Society

Police have summoned three high-ranking officials of China's soccer association to help with an investigation into match-fixing and gambling scandals, Ministry of Public Security (MPS) announced Thursday.

Police in Liaoning Province summoned Nan Yong and Yang Yimin, both vice chairmen of the Chinese Football Association (CFA), and Zhang Jianqiang, former director of the association's referee committee, said a statement released by the MPS.

"With the full support from the sports department, the crackdown on manipulating domestic soccer matches through commercial bribery has showcased a firm attitude in fighting corruption and rectifying the soccer sector," said the statement.

"The crackdown also gives us confidence and hope to revitalize the development of Chinese soccer," it said.

Officials with the CFA's headquarters in Beijing either remained silence or refused to comment on the ministry's statement but confirmed that the two vice chairmen had not appeared in the association's building since Monday.

At an internal meeting of the CFA held on Wednesday, two other vice chairpersons Xue Li and Lin Xiaohua officially took over the jobs of Nan and Yang.

At least eight people were killed and six injured when an over-loaded minibus rolled into a river Thursday in Sichuan Province, local authorities said Friday.

An eight-seat minibus, carrying 14 people, veered off a road at about 4:25 p.m. in Ebian County, Leshan City, said a county government spokesman.

The vehicle rolled about 30 meters into a river.

Six people, including the driver, died at the scene.

Two others died later after failing to response to emergency treatment.

The dead were five men and three women.

Among the six injured, two suffered serious injuries, but it was unclear if their conditions were life-threatening.

Officials from the county government are investigating the accident.

China's leading Internet search engine, Baidu, has filed a lawsuit in a New York court against a U.S. firm that managed its domain registration, Baidu said in a statement on Wednesday.

Baidu is seeking damages from its U.S. domain name registration service provider Register.com, Inc., following an attack on its website www.baidu.com last week, the Beijing-based company said in the statement.

Baidu's website was paralyzed for several hours after a cyber-attack on Jan. 12, denying users from many places around the world access.

Top Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou's controversial film "A Simple Noodle Story" will compete for the Golden Bear at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, the organizer has announced.

Zhang's black comedy is one of two Chinese films vying for the Berlin festival's highest honor. The other is Wang Quan'an's "Tuan Yuan" ("Apart Together"), the festival's opening film.

"A Simple Noodle Story" was adapted from the Coen Brothers' "Blood Simple". It was Zhang's first film since his spectacular Oscar-nominated film, "Curse of the Golden Flower", in 2006.