One of China’s top film directors is being investigated for allegedly fathering seven children in violation of the country’s strict one-child policy.

The Bank of England today took a crucial step towards boosting the City as a centre of trading in the Chinese renminbi after agreeing a currency swap deal with the Bank of China.

HSBC has became the first company in the world to launch a renminbi-denominated bond outside a sovereign Chinese territory.

The Year of the Dragon is behind a spike in birth rates – and there's only one way to avoid the one-child policy and get better medical care. In Beijing, Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore reports on the rise of maternity tourism

Shares in Icap, the broking giant founded and run by Michael Spencer, soared yesterday after it said everything in the City is not quite as gloomy as people feared.

Sinclair Pharma and IS Pharma agreed to merge in April, with shares in the combined business (imaginatively christened Sinclair IS Pharma) starting trading in late May. Since then, the stock has been under pressure, easing as volatility in the wider market gathered pace. But the share price received a shot in the arm last week, after the company, which specialises in dermatological and wound care treatments, unveiled plans to buy the privately held US biotech company, Advanced Bio-Technologies (ABT).

It's tempting to seek large returns in volatile sectors – but be careful, warns Emma Dunkley

Amid the furore over the eurozone crisis and this week's make-or-break meeting in Brussels, another equally important summit is in danger of being forgotten.

Stephen Maguire, a former UK Championship winner, is hoping the game's latest exciting prospect, Judd Trump, will not let the trappings of his new-found success go to his head.

The Swedish car manufacturer Saab faced another escalation in its financial woes yesterday after a court-appointed administrator asked for the removal of its protection from bankruptcy.

An Australian businessman detained in southern China was sentenced yesterday to 13 years in jail for embezzlement and bribery.

Pandas are the WAGs of the animal kingdom: superficially attractive, but talentless

Growth, growth, growth... The regrettable lack of it and the imperative to encourage it were the guiding themes of the Chancellor's Autumn Statement, as they have been of practically anything anyone has said about the economy for years. Higher growth boosts national wealth and national morale; falling growth pushes countries into recession, which makes them feel, deservedly, very bad. So runs the consensus.

In the preface to his exhaustive biography of the Chinese statesman Deng Xiaoping, Ezra F Vogel recalls the moment the seed for the book was planted. Vogel, a professor at Harvard who has spent his career immersed in Japan and China, asked a seasoned journalist: "What would best help Americans understand coming developments in Asia" at the start of the 21 century? Without hesitation his friend replied: "Deng Xiaoping."