Resigned CEO

(CFP)

Wei Zhe, CEO of the business-to-business (B2B) division of Alibaba Group, resigned because of a rise in fraudulent sales. Lu Zhaoxi, the current CEO of Alibaba's unlisted online retailer Taobao.com, will succeed Wei in the position.

Li Xuhui, COO of the B2B division, also resigned for the same reason. Wei and Li were not directly involved in the frauds but took responsibility for a "systemic breakdown in the company's culture of integrity," said Alibaba. Alibaba is China's largest e-commerce group.

An internal investigation conducted by the group discovered more than 1,000 fraud cases in 2009 and 2010. One hundred of its sales representatives, out of a sales workforce of 5,000, were fired for involvement in the scam.

Wei, 41, graduated with a bachelor's degree in International Business Management from Shanghai International Studies University in 1993. He joined Alibaba Group in November 2006 as the president of its B2B division and also served as executive vice president of Alibaba Group.

Honored Writer

(CFP)

Zhang Dongpan, a writer who has published books on soldiers in the China-Burma-India Theater of the War Against Japanese Aggression during World War II, was named Cultural Person of the Year by Sina.com, one of the largest Chinese website portals.

"This prize is not for me, but for those honorable soldiers 70 years ago. This prize expresses the people's desire for truth and affirmation for the action of pursuing truth," said Zhang at the awards ceremony in Beijing.

Zhang is the author of National Memory, which was published in October, 2010. Before that, Zhang led a seven-person team to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and spent two months collecting more than 20,000 pictures of soldiers at the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II.

Zhang, 57, has a legendary life. He was a dead-eye shot as a soldier at the age of 15. He worked in the Palace Museum at the age of 19 and became an expert on calligraphy and painting. Zhang was once the biggest agent for a satellite telephone maker in China. He is now engaged selling military flashlights overseas, which appeared in the Hollywood blockbuster Transformers 2. Zhang started studying the history of the China-Burma-India Theater in 2003 and published two books about it.

Street Singer

(CFP)

Ren Yueli, nicknamed "Xidan Girl," attracted public attention as a street singer when she made an appearance during China Central Television's Spring Festival Evening Gala on February 2.

Ren, 23, was born in a rural family in north China's Hebei Province. She came to Beijing at the age of 16 and first worked as a waitress in a restaurant. She later learned to play the guitar and used her new skills to earn money in an underground passage in Xidan, a business and shopping center in downtown Beijing. She gained overnight popularity and fame, after her performance was shot and uploaded to the Internet by netizens. Her fans found her voice "incredibly pure and touching."

During the past four years, Ren became the main financial support of her family and sent half of her income home. She also saved from her daily earning to buy CDs to improve her skills.