Society

At least six people died when a fire engulfed an apartment building in east China's Zhejiang Province Thursday, firefighters said.

Rescuers had found six bodies in the debris of the two-storied house in Fenghua City.

The fire brigade of Fenghua received a report of the blaze at 3:30 a.m. Thursday. The fire, which spread to about 200 square meters, was extinguished in half an hour.

The public security authorities are investigating the cause of the blaze and how many people were in the building when the fire began.

A new way of selecting students for higher education being piloted by the nation's top university has been slammed by some critics as still being "biased" in favor of academic achievement, instead of offering a way for students with other outstanding abilities.

The accusation came after Peking University on Monday night supported all 90 nominees put forward under the pilot program from 39 high schools nationwide. Most of the students recommended by their respective headmasters had excellent academic performance as a leading attribute.

Many headmasters said their recommendations had "top grades" and listed awards won by the students, suggesting academic achievement was still the most important factor in selecting students.

The director of a detention house who took two prisoners out to buy sex is now a prisoner himself.

The director, surnamed Hua, was charged with abusing the power of his post and sentenced to a year and a half in prison.

"Whether Hua himself bought sex or not is not important, as taking two detainees out for entertainment was enough to support the accusation," said Jin Li'an, the head of the research office for the Jianye district court in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province.

The two detainees, surnamed Huang and Guo, were the heads of local gangs and knew Hua well.

In September last year, Huang and Guo, detained in the Jiangdu detention house, asked Hua to bring them their "girlfriends".

A former chief of the salt administration bureau in Guangdong province admitted in court to accepting bribes during his tenure, saying his mistress forced him to do so.

Shen Zhiqiang, former director of the Guangdong salt administration bureau, accused of receiving 650,000 yuan ($95,200) in bribes, pleaded guilty in the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court, the Guangzhou Daily reported.

Shen said he accepted the money only because his "mistress threatened to expose their relationship" if he refused.

Besides Shen, six other officials will also be tried for their involvement in what is believed to be one of the biggest salt related graft cases ever exposed in the country.