of the sub-tropical island chain may also push for secession from Japan.

CHINA Convicts 2 Tibetans for 'Inciting' Self-Immolations

China has convicted two Tibetans of "intentional homicide" for inciting self-immolations in protest of Chinese rule.

The official Xinhua news agency says 40-year-old Lorang Konchok was condemned to death with a two-year reprieve, a sentence that usually amounts to life in prison. The court in southwestern Aba prefecture also sentenced his nephew, 31-year-old Lorang Tsering, to 10 years in prison.

Xinhua says the two men "incited and coerced" eight people to self-immolate. ...

AUSTRALIA: Gina tops Forbes' Australian rich list

GINA Rinehart has held on to the top spot on the annual list despite falling iron ore prices eating into her $16.41bn mining fortune.

AUSTRALIAN opposition leader warns of second election

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia faces a possible fourth straight year of political instability after opposition leader Tony Abbott, on track to win power in a September election, threatened a second poll if a hostile upper house rejects his plan to scrap a tax on carbon.

In VIETNAM, Rage Growing Over Loss of Land Rights

(KIM SON, Vietnam) — Faced with a group of farmers refusing to give up their land for a housing project, the Communist Party officials negotiating the deal devised a solution: They went to a bank, opened accounts in the names of the holdouts and deposited what they decided was fair compensation. Then they took the land. The farmers, angry at the sum and now forced to compete for jobs in a stuttering economy, blocked the main road connecting the capital to the north of the country for one day in December. In a macabre gesture, some clambered into coffins. Police who came to break up the demonstration were pelted with rocks. Several people were arrested. (MORE: Vietnam Deports American Detained for 9 Months) “This is an injustice,” said Nguyen Duc Hung, a rice farmer forced to give up 2,000 square meters (215,000 square feet) of land he had worked for more than 15 years. “The compensation money will help us to survive for several years, but after that, how can we make our living?” Forced confiscations of land are a major and growing source of public anger against Vietnam’s authoritarian one-party government. They often go hand-in-hand with corruption; local Communist Party elites have a monopoly on land deals, and many are alleged to have used it to make themselves rich. These issues unite rural and urban Vietnamese in a way that discontent over political oppression tends not to. Land disputes break out elsewhere in Asia, notably next door in China, but they have particular resonance in Vietnam, where wars and revolutions were fought in the name of the peasant class to secure collective ownership of the land. The farmers who blocked the road quoted the country’s revolutionary leader, Ho Chi Minh, in the banners they posted at their camp. “Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom,” said one. “We would rather die than lose our land,” said another. The government recognizes that the anger coursing through the countryside threatens its legitimacy, and has pledged to revise land laws this year

AUSTRALIA Vulnerable to Slowdown Risk, Says S&P

Slowing investment in Australia's resources sector raises the prospect of a sharp slowdown in the economy, according to S&P

CHINA: Chinese devour Joyce translation

A Chinese version of James Joyce's novel Finnegan's Wake, which took eight years to translate, surprises by selling out its initial print run.