A village near Baoshan is in shock after the arrest of a man who stands accused of murdering two children and eating their brains, allegedly to cure his epilepsy.

29-year-old Wang Zhaoxu (王朝旭), a resident of the village of Xianqi, is awaiting trial in a local detention center for the grisly murders of a three-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy earlier this year.

Another villager reportedly discovered Wang crouching over the boy's corpse in a field on January 23.

Zhang Huansheng told local media that when he approached Wang and the dead boy, Wang began shaking the child's body and said, "My child has passed out and I'm trying to wake him up. Baby, wake up, wake up."

Later that day after Wang's arrest, the girl's body was found in another part of the village. Both children's skulls were opened, their brains missing.

Wang was attempting to cure his severe epilepsy by eating a mixture of children's brains and earthworms, which is reportedly a local folk treatment for epilepsy.

The names of both victims are being withheld while the investigation continues.

Crime boss invokes coal mining alibi
Alleged Kunming gang leader Shen Chao (沈超) started his criminal trial yesterday in a Kunming court along with 32 other members of his gang, according to a Kunming Information Hub report.

Shen stands accused of committing a number of serious crimes between 2006 and 2009, including organizing illegal gambling, leading a criminal gang, possession of an illegal firearm, and murder.

The story quotes Shen as denying the crimes by explaining that he was, "too busy investing in coal mines in Zhaotong to commit the crimes."

The trial is expected to conclude today.

Kunming bombards clouds with no result
Kunming meteorologists fired 40 cloud seeding rockets from March 9 to 10 in an attempt to draw rainfall from the clouds covering the city earlier this week.

A Kunming Information Hub article on the operation reports that a light drizzle did fall in some areas around the city, but that the maximum recorded rainfall was just 0.7 millimeters.

As Yunnan's worst drought on record intensifies, government officials are under increasing pressure to appear to be taking action to address the widespread water shortages, crop failures, and wildfires that have been a result of the drought.

According to the article, as of March 9, 3,326 rockets and 3,019 shells had been fired in cloud seeding operations in southwestern China. There has been no mention of what substances are being used, although silver iodide is widely used around the world.

Kunming has an average annual rainfall of 1,040 millimeters, but the total for 2009 was just 571 millimeters.

Water management official commits suicide
The drought in Yunnan appears to have claimed its first fatality – Chinese media is reporting that a water management official in Lufeng county jumped from his office window on March 3, apparently due to mounting work pressures.

In addition to dealing with the drought, Lufeng water management bureau director Li Jianrong (李建荣) was also coping with the aftermath of a magnitude 5.1 earthquake that struck the area on February 25.

Li's colleagues told reporters that he was facing enormous work pressure from addressing both the drought and the earthquake.

Airport "mafia" ring broken
Local media are reporting that police arrested five men yesterday who have been terrorizing vendors, tourist agents, and other solicitors since 2008 at the Kunming Airport in a mafia-style shakedown scheme.

Police stated that the gang's boss, surnamed Liu, and its other members were all from either Shandong province or northeast China. Their alleged criminal activities consisted primarily of threatening people offering services at the airport with physical violence if those people did not pay the gang a fee.

Police reportedly launched the investigation that led to Tuesday's arrests in late 2009 after receiving reports of "fierce thugs" roaming the airport. Police say that so far they know of at least 100,000 yuan in coerced payments that the gang collected last year.

Drought may affect electricity supply
In addition to threatening access to drinking water and damaging crops, Yunnan's record drought is now endangering the province's ability to generate sufficient levels of electricity.

According to a Xinhua Net report, Yunnan Power Grid Corporation president Liao Zelong predicts that low hydroelectric dam reservoirs will cause a 20 percent shortfall in the province's power generation capacity through the end of May, when the rainy season is expected to begin.

The problem has been compounded by breakdowns and coal shortages at coal-fired power plants.

It remains unclear whether electricity can be imported from surrounding provinces, or if any other measures can be taken to meet demand.

Pipelines to move oil and gas through Kunming
Reuters is reporting that two pipelines will be built to carry oil and gas from Myanmar into China through the Kunming area.

