Word: ironical
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...foreign investors in the country. After all, Beijing had effectively dropped the case's most ominous element: the charge that Rio's Stern Hu and his three colleagues had allegedly stolen "state secrets," in part by bribing executives of Chinese steel companies, who are Rio's largest buyers of iron ore. Under a state-secrets charge, the four men faced the prospect of a secret trial and the possibility of lifetime sentences. Now that the government will only charge them with using "improper means" to gain access to commercial secrets - commercial bribery - the executives will have access to legal counsel...
...highest levels in Beijing" that Rio walked away in June from a $19.5 billion tie-up it had struck late last year with Chinalco, the Chinese state-owned aluminum company. To make matters worse, from Beijing's perspective, Rio then turned around and agreed to a joint venture in iron ore with global rival BHP Billiton. Together the two control about 75% of the world's iron ore, which China's steelmakers consume ravenously. "That deal is China's worst nightmare," says an investment-banking source with close ties to the global mining industry. (See pictures of China's infrastructure...
...under apartheid, but that will hardly register with international audiences conditioned to see a parade of Caucasians in action movies. What is more likely to grab viewers is the dynamic storytelling (partly in mockumentary form), the gruesome yet sympathetic aliens, the robot suit that briefly turns Wikus into Iron Man, and the surfeit of body parts exploding. Like David Cronenberg - especially in his masterpiece, The Fly - Blomkamp is fascinated by the ways our bodies morph, decay and betray us. And like Jackson's early, grotty films (Bad Taste, Braindead - the titles say it all), District 9 revels in its mixture...
Biggs and 14 other men robbed a Royal Mail train of 2.6 million pounds (about $67 million in today's terms). The gang, which included an antiques dealer, a boxer and a florist, beat the train's driver unconscious with an iron bar; the victim never worked again and died seven years later. Biggs was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his part in the incident, but he escaped after 15 months by scaling a 30-ft. (9 m) wall and jumping into a furniture van. After more than 35 years on the run in Australia and Brazil, Biggs...
...There has been signs that the nation's honeymoon with its new leader was coming to an end. In July, a former government minister who defected to the opposition had told local media that Mr Najib is an "iron fist in a velvet glove." The mayhem on Saturday, his critics are now saying, are a harbinger of worse things to come. The brutal display of force unfolded in the middle of a Saturday afternoon in central Kuala Lumpur as protesters marched to Istana Negara palace to ask King Mizan Zainal Abidin - whose role in Malaysia today is largely ceremonial...