ASIA!

In 2004 the Hong Kong Association of Obesity made an interesting discovery: it found that the men in Hong Kong had been getting fatter since the early 1990s, while the women had been getting slimmer. Three years later it finally discovered why. It seems that Hong Kong women are addicted to popping pills to lose weight and some have carried it to a dangerous extent.

Many rich families aspire to be unique. The Harilela clan, which runs the richest Indian business concern in Hong Kong, doesn’t even need to try—they are unique in the sense that there is only one family in the entire world with that surname.

The Harilelas hail from the Indian (now Pakistani) province of Sindh. A century ago, they were called the Mirchandanis—a surname that ended with the three letters "ani", like so many of their compatriots.

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The man whose laughter preceded him wherever he went could hardly squeeze out a smile as he went to his office. In the staff meeting, Pai "went through the motions" of listening to reports. He then stood up, took out three sealed envelopes, gave them to a trusted lieutenant, and left. Frantic efforts to contact him failed – Pai had switched off his mobile phone, something he had never done outside of a plane.

There is an old saying in China: "When it comes to money, friendship goes out the window". Tell that to director John Woo and his very good friend, Chow Yun-Fat.

Woo is director of a new Chinese movie called Red Cliff, which tells the story of the most famous battle in Chinese history which took place in the second century BCE during the period called The Three Kingdoms. On the first day of the shooting Chow walked off the set without giving any reason.