Nine people died and 10 were injured when a minibus plunged into a 100-metre-deep ravine in Hubei yesterday, the local government said. Tan Ming , of the work-safety supervision bureau in Jianshi county, said the vehicle veered off the road at around 11am in Guandian township, in the Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture. Xinhua

A senior police official in Xian, Shaanxi, committed suicide by jumping from the fourth floor of the public security bureau building on Monday morning, the police announced on their official microblog. They said He Shengli had suffered from serious insomnia for years. Some internet users, however, wondered whether He had been implicated in the case of a former banker in Yulin who was found to have four different household registrations and owned 41 properties in Beijing. He Huifeng

Commentators described penalties for corruption in Chinese football as inadequate after 33 people were banned for life and Shanghai Shenhua were stripped of the 2003 league title. A number of clubs and individuals were punished by the Chinese Football Association for widespread match-fixing scandals that have blighted the game in China. But the measures would not deter corruption, football pundits said, because ever more money was flowing into the sport. AFP