Chinese fleet patrols islands

A fleet of four Chinese marine surveillance ships continued to patrol territorial waters off China's Diaoyu Islands on Monday, according to a statement from the State Oceanic Administration. The statement comes exactly a week after the previous briefing by the administration on patrols in the area.

Shanxi

7 dead in N China coal mine blast

Seven workers died in a gas explosion in a coal mine in Shanxi province on Monday, work safety authorities said. A total of 17 people were working in the Sijiazhuang Coal Mine in Xiyang county when the blast occurred at around 3 pm, according to the provincial coal mine safety administration. Seven died at the scene, and another 10 workers escaped unharmed, it added.

Anhui

Death sentence for academy head

The president of a painting academy was sentenced to death by a court in Anhui province on Sunday for raping 23 females, including five underage girls. Huo Linzhen had approached females on the Internet since 2005 and forced them to meet him for sex by sending digitally edited nude pictures to the victims, the Anhui Business Daily reported.

Jiangxi

Officials probed over van accident

Prosecutors in Jiangxi province have launched investigations into the alleged negligence of two officials following a school van accident that killed 11 children last month. The prosecuting office of Guixi is investigating Li Zhiying, a township official, and Wang Ping, a traffic police officer, according to a statement from the office on Monday. An investigation showed that negligence was a primary factor in the crash, the statement said.

Taiwan

Mainland tourists hit record high

Chinese mainland visitors to Taiwan topped 1.97 million in 2012, up 57.6 percent year-on-year to hit a record high, the Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits said on Sunday. Of that number, more than 1.78 million people traveled in groups, the association said.

Shaanxi

Officers who set sex trap jailed

Four police officers in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province, have been sentenced to prison after they were caught running a racket where they used prostitutes as a trap to unlawfully fine the prostitutes' clients and keep the money, Xi'an Evening News reported on Sunday. The criminals include Li Cai, former director of the city's Hujiamiao police station.

Tibet

Road-monitoring stations planned

Three new weather stations will be built to observe local road conditions, an official with the meteorological bureau of the Tibet autonomous region said on Monday. The stations will be built along highway sections in Lhasa, the regional capital, to observe visibility, temperature, wind speed and precipitation on these roads, said the official.

Rare monkeys increase in number

The number of endangered black snub-nosed monkeys in the Tibet autonomous region has increased from 50 in the 1990s to the present 700, local forestry authorities said on Monday. The monkeys are among the world's most endangered primates. They live in mountainous forests in Tibet's Markam county, as well as neighboring Yunnan province's Deqin county.

Henan

Death toll rises to 7 in gas tanker fire

The death toll in a gas tanker fire on Thursday in Henan province has risen to seven, local authorities said on Monday. A tanker truck slammed into a residential building and caught fire on Thursday night in Xixia county in the city of Nanyang, according to the county government.

Guangdong

Charity raises only 100 yuan

Public charity was dealt a direct blow in Guangdong province when a public foundation under the Guangdong Charity Federation raised only 100 yuan ($15.90) and 200 books during a month-long campaign to seek charitable donations. The public foundation launched a campaign on Nov 5 calling for donations for children in the province's poor western mountainous areas.

Sichuan

Fog continues to disrupt flights

Dense fog grounded 151 flights and stranded nearly 10,000 passengers at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport in Sichuan province on Monday. The disruption followed the chaos caused by fog at the airport on Sunday when more than 180 flights were delayed and 35 canceled, affecting more than 15,000 passengers.

Guangxi

Icy weather to persist in region

Icy weather in Guangxi, one of China's major winter vegetable producers, is likely to continue after the regional observatory on Monday renewed an icy-road alert. The meteorological station of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region forecast that further cold weather will bring more sleet and icy rain from Wednesday to Friday. Icy weather has already damaged 8,310 hectares of crops and affected 95,800 people since Friday.

Zhejiang

Behavior at zoo sparks criticism

A group of zoo visitors who harassed a pair of lions at a zoo in Zhejiang province are being criticized by netizens for their behavior. A post on Sina Weibo, a popular micro-blogging site, shows a group of visitors throwing snowballs at a pair of African lions at a zoo in the provincial capital of Hangzhou on Saturday.

China Daily-Xinhua