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☆ Morning Bid: Stocks stall after VIX hits pre-COVID low
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., November 17, 2023. As U.S. markets return in earnest from the long Thanksgiving weekend, Friday's shortened session threw up a remarkable milestone. Ten-year Treasury yields hovered just under 4.50% first thing, about 10 basis points up from Wednesday's intraday low. Deutsche Bank on Monday said it expected a whopping 175bp of Fed rate cuts in 2024 as a mild recession there hits - leaving the policy rate at just 3.63% at yearend. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

Persons: Brendan McDermid, Mike Dolan, Wall, Friday's, Jerome Powell, MSCI's, Christine Lagarde, Bernadette Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, REUTERS, Mike Dolan Global, Treasury, Federal Reserve, Fed, Deutsche Bank, Property, Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, Chaoyang Public Security, Health, Beijing, Exchange, Reuters, Beijing Stock Exchange, Dallas Fed, . Treasury, Central Bank, Sciences, Share, Graphics Reuters, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S, China, yearend, Asia, European, Gaza, Beijing

☆ Chinese court starts hearing lawsuits against Malaysia Airlines over missing flight MH370
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( Nectar Gan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Jiang Hui speaks with CNN in an interview in Beijing on November 21, 2023, days before a Chinese court began hearing lawsuits over the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. All of them are international companies headquartered outside China, though Malaysia Airlines, Boeing and Roll-Royce have offices in China. In Malaysia, two young boys who lost their father on the flight sued Malaysia Airlines for breach of contract and the Malaysian government for negligence in 2014. In China, families who signed a settlement agreement with Malaysian Airlines received 2.5 million yuan ($350,000) in compensation. Only a few dozen Chinese families signed initially, but over the years more have opted to settle.

Persons: Jiang Hui, Jiang Cuiyun, MH370, Jiang, ” Jiang, Royce, Covid, “, ”, – Organizations: Beijing CNN —, Malaysia Airlines Flight, CNN, Court, Maylasia Airlines, Boeing, Malaysia Airlines, Allianz, Rolls, Malaysian, Malaysian Airlines Locations: China, Beijing, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Chaoyang District, United States, Africa, Australia, Mauritius, Madagascar

☆ Beijing police launch investigation into troubled wealth manager Zhongzhi
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The office building of Zhongrong International Trust, a trust company partially owned by Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, in Beijing, China August 22, 2023. REUTERS/Florence Lo Acquire Licensing RightsSHANGHAI, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Beijing police are investigating suspected crimes committed by Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, a leading Chinese wealth manager, according to a social media post published by the Chaoyang Public Security Bureau on Saturday. Zhongzhi did not immediately reply to an email request for comment after normal business hours on Saturday. Zhongzhi apologised to its investors in a letter issued on Wednesday that said it had total liabilities of about 420 billion yuan ($58 billion) to 460 billion yuan ($64 billion), compared to estimated total assets of 200 billion yuan. The post did not specify what crimes Zhongzhi or the individuals were suspected of having committed.

Persons: Florence Lo, Zhongzhi, Casey Hall, Mark Potter Organizations: International Trust, Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, REUTERS, Rights, Chaoyang Public Security, Thomson Locations: Beijing, China, China's

HONG KONG (AP) — Shoppers in China have been tightening their purse strings, raising questions over how faltering consumer confidence may affect Saturday's annual Singles’ Day online retail extravaganza. Singles Day, also known as “Double 11,” was popularized by e-commerce giant Alibaba. Shoppers spent $38 billion in 24 hours on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms during Singles’ Day in 2019. “The hype and excitement around Singles’ Day is sort of over," said Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of Shanghai-based China Market Research Group. “I just feel that people don’t spend as much as before, possibly because they don’t have much to spend,” she said.

Persons: ”, Shi Gengchen, Shi, Shaun Rein, Rein, keener, Hu Min, Alibaba’s Tmall, ” Jacob Cooke, ” Cooke, Yu Bing Organizations: — Shoppers, Bain & Company, Shoppers, China Market Research, Consumers, WPIC Locations: HONG KONG, China, Chaoyang, COVID, Shanghai, Shijiazhuang, China's Hebei, China's, Beijing

☆ Pop Land: Chinese toy company Pop Mart opens Beijing theme park
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-03 | by ( Chris Lau | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Hong Kong CNN —With its launch in 2010, Chinese toymaker Pop Mart set off a collectible craze with its anime-style figurines. Following in the footsteps of Disney and Studio Ghibli, Pop Mart has expanded into the theme park business, opening up its first in the Chinese capital of Beijing. The company said on Chinese social media platform Weibo that Pop Land - the 40,000-square-meter theme park that comes in four zones - opened on Tuesday, September 26 at Chaoyang Park. “I did think about whether Pop Mart will open a theme park. Pop Mart's character Pucky is featured in its recently opened theme park Pop Land in Beijing.

Persons: it’s, – Molly, Dimoo, Skullpanda, Mickey Mouse, Kitty, Harry Potter, Walt Disney, Molly, “, Pucky, Mart Organizations: Hong Kong CNN —, Disney, Weibo, Domestic, Chimelong, Shenzhen Overseas, Town Enterprises, Pop, Hong Kong Stock Exchange Locations: Hong Kong, Beijing, Chaoyang, Shanghai, China, Chinese, Guangdong, Japan, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Macao

☆ Chinese court begins appeal trial for Canadian pop star Kris Wu
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BEIJING, July 25 (Reuters) - A court in the Chinese capital on Tuesday commenced the appeal trial for Canadian pop star Kris Wu, according to state-run Xinhua news agency, after he was sentenced to 13 years in jail in 2022 for crimes including rape. The trial was not open to the public to protect the privacy of the victims, Xinhua cited the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court as saying. The Canadian embassy in Beijing had been notified of the appeal trial before the hearing, Xinhua reported. In November last year, the People's Court of Chaoyang, a district in Beijing, said Chinese-born Wu would be deported after serving his prison term.

Persons: Kris Wu, Wu, Xander Cage, Ryan Woo, Laurie Chen, Jonathan Oatis Organizations: Xinhua, Court, Canadian, Hollywood, Thomson Locations: BEIJING, Beijing, Chaoyang, China

CNN —A young Chinese woman who was arrested after attending a peaceful protest against Covid-19 restrictions in Beijing last year has been released alongside several of her friends after four months in police custody, according to a source familiar with their situation. Cao was released Wednesday evening, according to a source with direct knowledge. Three of her friends who were detained around the same time in December were also released, according to the source, who learned of their situation through mutual friends. Under Chinese law, the two others released alongside Cao would also likely have been formally charged to remain in custody until Wednesday, though CNN has not confirmed their charges. Two others in the group were released on bail in January, CNN confirmed at the time, while two more were released in February, according to the source familiar with the situation of those released this week.

☆ China state media plays down COVID wave severity before WHO meet
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Bernard Orr | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The World Health Organization on Friday urged China's health officials to regularly share specific and real-time information on the COVID situation. The agency has invited Chinese scientists to present detailed data on viral sequencing at a meeting of a technical advisory group scheduled for Tuesday. The European Union has offered free COVID vaccines to China to help contain the outbreak, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. China has rejected criticism of its COVID data and said any new mutations may be more infectious but less harmful. Data on Tuesday showed China's factory activity shrank at a sharper pace in December as the COVID wave disrupted production and hurt demand.

☆ China state media plays down severity of COVID wave before WHO meeting
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Bernard Orr | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Li's predicament underscores challenges for China's economically crucial services sector as it bets on a post-COVID revival. With the virus spreading unchecked across the country now, representatives from the services sector say frequent lockdowns have left them without money to expand. "There is still a shortage of labour in the services sector in the big cities, and the loss of productivity is quite obvious," said Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank China. CONSUMPTION REVIVALRetail sales, a key gauge of consumption, dropped 5.9% in November from a year earlier, and catering fell by 8.4% amid broad-based weakness in the services sector. Some in the service sector say there remains some hope.

☆ Chinese hospitals 'extremely busy' as COVID spreads unchecked
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Martin Quin Pollard | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Staff at Huaxi, a big hospital in the southwestern city of Chengdu, said they were extremely busy caring for patients with COVID, as they have been ever since curbs were eased on Dec. 7. There were long queues inside and outside the hospital’s emergency department and at an adjacent fever clinic on Tuesday evening. “Almost all of the patients have COVID,” one emergency department pharmacy staff member said. Zhang Yuhua, an official at the Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, said most recent patients were elderly and critically ill with underlying diseases. She said the number of patients receiving emergency care had increased to 450-550 per day, from about 100 before, according to state media.

[1/4] Women wearing face masks and face shields talk on a street, as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks continue in Shanghai, China, December 12, 2022. Reuters witnessed similar queues outside clinics in the central city of Wuhan, where COVID-19 first emerged three years ago. But the figures reflect the dropping of testing requirements, say analysts, while Chinese health expects have warned of an imminent surge. Yet China is pushing ahead with efforts to free up nationwide travel, even if foreign trips may still be a while off. The number of domestic flights available across China exceeded 7,400, nearly double from a week ago, flight tracker app VariFlight showed.

☆ China's capital swings from anger over zero-COVID to coping with infections
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/3] Pandemic control workers in protective suits sit in a neighbourhood that used to be under lockdown, as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks continue, in Beijing, China December 10, 2022. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many businesses have been forced to close as infected workers quarantine at home while many other people are deciding not to go out because of the higher risk of infection. "We can see that hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of people are infected in several major cities," Zhong said. China's economy may grow 1.6% in the first quarter of 2023 from a year earlier, and 4.9% in the second, according to Capital Economics. Inbound travellers are subjected to five days of quarantine at centralised government facilities and three additional days of self-monitoring at home.

☆ China's economy will pick up pace following new COVID rules: CCTV cites Premier Li
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Reuters Staff | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

FILE PHOTO: People walk across a street during morning rush hour, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the Central Business District (CBD) in Chaoyang District, Beijing, China November 21, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo(Change the number of meetings in last paragraph from one to multiple)BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s economic growth will keep picking up pace with the implementation of the newly-announced anti-COVID adjustment measures, state media CCTV quoted Premier Li Keqiang as saying on Thursday. China will also keep the yuan exchange rate basically stable, and this is also conducive to safeguarding global supply chain stability, CCTV said. Li made the remarks during meetings with World Bank President David Malpass, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, CCTV said. (This story has been refiled to change the number of meetings in last paragraph from one to multiple.)

[1/4] People wearing masks line up outside a pharmacy to buy products as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks continue in Beijing, China December 6, 2022. China may announce 10 new national easing measures as early as Wednesday, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. So, because right now in Chaoyang district cases are quite high, it is better to stock up on some medicines," he said. In the latest incident, videos posted on Twitter showed university students chanting protest slogans against COVID policies on their campus in Nanjing city. The uneven nature of the easing measures and varying interpretation of the rules from city to city has been an ongoing source of frustration for many people and businesses.

CNN —China’s vast security apparatus has moved swiftly to smother mass protests that swept the country, with police patrolling streets, checking cell phones and even calling some demonstrators to warn them against a repeat. While protests over local grievances do occur in China, the current wave of demonstrations is the most widespread since the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement of 1989. Some of the boldest protests took place in Shanghai, where crowds called for Xi’s removal two nights in a row. Police cars patrol Shanghai's Urumqi Road, which has been completely blocked off by tall barricades after a weekend of protests. Another Shanghai protester told CNN they were among “around 80 to 110” people detained by police on Saturday night, adding they were released 24 hours later.

☆ Huge COVID protests erupt in China's Xinjiang after deadly fire
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Reuters verified the footage was published from the Xinjiang capital Urumqi. Videos showed people in a plaza singing China's national anthem with its lyric, "Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves!" The Urumqi protests followed a fire in a high-rise building there that killed 10 on Thursday night. Urumqi officials abruptly held a news conference in the early hours of Saturday, denying that COVID measures had hampered escape and rescue but saying they would investigate further. Some lamented its similarities to the deadly September crash of a COVID quarantine bus.

☆ Pop star Kris Wu sentenced to 13 years of jail for rape in China
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Hannah Lee | Kriti Gandhi | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

A court in Beijing on Friday, sentenced Chinese-born Canadian musician Kris Wu to over 13 years for crimes including rape. Chaoyang district court found Wu, also known as Wu Yifan, guilty of raping three women in November and December 2020, according to the court’s official Weibo account. Wu was also found guilty of “group licentiousness,” which is when three or more people are gathered together to to engage in sexual promiscuity. Being charged for group licentiousness can result in a jail sentence of up to five years. Some also said that they were “witnessing history” as Kris Wu is the first idol in China to be imprisoned for as long as 13 years.

