Disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has been expelled from the nation’s parliament and stripped of his legal immunity, clearing the way for his prosecution, state media said yesterday.
The announcement follows intense speculation on the fate of the former party boss of the city of Chongqing in the lead-up to a once-in-a-decade leadership transition set to begin on Nov. 8.
Xinhua news agency said the Standing Committee of the 11th National People’s Congress (NPC) removed Bo from his post late last month, but made the announcement only yesterday at a bimonthly session.
“According to the law on the deputies to NPC and to local people’s congresses, his post was terminated,” Xinhua said, quoting a statement from the committee at the end of a four-day meeting.
The report also said that Bo had “borne major responsibility” for the murder of a British businessman that resulted in his downfall, without elaborating.
The focus will now shift to when Bo will face trial for a litany of alleged crimes, with most commentators suggesting the court case will be after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress next month to select new leaders.
Li Xiaolin (李肖霖), a lawyer who had been appointed by the Bo family, yesterday said he did not expect the court case to be held until after the congress.
Party chiefs are set to meet for the CCP’s Central Committee’s 7th Plenary Session on Thursday next week to formally approve the convening of the congress and confirm the decision made last month to remove Bo from the party.
Bo’s expulsion from the NPC comes after state media announced last month that he would “face justice” for alleged abuse of power, taking bribes and improper sexual relations.
This was seen as an unprecedented public rebuke for a senior Chinese party official as authorities looked to lay to rest a damaging episode that shocked China and saw Bo’s wife convicted of murder.
Bo, the party boss of the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, had been seen as a candidate for promotion to the party’s top echelons, but he was brought down earlier this year by murder allegations against his wife, Gu Kailai (谷開來), that came to light when Bo’s key aide and police chief, Wang Lijun (王立軍), sought refuge in the US consulate and detailed a string of alleged crimes.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of