Chinese investigators have detained more than 50 people in the Shanghai social security fund scandal, a Beijing-funded Hong Kong newspaper said yesterday, a day after President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) pledged to clean up the government.
The head of Shanghai's commission supervising state-owned companies and one of his deputies were the latest to be detained, two government sources said yesterday.
The director of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the city government was detained at the weekend and was being questioned about suspected links to the pension fund scandal, the sources said.
The snowballing saga has led to the dismissal of Shanghai Communist Party boss Chen Liangyu and the arrest of Zhang Rongkun (張榮坤), chairman of the private Fuxi Investment Holding Co and one of China's richest men.
More than 50 businessmen and government officials have also been taken into custody, Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao said without elaborating.
Beijing has sent more than 100 anti-corruption investigators to Shanghai to investigate money reportedly drained from the city's 10 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion) social security fund for illicit loans and investments. As much as US$400 million may have been used for highly speculative property and toll-road deals.
Hu on Sunday made a fresh call for Chinese Communist Party unity in the fight against corruption at a rare public appearance with his predecessor, Jiang Zemin (江澤民), state press reported yesterday.
"In order to inherit and spread the glorious revolutionary tradition of the Red Army's Long March, we must fully strengthen the unity of the party and among Chinese people of all ethnic groups," Hu said in a speech to cadres in the Great Hall of the People.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Concerns about disease spread from corpses has run up against friends and families’ desire to bury their dead as infection spreads in the area Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week. No one was hurt in the attack, according to reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections fled the facility and are unaccounted for, a hospital director said. Angry residents arrived at the clinic in the
INSURGENT ACTION: A local independence movement in Balochistan, alleged by Pakistan’s government to be backed by India, claimed responsibility for the strike A suicide bomber detonated an vehicle-borne IED near a railway as a passenger train passed through the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta yesterday, killing at least 23 people and wounding over 70, officials said. The explosion caused two of the train cars to overturn and catch fire, according to footage shared online. The attack happened in an area where security forces are usually stationed, badly damaging several nearby buildings and smashing more than a dozen vehicles parked along the road, according to witnesses and images circulating on social media. Doctors at local hospitals said they had received the wounded, with 20 in critical
RSS