Society

Around China: Official who killed mistress gets death

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-04 13:16

1 Zhejiang

Official who killed mistress gets death

A former official who confessed to killing his mistress was sentenced to death on Tuesday in Zhejiang province.

Xie Zaixing, 48, former chief of the Communist Party of China Committee in Ouhai district, Wenzhou city, was convicted of suffocating Shao Songqiao, a woman with whom he had a nine-year extramarital relationship, to death with a quilt on Nov 15, 2009.

The sentence was handed down at the Intermediate People's Court of Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province. It is not immediately known whether Xie will appeal to a higher court.

Xie was removed from his post before he was arrested on April 5 this year.

2 Guizhou

Gas burst in mine kills 15 workers

Fifteen miners were killed and one was trapped after a gas burst at a coal mine in Guizhou province on Tuesday.

Fifty-nine miners were working underground when the accident happened at the Mingyang Coal Mine in Changgang township, Renhuai city, at around 9:30 am, the provincial work safety bureau said.

Some 43 workers managed to escape the gassy shaft, while one is still missing as of Tuesday night.

3 Guangdong

Guangzhou checks air quality for Asiad

Guangzhou authorities will begin closely monitoring the city's air quality with the help of a new, integrated system in October ahead of the coming Asian Games.

City officials plan to establish a network consisting of a mobile control cab and an online monitoring system along with an audio and satellite examining system. So far, the city has selected 18 spots from which to monitor air quality citywide. Fifteen of these are located in Asian Games stadiums, the city government said in a press conference on Tuesday.

In addition, Guangzhou officials will invite 26 Beijing experts specializing in air pollution to offer their professional services and advice throughout the duration of the Asian Games that will kick off on Nov 12.

4 Hunan

100,000-yuan reward for bomber's capture

Police in Hunan province have announced a reward for clues leasing to the arrest of a man who allegedly caused an explosion in a taxation office that left four dead and 19 injured last week.

Liu Zhuiheng, 51, from Hengyang city, had fled after setting off the explosion in a taxation office in Changsha, the provincial capital, on July 30.

An initial investigation showed the explosion was a planned attack, the police said.

The police have announced a reward of 100,000 yuan ($14,706) for clues leading to Liu's capture.

5 Shaanxi

Five dead, two missing after landslide

Five villagers are dead and two missing after a landslide buried their homes in Shaanxi province early on Tuesday, the provincial emergency response office said.

Seventeen people were believed to be in six houses that were buried under 450,000 cubic meters of mud and rocks in Dongcun village, Baihe county, at around 3 am, said a spokesman for the office.

As of 1:10 pm, rescuers had managed to pull out 10 people, including one seriously injured person and three with minor injuries. The cause of the landslide is being investigated, said the spokesman.

6 Beijing

Developers may lose plots of idle land

The government might snatch from developers the rights to about 80 percent of the country's 1,457 plots of idle land in a bid to fight land hoarding, China Securities Journal reported on Tuesday.

The report said the Ministry of Land and Resources had transferred to the China Banking Regulatory Commission a list of 1,457 pieces of idle land across the country. After reviews, the majority of the plots would be snatched away from developers.

The list shows that more than 70 percent of the idle land is for housing purposes, and the amount of idle land in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hainan and Jiangsu takes up a fourth of the country's total.

The ministry has said that local governments and developers would be penalized for leaving land idle for two years after it is approved for use by the central government.

Plan to fight HIV, TB co-infection

China's Health Ministry on Tuesday detailed a plan to fight co-infection of HIV and tuberculosis (TB).

The ministry ordered HIV/AIDS prevention and control authorities to step up cooperation in data sharing and testing.

The ministry also offered free treatment to patients co-infected with HIV and TB.

It requires HIV/AIDS prevention authorities to annually provide at least one TB examination to people who are HIV positive.

A ministry circular said TB has become one of the leading causes of death among people living with HIV, whose immune systems were compromised by the virus and are more likely to contract TB, and even die of it.

China Daily - Xinhua