Independent voices from the TWT Communities

Recently confirmed U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew met with newly minted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Tuesday, the first high-level talks between the two nations since the U.S. election last year and China's recent completion of its once-in-a-decade leadership transition.

China's new leaders struck a populist tone Sunday as they got down to the painstaking work of governing, promising cleaner government, less red tape and more fairness to enlarge a still small middle class and help struggling private businesses.

Long-anointed successor Xi Jinping assumed the leadership of China on Thursday, as the ruling Communist Party confronts slower economic growth, a public clamor to end corruption and demands for change that threaten its hold on power.

Xi Jinping succeeded Hu Jintao as China's leader on Thursday, assuming the top posts in the Communist Party and the powerful military in a once-a-decade political transition unbowed by scandals, a slower economy and public demands for reforms.

President Hu Jintao stepped aside as ruling party leader Wednesday to clear the way for Vice President Xi Jinping to take China's helm as part of only the second orderly transfer of power in 63 years of Communist rule.

Xi Jinping became leader of China on Thursday, securing the Communist Party's top spot and oversight of the military in a political transition upset by scandals that have added fuel to public demands for change as the country faces slower economic growth.
During China's last party congress, the cadres in charge of the world's most populous nation didn't know a hashtag from a hyperlink. But five years on, there's a new message from Beijing: The political transition will be microblogged.

China's ruling communists opened a pivotal congress to initiate a power handover to new leaders Thursday with a nod to their revolutionary past and a broad promise of cleaner government while keeping off-stage the main event — the bargaining over seats in the new leadership.
Hogwarts Castle is ready to welcome the Muggle multitudes.

China's premier warned Wednesday that ruinous turmoil that engulfed China in the past could re-emerge unless the country tackles political reforms, and he rebuked a populist fellow leader over a scandal that brought infighting among officials into public view.

China's prime minister called Monday for a boost in domestic consumption to keep the world's second-largest economy expanding while overseas markets remain weak.
Darrell Waltrip was nicknamed "Jaws" as a driver for his outrageous trash-talking. His loquaciousness launched his second career, as one of NASCAR's most recognized _ and outspoken _ television analysts.
The magical world of Harry Potter is being meticulously reassembled at a former aerodrome near London.

The leader appealed for further relations with Taipei during a centennial marking an anti-imperial revolution.

President Obama's newest job approval ratings: 32 percent.