Xinhua Asia-Pacific news summary at 1600 GMT, April 9

SEOUL -- South Korean prosecutors on Monday indicted former president Lee Myung-bak over corruption charges including bribery, embezzlement and tax evasion.

Lee, who ended his single, five-year presidency in early 2013, was taken into custody in March after being questioned over a series of corruption charges, all of which he has denied. (South Korea-Former president-Indictment)

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NEW DELHI -- Around 20 school children were feared dead in India's northern state of Himachal Pradesh on Monday evening, when the school-bus they were travelling in fell into a deep gorge, a senior state government official confirmed to Xinhua.

The mishap took place in the state's Kangra district in Nurpur city. There were around 40 students in the ill-fated bus, 20 of them got injured. (India-Road accident)

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MANILA -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday that he foresees the relations between China and the Philippines to "bloom into something like a big and beautiful flower" in the coming months.

In a news conference before boarding the plane to attend the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), Duterte vowed to enhance cooperation with China, saying the Philippines needs China "more than anything else at this time." (Philippines-China-Duterte)

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TOKYO -- Japan's Finance Ministry on Monday admitted that one of its officials asked the operator of a controversial nationalist school with connections to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife to lie about the reason it received a huge discount for a state-owned plot of land.

Mitsuru Ota, who heads the ministry's bureau in charge of state-owned property, told an upper house audit committee that one of his officials called Moritomo Gakuen's lawyer in February last year, urging the operator to say that thousands of trucks were used to transport construction waste. (Japan-Scandal) Enditem