Six Degrees

Coco Lee (below) gave local celebrity-watchers a stimulation overload recently with a wedding that cost a reported HK$100 million and was attended by the likes of Oprah, Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez. Lee, who made her innermost feelings public with the single I Just Wanna Marry U, has performed in support of the anti-tobacco and anti-racism lobbies, Aids education and the reuse of shopping bags. The trilingual singer also voiced the lead role in the Putonghua version of Disney's Mulan ...

The legend of Hua Mulan, which can be traced back to the sixth century, tells the story of a girl who disguises herself as a man to take her father's place in battle and, after 12 years of fighting, declines any reward and returns home. One of the first works to address gender equality, Mulan has become synonymous with heroism and has even had a crater named after her, on Venus ...

A mere 650 kilometres slimmer than Earth, our 'sister' planet is the brightest natural object in the night sky after the moon, reaching its maximum brightness shortly before sunrise or shortly after sunset. For that reason it has been known since antiquity as both the Morning Star and the Evening Star. So bright is the planet that a sighting of it in 1969 led to a report being filed with the International UFO Bureau, by would-be United States president Jimmy Carter ...

The peanut farmer's presidency was widely viewed as a failure, for which he has redeemed himself with a career in rights advocacy. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who lobbied to have the film Deliverance filmed in his home state of Georgia, admits to having human failings. 'I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times,' he said in a 1976 article that marks him out as the only American president to have been interviewed by Playboy ...