From The International Herald Tribune:
Wang Guangmei, the former Chinese first lady who was persecuted in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution with her husband, President Liu Shaoqi, has died, news reports said Monday. She was 85.
Wang, forced to wear a necklace of Ping-Pong balls when she was purged at the height of the Cultural Revolution, died of heart and kidney failure at a Beijing military hospital on Friday, the United Daily News in Taiwan reported.
Jia Qinglin, ranked fourth in the Communist Party hierarchy, will attend her funeral at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in western Beijing on Friday, according to the Beijing-funded Wen Wei Po newspaper in Hong Kong. [Full Text]
See also on CDT: Wang Guangmei, China’s Former First Lady, Dies and a post from Ricard Spencer’s blog about reporting of her death in the Chinese media.