Ex-Kunming party boss jailed for graft

BEIJING • A Chinese court yesterday jailed a former top city official in the south-west province of Yunnan, who bribed a couple featured on TV in one of China's most high-profile corruption cases, state media said.

Gao Jinsong, the former party boss of provincial capital Kunming, was guilty of giving and taking bribes, the official Xinhua news agency said. He was jailed for 10 years.

Among those bribes were two given to former Yunnan party boss Bai Enpei and his wife, Zhang Huiqing, a former manager at state-owned Yunnan Power Grid, in order to secure promotions.

REUTERS

Man on trial in Japan over stabbing deaths

TOKYO • A man will stand trial over the brutal stabbing deaths of 19 people at a disability centre in Japan last year - the nation's bloodiest crime in decades - the media reported yesterday.

Satoshi Uematsu, 27, claimed he was on a self-styled mission to rid the world of people with mental illness when he allegedly carried out the attack at the Tsukui Yamayuri-en care centre south of Tokyo on July 26.

Uematsu allegedly broke into the centre, tied up caregivers and roamed the facility stabbing sleeping residents and leaving them in pools of blood, the authorities have said.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Rupee notes replaced with fake bills in ATM

NEW DELHI • Indian police have arrested a cash handler after currency notes in a state bank ATM were replaced with children's toy bills, an officer said yesterday.

Mohammad Isha is accused of stealing the real cash and substituting it with fake bills earlier this month when he was refilling the State Bank of India machine in New Delhi.

The dummy 2,000-rupee (S$42) bills were marked Children Bank of India - and carried the misspelt pledge "I promise to pay the barer two thousand coupens".

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE