A Chinese court sentenced ousted senior politician Bo Xilai to life in jail yesterday after finding him guilty of corruption and abuse of power, a term that gives him little chance of staging a political comeback.

A woman who became a symbol for the groundswell of opposition to China’s labour camp system scored a rare victory in an appeal for compensation in a case that generated a huge public outcry.

Television audiences across China watched an anarchist antihero rebel against a totalitarian government and persuade the people to rule themselves.

CHINA celebrated its wealth and rising might with a show of goose-stepping troops, gaudy floats and nuclear-capable missiles in Beijing yesterday, 60 years after Mao Zedong proclaimed its embrace of communism.

Beijing Olympic organisers today began soliciting design proposals for the Olympic torch for the 2008 Games, one of several campaigns intended to excite public participation in the event.