Serial rapist Zhenhao Zou is facing a second trial with police and prosecutors preparing to charge the Chinese student with a second round of offences. Zou, 28, is already serving a minimum 24 years for attacking 10 young women in London and China. Sources say there have been discussions between detectives and lawyers for the Crown Prosecution Service about at least one more trial for the Chinese student. Zou was sentenced on Thursday to life imprisonment, even offering to be chemically castrated in hopes of getting a lighter sentence. Since…
Tag: London
US weighs in with concerns over China’s proposed ‘super-embassy’ in London
A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air”, campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furore over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies”. The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint…
Serial rapist Zhenhao Zou jailed for minimum of 24 years
A serial rapist feared to be one of the worst sexual offenders in British history has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 24 years for drugging and raping 10 women in the UK and China. Zhenhao Zou, a 28-year-old PhD student, drugged and filmed himself raping women between 2019 and 2024 after luring them to his flat with invitations to study or have drinks. Police fear more than 50 other women could be victims. Since his conviction, more than 20 women have come forward to police, and…
China considers lifting sanctions on UK parliamentarians as relations warm
China is considering lifting the sanctions it imposed on UK parliamentarians in 2021, in the latest sign of warming relations between London and Beijing. The Chinese government is reviewing the sanctions, which it introduced four years ago in response to what it called “lies and disinformation” about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, according to two UK government sources familiar with the conversations. Asked to comment, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in London said: “China has always attached importance to developing relations with the UK. Currently, UK-China relations are showing…
Trump announces US-China trade talks in London next week
Senior US administration officials will meet with a Chinese delegation on Monday in London for the next round of trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, Donald Trump said on Friday. The meeting comes after a phone call between Trump and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, on Thursday, which the US president described as a “very positive” conversation as the two countries attempt to break an impasse over tariffs and global supplies of rare earth minerals. The treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and US trade representative, Jamieson Greer,…
Met police ‘maintain concerns’ about China super-embassy plan
China’s proposed “super-embassy” in London would require additional police officers to deal with any large protests involving thousands of people, the Metropolitan police have said before a decision by ministers. Despite having dropped its official objection to the proposals, the Met “maintains concerns” that large protests of more than 500 people outside the embassy would impede traffic and “require additional police resource”, said the deputy assistant commissioner Jon Savell In a letter sent to the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith and to the Home Office earlier this month, Savell…
Ping Pong review – cheerful, far-fetched caper that dives into London’s 1980s Chinatown
There’s a sweet charm to Leong Po Chih’s 1986 mystery-comedy Ping Pong, set in and around the restaurant businesses of London’s Chinatown, now rereleased. It was produced by Film Four, who two years later brought out Mike Newell’s comparably set Soursweet, based on the Timothy Mo novel, although that is more serious. Ping Pong is eminently likable, though for me there is something perhaps a little soft-edged and carefully paced which dampens the energy a bit. It is a cheerfully far-fetched caper that could have taken some influence from the…
Why no concern at prisoners being paid just 50p an hour to work? | Brief letters
Reading another article about Chinese prisoners possibly making products for sale in the UK (Chinese prisoner’s ID card apparently found in lining of Regatta coat, 1 December), I wonder why there is no concern that British prisoners are forced to work for UK companies for about 50p an hour? This work provides no training for release and serves only to enrich private prison contractors.David AdamsDarlington, County Durham How appropriate that on the day you note that Katherine Rundell, the author of The Golden Mole, has won the Waterstones book award…
The London art student whose Chinese political slogan mural caused a storm
When Wang Hanzheng, a Chinese student at the Royal College of Art, attended a graduate show in a warehouse on Brick Lane in east London in July, he found the space crowded, unimaginative and unfit for presenting art. It was with this in mind that at 11pm one night earlier this month Wang and a team of 22 others painted a Chinese political slogan in bold red characters along a nearby wall stretching nearly 100 metres. The artwork – which spelled out the Chinese government’s “socialist core values”, including the…
China’s new London embassy on hold pending Westminster intervention
China has temporarily shelved plans to build a new embassy in London, angrily accusing the British government of not doing enough to force through planning permission for the project. China had been given until Thursday to file an appeal to Tower Hamlets council in east London after the proposals for the embassy were rejected. Beijing bought the Royal Mint Court site for its new embassy in 2018 for £255m, with the plan to move from its long-term but relatively cramped site in Portland Place, near Regent’s Park. Chinese officials appear…