BEIJING — As measured by China’s state-run media, the country’s leadership transition is already well underway. Vice President Xi Jinping , who will move up to Communist Party general secretary later this year and president of China in 2013, has appeared prominently on the front page of China Daily in recent weeks, signing ping pong paddles with former president Jimmy Carter, toasting the 40th anniversary of President Nixon’s visit to China, and being welcomed with honors in Thailand and Vietnam. Read full article > >

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In China, will transition bring real change?

Cuba’s ruling Communist Party holds its first-ever national conference to consider changes in the way it runs the country and how to renew the ageing revolutionary leadership.

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Cuba party considers term limits

In an essay published this week in a Communist Party policy magazine, President Hu Jintao said the West is trying to dominate China by spreading its culture and ideology.

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China’s President Pushes Back Against Western Culture

For decades, China’s Communist Party has pushed television networks here to embrace the market, but conservative cadres have grown increasingly fearful of the kinds of programs that court audiences.

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Culture and Control: Censors Pull Reins as China TV, Chasing Profit, Gets Racy

FOR MOST OF the past four months, the people of Wukan, a town of about 20,000 in Southern China, were in open revolt against the local Communist Party authorities. The uprising began as a protest against officials’ decision to sell a village-owned pig farm to developers of luxury housing for $156 million, precious little of which wound up in the hands of townspeople. The protests intensified after a leader’s death , which Wukan residents blamed on a severe beating from police. With local Communist officials ousted by the people, China’s higher-ranking authorities were forced to negotiate. Read full article > >

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We all have a stake in China’s real estate bubble

HONG KONG — Mark Simon, a 47-year-old businessman from Falls Church, was until recently just another American lured by the opportunities offered by Asia’s economic boom. Today, the portly Virginian has a dashing but, he says, “extremely unpleasant” new role at the center of a political thriller scripted by China’s Communist Party and its allies in Hong Kong. It features espionage, slush funds, U.S. plots to bring chaos to the former British colony and, Simon says, “intense lies.” Read full article > >

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In Hong Kong drama, China’s Communist Party casts Virginian as a villain

HONG KONG — When Hollywood’s Relativity Media started filming a “hilarious comedy” in eastern China last week, it trumpeted its delight at “shooting in China, especially in a place as amazing as Linyi.” Instead of hilarity, though, the film has so far produced mostly howls of outrage over the choice of location: a Chinese district notorious for its brutal mistreatment of a blind, self-taught lawyer who enraged Communist Party officials by demanding that they obey the law. Read full article > >

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Hollywood stirs outrage with comedy filmed in notorious Chinese city

BEIJING — China plans to limit reality TV shows and other light entertainment fare shown on satellite television stations as part of a drive to wrest back Communist Party control over cultural industries that are fueling more independent viewpoints. The order from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, known as SARFT, refers to shows that are vulgar or “overly entertaining.” It singles out programs dealing with marital troubles and matchmaking, talent shows, game shows, variety shows, talk shows, and reality programming. Read full article > >

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China plans to curb ‘overly entertaining’ reality TV in push for Communist cultural control

HAVANA — Nearly two-dozen singers and musicians from nine Latin American nations are feting Fidel Castro in a happy-birthday concert on the eve of the former leader’s 85th. The show in the Cuban capital is dubbed the “Serenade to Fidelity.” The Communist Party newspaper Granma calls it an homage to Castro, Cubans and the 1959 revolution. Read full article > >

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Cuba marks Fidel Castro’s 85th birthday with musical bash in Havana

BEIJING — A bank cashier fired for stealing money threw a gasoline bomb inside the bank in northwestern China on Friday, injuring dozens of people, some of whom jumped from a fifth-story window to escape, the local government said. The suspect, Yang Xianwen, fled but was caught by police about nine hours later a short distance away, the government said. Employees of the Tianzhu County Rural Credit Cooperative Union were meeting at about 8 a.m. when Yang threw the gasoline bomb, the propaganda office of the county’s Communist Party said in a statement. Read full article > >

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Fired cashier blamed for gasoline bomb in bank in northwest China that injures dozens

HAVANA — Hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched through Havana and other cities on Sunday to mark May Day in a demonstration touted as a vast show of support for economic changes recently approved by the Communist Party — even though the people holding placards and shouting slogans haven’t seen the details yet.

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Cubans march in support of economic changes, despite lack of details of what they are

Cuban politicians gathered at the Communist Party Congress vote to allow people to buy and sell their homes for the first time in five decades.

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Cuba to allow private property

Cuba holds a huge military parade to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, as a key Communist Party Congress prepares to open.

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Cuba marks Bay of Pigs invasion

HAVANA — Cuban President Raul Castro has told a Communist Party summit that economic changes will not allow the accumulation of private property.

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Raul Castro tells Communist summit reforms will not allow accumulation of private property

Cuba’s ex-president Fidel Castro says he resigned from all his positions when he fell ill in 2006, including Communist Party chief which he was thought to still hold.

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Fidel: I quit party role in 2006