Naomi Rovnick

Good morning, Quartz readers! 

Liquidators of China Medical Technologies, a maker of medical testing equipment that was once listed on Nasdaq and is now bankrupt, are alleging that around $400 million in cash the firm raised in stock and bond sales has gone missing. The allegations are in a complaint that the liquidators filed late last month to the Hong Kong police and the FBI.

Back in July, Bill Gross of bond fund PIMCO proclaimed “the death of equities. He said the average 6.6% annual gain that stocks have posted since 1912 was a “historical freak.” If he had made this announcement back in September 2008, he would have looked like a mystic genius. However, as the Wall Street Journal commented at the time of Gross’ statement, “maybe it’s a buy signal for stocks—go the other way.”

After a long delay, China finally approved the domestic launch of the iPhone 5. Apple shareholders would expect this to be a major event, but signs are it won’t be.

Good morning, Quartz readers in the Americas! 

Earlier this week, a number of Chinese state-run newspapers mistook satirical website The Onion for a real news outlet and reprinted its spoof story that pint-sized North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was voted the “sexiest man alive for 2012” as fact. The state run People’s Daily, which has now removed (Chinese) its version of the story, ran a 55-photo slideshow of Kim looking, in its opinion, smoulderingly sexy.

Good morning, Quartz readers in the Americas! 

Good morning, Quartz readers!

Night after night in Singapore, Bahasa Indonesian-speaking tourists descend on the glittering designer mall and vast casino at Marina Bay, a glitzy harbor front playground for wealthy Southeast Asians. Most visitors from Indonesia are business people, shopping, dining, gambling, getting medical checkups. But some are politicians, spending money their official incomes would suggest they do not have.

Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister of Singapore has said the Asian city state is in danger of becoming “a retirement home” unless its citizens get on and have more babies. He is not the only leader of a developed country that should be worrying about this. Fertility rates have dropped all over the developed world. Germany, for example, has an average birth rate of 1.4 children per mother. Stronger Asian economies and some emerging markets have as much of a problem as struggling European ones. In Hong Kong, the average birth rate is 1.1 child per woman. In South Korea, the rate is 1.2, according to World Bank data. In Russia, 1.5.

Good morning Quartz readers in Europe!

Good morning Quartz readers!

China Development Bank is a lender that goes where others may fear to tread. In the last few months,  this Beijing government-owned lender has stepped up to finance management buyouts of several US-listed Chinese companies that were accused of accounting irregularities by short sellers or enterprising Chinese media. The latest such deal has just been announced: Zhongpin, a Chinese pork processor (known by its Nasdaq stock symbol, HOGS), said it was being taken off the stock market by its chairman, supported by a $320 million loan from CDB. The Chinese lender has set aside $1 billion to finance such “take-privates.”

Good morning Quartz readers!

A Chinese drama whose English name would translate as “Big guy gets married“—a play on a Chinese saying that when a man is an adult, he should get married—topped the TV charts last month, according to Chinese state media. It follows the efforts of a group of men to find a wife.  In this episode (in Chinese, but easy for a non-Chinese-speaker to follow), a 35-year-old man attends a wedding, returns home to an empty apartment, and falls ill. At the hospital, he tries to chat up a young nurse, who asks, “so where is your family?” He answers “I am not that old,” looking glum. She then glances at his personal details and says: “You are 35. Not married yet?” He looks ashamed.

Thailand is on the alert. Anti-government protestors look set to hit the streets of the capital Bangkok in droves tomorrow. The Thai cabinet has invoked a security law it uses during times of unrest giving it powers to close roads and seal off buildings. And there are dark mutterings about an alleged plot to kidnap foreign investment-friendly Prime Minister Yingluck Shiniwatra.

Good morning, Quartz readers!

Good morning, Quartz readers!

SINGAPORE— American cities such as Chicago and Washington, DC have razed high-rise public housing projects in the belief—supported by studies—that they encourage crime. In Singapore, the government thinks they’re a good thing. The Asian city-state’s Housing Development Board, which plans and develops municipal housing, keeps building new ones.

Good morning, Quartz readers!

Good morning, Quartz readers!

Good morning, Quartz readers!

Good morning, Quartz readers!

This item has been corrected.