The first will be completed within the next two years and will carry up to 12 million metric tons of crude oil every year from the Myanmar port city of Kyauk Phyu, helping to streamline shipment of crude oil to China from Africa and the Middle East by going overland and avoiding the narrow Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia.

A refinery with a capacity of 200 thousand barrels per day is being built in Kunming to process oil from this pipeline.

The other pipeline, with an unknown completion date, will carry up to 12 billion cubic meters of Myanmar natural gas into China every year. Spurs of both pipelines could eventually extend as far as Nanning and Chongqing.

While these projects would seem to strengthen Yunnan's position as an economic gateway to Southeast Asia, China and Myanmar's rocky relationship and Myanmar's history of political canniness signal that they are not without risks.

Photo: Kunming Information Hub

Kunming police showed video at a press conference yesterday which they claim proves that the death of burglary suspect Xing Kun (郉鯤) in police custody on Saturday was suicide and not torture, as claimed by Xing's parents.

The video reportedly shows Xing, 29, alone in an interrogation room unlocking his handcuffs with a banknote and attempting unsuccessfully to hang himself with a bootlace, according to a China Daily report.

The moment of Xing's death was not captured on film because he was in a corner of the room outside of the surveillance camera's range, the report said.

In a phone interview with the China Daily, Xing's father Xing Caifang (郉才芳) criticized the police and municipal procurator, who jointly held the press conference, for not notifying him that the video was going to be shown to reporters.

He also expressed confusion as to why police would have allowed his son to bring a bootlace or anything else that could be used to commit suicide into the interrogation room.

The municipal procurator reportedly performed an autopsy on Xing Kun in front of relatives – including his father – on Tuesday.

"The evidence along with the autopsy results are still not solid enough to convince me," the elder Xing said. "One day the truth will finally come out."

General reaction to the case on the Chinese internet has not been favorable to the police, who have had a less than stellar year in terms of public relations. In 2009, the Kunming Public Security Bureau has had to deal with several high-profile cases involving alleged police misconduct, including two previous detainee deaths and a poorly handled case involving alleged child prostitution.

A Sohu report on the Xing Kun case cited one netizen's comment on the case as a typical reaction by people elsewhere in the country.

"Could it be that he hung himself with a cobweb?" the commenter asked.

A man detained for stealing hanged himself in a police interrogation room early Saturday morning, according to Kunming police. The death is the most recent instance in which detainees have died under questionable circumstances in police custody, according to a China Daily report.

Xing Kun (邢鲲), 29, had been arrested on Friday for allegedly stealing Sony PlayStation Portable game units reportedly worth 50,000 yuan (US$7,300). Police said he was put into an interrogation room at 4 am on Saturday where he reportedly confessed to stealing the machines and was found dead less than four hours later.

Kunming Municipal Public Security Bureau spokesman Yao Zhihong denied any police misconduct, telling reporters "Xing was healthy before going into the interrogation waiting room. He went through some emotional changes during the interrogation, but no torture was used."

According to police, the video camera in the interrogation room in which Xing allegedly died does not show him hanging himself because he was out of the camera's range.

Police originally told Xing's family that he hanged himself with a shoelace, according to a Dushi Shibao report, later saying that he used a strip of cloth to hang himself.

A male relative of Xing's surnamed You also told Dushi Shibao that upon seeing Xing's corpse, it appeared that he had sustained injuries to his temples, throat, the backs of his hands and his fingernails.

Yao seemed to tacitly acknowledge the possibility that foul play may be involved.

"We won't try to cover up anything if any official is found responsible for this," he said.

Prior to his recent arrest and death, Xing had been convicted of theft four times between 1996 and 2008, police said.

Xing's death is the third high-profile detainee death in Kunming in the last year. In February, the death of 24-year-old Li Qiaoming drew nationwide attention when Jinning police said he died while playing "elude the cat", a Chinese version of hide and seek.

Another detainee, 43-year-old Wang Shikun, died in Kunming police custody in August after catching a cold.

Provincial security officials are currently investigating Xing Kun's death, according to China Daily.

