A Chinese army singer who mysteriously disappeared from public view six years ago has made a surprising reappearance in local media — as the wife of the brother of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
In a rare glimpse into the life of the Xi family, a newspaper in the southern city of Shenzhen quoted the Chinese Communist Party leader’s younger brother, Xi Yuanping (習遠平), describing his marriage to singer Zhang Lanlan (張瀾瀾).
Zhang was a mainstay on glitzy Chinese TV shows for years, but reportedly made no further appearances after singing in China’s annual official New Year gala in 2008.
The report, which was quickly deleted from Chinese Web sites, quoted Xi Yuanping, 58, as saying that he had married the 34-year-old Zhang — nicknamed the “military’s top beautiful woman” — the same year.
“Lanlan is a simple and sincere woman,” the report — which showed the two seated together — quoted Xi as saying.
Xi Jinping similarly married military singer Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛), who was herself for many years a mainstay of the New Year gala — the most watched TV show in the world.
China’s leaders are highly secretive and tightly restrict any reports about their private lives in local media.
Since her disappearance, Zhang, who also acted in several TV dramas as one of tens of thousands of entertainers who are also members of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), has been subject to lurid rumors, some involving other senior members of the Chinese Communist Party.
The PLA has since its inception maintained its own entertainment troupes, who sometimes become wives and mistresses for officials of the ruling party — former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) has long been rumored to have conducted an affair with PLA entertainer Song Zuying (宋祖英).
Former deputy navy commander Wang Shouye (王守業) spent 12 million yuan (US$1.96 million) on five mistresses, all of whom were army performers, before being handed a suspended death penalty in 2006, state-run media reported.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers on Monday said that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. “As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,” the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast might be moot
RSS