Chongqing

Lei appealsbribery sentence

A former official embroiled in a high-profile sex video scandal appealed his 13-year jail sentence for bribery in Chongqing on Wednesday. Lei Zhengfu, former Party secretary of Chongqing's Beibei district, submitted the appeal after consulting with family members and his lawyer, the Chongqing No 1 Intermediate People's Court said. The 55-year-old former official appeared in a sex video that was posted online in November.

Inner Mongolia

Official sacked for discipline breach

Wang Suyi, a senior official of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region Party committee, has been dismissed from his post, the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee confirmed on Wednesday. Wang was the head of the local committee's United Front Work Department. The CPC Central Committee made the decision because Wang is suspected of serious disciplinary violations and relevant procedures are currently under way, according to an official.

Beijing

Woman executed for drug trafficking

A 35-year-old Filipino woman convicted of drug trafficking in China was executed on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. The woman was arrested at Hangzhou International Airport in January 2011 after heroin was found in her luggage, and she was later convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to death. The report quoted Philippine Foreign Affairs Department spokesman Raul Hernandez as saying that the woman, who has not been identified publicly, was executed on Wednesday morning. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that Chinese judicial authorities made a "fair judgment".

Court to release verdicts online

The Supreme People's Court said on Tuesday that the court's legal written judgments will be released online in a move to increase transparency. Except in special cases, all legal judgment documents will be released on the Internet, according to a new regulation of the court. The documents will be published on court.gov.cn/zgcpwsw, and the first series of such documents has already been released. The court said it would protect individuals' private information, for example by concealing their addresses.

Guangdong

Regulation aims to protect helpers

A regulation that seeks to protect good Samaritans from false accusations of injuring assisted victims has been approved by the Shenzhen People's Congress. The regulation will take effect on Aug 1. The regulation states that when a victim accuses a good Samaritan of causing or aggravating an injury, the victim has to provide valid evidence to back up the claim. Controversial verdicts in recent years have led people to think twice before offering help. In one such case, in 2006, Peng Yu, a resident of Nanjing, Jiangsu province, helped a woman who had fallen, but the woman then accused Peng of causing the accident in the first place.

Gansu

Lethal injectionfor poisoning milk

A woman received a lethal injection on Tuesday for lacing milk with nitrite, which killed three children and sickened more than 30 others in Pingliang, Gansu province, a local court said on Wednesday. Ma Xiuling and her husband Wu Guangquan deliberately added nitrite, an industrial salt, to fresh milk produced by a business rival in April 2011, according to a statement from Pingliang Municipal Intermediate People's Court. They committed the act against their competitors after several disputes, it said. A one-month-old baby and two children under the age of 2 died after drinking the poisonous milk. In November 2011, Ma was sentenced to death by the Pingliang court for intentionally poisoning milk and Wu was given life in prison.

Shanghai

New subway cams to snap riders

All passengers of Shanghai's subway will have four frontal snapshots taken by video monitoring systems installed last month to upgrade subway security, according to a report by Eastday.com, Shanghai's Internet news portal, on Tuesday. The heightened surveillance can help police track and locate law violators quickly, including those suspected of sexual harassment. The subway police upgraded security for the city's entire subway system on June 8.

Fujian

Man wins 14.25m in two jackpots

A migrant worker in Fujian province pocketed more than 14.25 million yuan ($2.28 million) in combined jackpots in nine days, Yangcheng Evening News reported. The man, who was only identified as Wang, bought 36 lottery tickets with the same number in a lottery ticket outlet in Ningde, Fujian province, on June 18, winning 5.02 million yuan. Eight days later, he hit the jackpot again and won a total of 9.23 million yuan. Wang continued to work on a construction site with his wife after he won the first lottery but said he couldn't sleep after the second windfall.

Xinhua - China Daily

(China Daily USA 07/04/2013 page3)