Despite its reputation elsewhere in China as one of the most beautiful cities in the country, Kunming has no shortage of eyesores, one of the main examples being the metal anti-burglar cages (防盗笼) on the outside of apartment windows.

If the city government has its way, most of these cages will be gone by the end of 2010.

Kunming media has been abuzz in recent days with the decision by municipal authorities to get rid of the ubiquitous and unsightly cages that protect the windows of residences throughout the city.

In an apparent attempt to improve the city's appearance, cages or bars protruding from windows on buildings should be removed by the end of next year, according to officials from relevant departments interviewed by Dushi Shibao.

Government sources said windows with inlaid bars or bars flush against their windows are not in violation of the new rule. No information has been given regarding the penalties for noncompliance.

As for compensation for the cost of cage/bar removal, a Xinhua report says that each of Kunming's district governments will decide how much to compensate occupants required to take action.

According to Xinhua, Kunming's anti-cage initiative is modeled after a similar rule in the city of Hangzhou.

The local government has decided to apply the new anti-cage rule to itself first, with Xishan district government offices being held up as an example after commencing the removal of all cages and bars protruding from windows. Afterward the campaign is expected to be gradually extended to the rest of the city.

Death sentences were handed out today to five members of a Kunming-based gang accused of involvement in drug trafficking, fraud, racketeering, extortion, prostitution and selling counterfeit money, according to a Xinhua report.

The head of the gang, Jiang Jiatian, 56 was sentenced to death along with his mistress Yang Jufen, her father Yang Guoying, and Xie Mingxiang, a fourth member of the 41-member gang's core. Most of the gang members were relatives or friends of Jiang.

The four convicted gang leaders were sentenced in the Intermediate Court of Kunming, with Li Wencai, a fifth gang member, receiving a death sentence with two-year reprieve. The remaining members of the gang were dealt sentences ranging from 18 months to life in prison.

According to a spokesman for the court, Jiang made his initial money in the 1990s trafficking drugs, later investing his ill-gotten gains in hotels, teahouses and internet cafes around Kunming.

The gang reportedly came under police scrutiny after residents of more than three villages around Kunming complained about feeling unsafe. Some of the complaints included being threatened with violence until agreeing to pay 1,000 yuan (US$146) for a pot of tea, or being beaten up after objecting to receiving fake bills as change.

An American environmental activist evading the United States government was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday in Dali for manufacturing drugs, according to a New York Times report.

Former New Jersey resident Justin Franchi Solondz, 30, who had been living in Dali under the name Isaac Cox, was arrested in Dali in March of this year with illegal drugs and faked Canadian identification, the Times reported his parents as saying.

According to Solondz's father, police found more than 30 pounds of marijuana at the apartment he rented in Dali, where it was buried in the courtyard. The prosecutor for the case characterized the inside of the younger Solondz's home as a "drug laboratory", he said.

When finally brought before a court for trial in October, Solondz pleaded guilty to the drug charges he faced and requested deportation back to the US, which he was denied.

After finishing his Chinese prison sentence, Solondz will be deported to the United States where he awaits his arson-related charges.

On the other side of the Pacific, Solondz is on the FBI's wanted list for conspiracy to commit arson, arson of a government building, arson of property used in interstate commerce, use and carrying of a destructive device during and in relation to a crime of violence and making unregistered destructive devices.

The FBI accuses Solondz of being involved with a splinter group of the Earth Liberation Front, a decentralized environmental activist group which the US government declared the top domestic terrorist threat in early 2001. He was indicted in absentia in 2006 for his alleged involvement in a three-state arson spree in the American west in 2005.

It is widely believed that the Chinese and American governments met regarding the case and that Solondz received a relatively mild sentence as a result of US diplomacy. In October of this year, UK citizen Akmal Shaikh was sentenced to death for dealing drugs in Xinjiang in northwestern China.

While standing before judges at the intermediate court in Dali, Solondz praised Dali as a "paradise" and apologized to the people of China for his actions.

Justin Solondz 2002 photo: FBI via New York Times