Results tagged “mayor”

Unless combovers and dye jobs are your thing, the Chinese Communist Party is not generally known for its youthful good looks. Perhaps that's why on Sunday, as part of a new campaign to nurture young cadres and rejuvenate the Party, a 29-year old man was elected mayor of the small city of Yicheng, in Hubei Province.

Chen Liangyu (陈良宇), the former Mayor of Shanghai and member of China's Politburo, was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being found guilty on taking bribes and abusing power. During the course of the trial in Tianjin, it was revealed that amount of money stolen of Shanghai's pension fund, $480 million USD was 10 times worse than initially believed, somewhere in the neighborhood of 33.9 billion RMB ($4.8 billion USD).

As a country that has largely distanced itself from the clusterf*ck we call 'The International War on Terror' back in America, China has generally been considered one of the safer places in the world in terms of not getting blown up. While we hope that this doesn't change any time soon, recent developments have given us some cause for concern.

Photo from Shanghai Daily.

• Londonist pondered who might be the next sponsors of the London Eye and whether or not readers would be willing to donate £1,000 each for a Londonist Eye.
• Shanghaiist was shocked to find a cameltoe in the city's only English-language paper.
Continue reading "Week Around the -Ists"

Shanghai mayor, Han Zheng (韩正) looks set to keep his job despite earlier suggestions that he would only be a seat-warmer after his predecessor Chen Liangyu (陈良宇) was exposed in a massive pension scandal and was sacked from his job. Apparently, rumours have been rife in Hong Kong media that Han would be replaced soon. Reuters (via the Straits Times) tells us more:

Beijing believes that Han is 'a good comrade' and 'can continue to do a good job in Shanghai', one of the sources paraphrased new Shanghai Party chief Yu Zhengsheng as telling a recent meeting of senior city officials.

Continue reading "Shanghai mayor Han Zheng to stay on"

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week.

The suspense is finally over. Shanghai woke up to a new leader today. On Saturday, Beijing appointed Comrade Xi Jinping as the city’s new General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, replacing Mayor Han Zheng, who temporarily held that post when former Secretary Chen Liangyu was investigated last fall for misappropriating public funds. City residents cheered the decision:

We're guessing most of you are hungover from St. Patrick's Day. We are too. But still, we're going to muddle on through our green haze and give you (drum roll please...) this Week In -ists.

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ist's?

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning.

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!

This was not a very happy week for the -ist network as one of our own, Phillyist co-editor Star C. Foster, passed away early in the week. Her wit, intelligence, and good nature shone through the site, making Phillyist an immensely fun read. She was loved by many and will be missed by all.

With visions of sugar plum fairies dancing through their heads, the -Ists began to get into that holiday mood. Well, some did.

Austinist was in an entertainment state of mind as they covered the dickens out of the Austin Film Festival, depicted all the Big 12 football coaches as South Park characters, and interviewed Jose Gonzalez.

Late last month, we told you about the Shanghai Wild Animal Olympics, and we probably didn't infuse the post with the proper amount of outrage. Thankfully, some commenters picked up our slack and even directed readers to the animalsasia.org website, which includes information on how you can help put an end to such disgusting displays. We will now quote that information here:

Somehow, the world of -ists managed to make it through the week despite news that Jen & Vince broke up.

As fall settles in and another calendar page gets turned, thoughts turn from bbq's and vacations to holidays and the realization that '06 is coming to an end. With all that going on, with change in the air, we wonder what is it that made that makes the -ists ponder?

On Saturday night, Shanghaiist was strolling along Changle Road (a long street), when we noticed a number of policemen in vehicles moving in both directions with their lights ablaze. Not that there is anything abnormal about that, but a motorcycled policeman did seem to take special interest in us, stopping for a moment to turn his head for a clear look. Perhaps it was because we had a large rucksack in tow or because he thought us strapping he-men. Whatever the reason, it reminded us that currently, somewhere lodged in a historic Shanghai hotel, 100 investigators from the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC) are stationed for the ongoing graft investigation that has claimed Shanghai Municipality Mayor, Chen Liangyu, among other elite Shanghai politicos. The last time a sitting Politburo member was purged China was in 1995 with the removal Chen Xitong, the Beijing party chief and a significant rival of Jiang Zemin.

Imagine this: A high school parking lot in Irvine, a small city in southern California. It's the mid-1990s and Shanghaiist, who in his wildest dreams had never thought he'd grow up to be a blogger, is busy scraping a faux-"handicapped" sticker of a stick figure in a wheelchair smoking a bong off his car. So this is what teenagers do to relieve their boredom in the O.C. (Orange County or 橙县).

LAist is flashing a sad peace out to their editor Carolyn Kellogg with one hand and bumping knuckles with their new head typist L.A. blogger king Tony Pierce with the other.

“When the lights go down in the city, and the sun shines on the bay …” While we pay tribute to the great 80s band Journey and our friends at SFist, Shanghaiist brings you this interesting tidbit, announced by Yang Xiong, Deputy Mayor of Shanghai, on Wednesday:

Photo of Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng from Shanghai Daily.

That'll buy you a lotta Prada. The Shanghai Daily reports that Sun Hung Kai Properties, one of Hong Kong's largest property companies, is in in "final talks" to purchase the Xiangyang Market land from current owner Maxdo Group for RMB 3.6 billion. Sun Hung Kai is expected to invest a total of RMB 6 or 7 billion to turn the prime real estate into "office, retail and hotel space." The group already owns four other properties in Shanghai.

The World Expo Shanghai is almost here! Yes, that's what we'll be saying in December 2009. Until then, we are relying on titbits of information fed to us by the Mayor of Shanghai.

City Government approved the detailed construction plan for Shanghai Expo

Continue reading "1641 days to go ..."

At approximately 1:30 this morning, a section of Huaihai Zhong Lu was flooded by what Shanghaiist suspects was a broken water main. Local residents -- Shanghaiist included -- trudged up the sidewalk in waist-deep murky brown water to higher ground. The area affected seemed to begin around the corner of Wulumuqi Lu, by the old US Consulate building, and continue past Ambassy Court down to the Shanghai Library. At least one Dazhong taxi was stranded in the center of the street where the water was about one meter deep. Police cars blocked the street as officers looked on in bewildered amazement.