☆ China sentences Canadian pop star Kris Wu to 13 years for rape
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BEIJING, Nov 25 (Reuters) - A Beijing court on Friday sentenced Chinese-born Canadian pop star Kris Wu to 13 years in jail after finding him guilty of crimes including rape. The court in Beijing's Chaoyang District said investigations showed that from November to December 2020, the man also known as Wu Yifan raped three women. The court also said Wu would be deported, although lawyers in China have said deportations typically take place after a defendant serves their sentence. Officials from the Canadian embassy in Beijing attended the sentencing, according to state media. The Canadian embassy did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

☆ Shanghai cancels auto event as rising COVID cases add to reopening worries
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The rise in cases is testing China's resolve to stick to recent tweaks recently made to its COVID rules, putting pressure on local authorities to stamp outbreaks without one-size-fits-all measures such as mass lockdowns. Chengdu, with 428 cases on Tuesday, became the latest city to announce mass testing from Nov. 23 to Nov. 27. The capital Beijing, where 1,486 cases breached another daily high, was largely a ghost town with malls, restaurants and parks staying shut. RISING CASES, MASS TESTING - AGAINWhile China's infection numbers are low by global standards, the country continues to stick with its outlier zero-COVID approach, fuelling widespread public frustration and inflicting damage on the world's second-largest economy. Reporting by Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms; Writing by Bernard Orr; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Miral FahmyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

REUTERS/Thomas PeterBEIJING, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Beijing shut parks and museums on Tuesday while more Chinese cities resumed mass testing for COVID-19, as China fights a fresh nationwide spike in cases that has deepened concerns about its economy. In the capital Beijing, cases have hit a fresh record high, prompting calls for more residents to stay put. There were two new deaths attributed to COVID-19, compared with three over the weekend, which were China's first since May. Beijing reported 1,438 new local cases, up from 962 on Sunday. "Reopening could be back and forth as policymakers may back down after observing rapid increases in cases and social disruptions.

☆ Mainland China reports first Covid-related deaths since the Shanghai lockdown
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

This restaurant, along with many others in Beijing's business district of Chaoyang, had to suspend dine-in services over the weekend as Covid infections soared. BEIJING — Three people died over the weekend after contracting Covid, the first deaths from the virus that mainland China has recorded since May, when the city of Shanghai was still locked down. All three individuals, who were between the ages of 87 and 91, had pre-existing health conditions and lived in Beijing, according to state media. Beijing city tightened Covid controls heading into the weekend as the local case count rose to several hundred a day, including infections with and without symptoms. Restaurants, primarily in Beijing's business district of Chaoyang, could only offer take-out or delivery.

☆ Several Beijing districts shut schools as China COVID cases rise
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

China is fighting numerous COVID-19 flare ups, from Zhengzhou in central Henan province to Chongqing in the southwest and for Sunday reported 26,824 new local cases, nearing April's peaks. It also recorded two deaths in Beijing, up from one on Saturday, which was China's first since late May. It also suspended dine-in services and shut night clubs and theatres in Tianhe, home to the city's main business district. This sparked worry among some local residents. The capital Beijing reported 962 new infections, up from 621 a day earlier.

☆ Beijing's Chaoyang district urges residents to stay home Monday
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

BEIJING, Nov 20 (Reuters) - An official of Beijing's Chaoyang district on Sunday urged residents to remain at home on Monday, as a continued rise in COVID-19 infections tests China's strict containment policy. Chaoyang district is the capital's worst hit in the fresh COVID wave. People had been advised by local government to stay put during the weekend, with numerous restaurants, gyms, beauty salons and other facilities closed. An 87-year-old Beijing man died on Saturday, mainland China's first COVID fatality since late May. Reporting by Sophie Yu, Tony Munroe; Editing by William MallardOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ China COVID cases steady as many Beijing businesses, schools shut
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Authorities also said an 87-year-old Beijing man became the nation's first official COVID-19 fatality since May 26, raising China's coronavirus death toll to 5,227. China continues to reiterate its commitment to zero-COVID-19, a signature policy of President Xi Jinping that the central government argues saves lives. In the latest tallies, Beijing city reported 621 new infections for Saturday, up from 515 a day earlier. Guangzhou, a southern city of nearly 19 million people, reported 8,434 new locally transmitted infections, down from 8,713 a day earlier. The southwestern metropolis of Chongqing reported 4,710 new locally transmitted infections, compared with 4,744 a day earlier.

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