Wrong number! Yunnan's 'ancient' hand-set building ridiculed
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 09 December, 2014, 9:51pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 10 December, 2014, 1:43am
The new mobile telephone-inspired building in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province (see story below). Photo: SCMP Pictures
BEIJING
Probe into girl’s death
Beijing police are investigating the death of a young girl who had been in the care of a man identified as a foreigner, the Beijing Times reports. The girl, aged 8, was one of 11 Chinese children who had been in the man’s care illegally. She died in hospital from pneumonia and kidney failure. A doctor said she also had heart problems and was severely malnourished. The foreign man had cared for the children, most of them disabled, since 2004 without formally adopting them. The other children are now at a state facility for juveniles.
Lifetime responsibility
The Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has proposed that anyone who works on a construction project in the city could be held responsible for future problems with the buildings, the Beijing Times reports. If structural faults occur in a building before the end of its intended life, then staff – from building workers to architects, engineers and project managers – could be held accountable. The commission is seeking public opinion on the proposal.
HENAN
Money to burn
A business in Luoyang is burning old banknotes to generate electricity, the Dahe Daily reports. A tonne of used banknotes yields 660kWh of electricity, according to the report, and all the province’s worn-out paper money would, in a year, generate the same power as burning 4,000 tonnes of coal. Old banknotes are used for making newsprint and advertising flyers.
Medical staff attacked
Medical facilities and staff in Xinyang have been attacked in recent days, the Dahe Daily reports. In one incident, staff including a pregnant nurse were beaten. %A nurse on duty at another hospital saw coworkers attacked and emergency equipment damaged. Another nurse and a colleague visited a patient at home late at night and were set upon by angry relatives who threatened to kill them if the patient didn’t recover. The nurses recommended hospital admission, but the family refused and beat them up.
JIANGSU
Joke taken to heart
A 17-year-old student from Lianshui county tried to kill himself because of a joke that went bad, the Yangtse Evening Post reports. On Monday, police broke into a flat smelling of gas and found the unconscious teenager on a bed with a knife nearby. When resuscitated, he told police that his neighbours joked that he must be adopted because his parents were always away. After a while, he started believing the taunts and decided to end his life out of sadness.
Smart parcels
Taicang is promoting smart parcel pickup machines, Jschina.com.cn reports. The machines, similar to ATMs, allow couriers to safely store parcels that recipients can retrieve with a unique passcode. The machine offers other services such as bill payments and public transport cards.
LIAONING
Fired for kicking reporter
An urban control officer who kicked a journalist in the stomach in Shenyang has been fired, the Xiandai Jinbao reports. On Sunday, a journalist saw the officer sitting in a parked government car playing computer games. When the reporter asked the officer if that was appropriate, the officer leapt out of the car kicked him.
Leopards maul Tigers
Liaoning’s provincial basketball team, the Liaoning Henye Leopards, defeated the Jilin Northeastern Tigers 87-85, marking their 16th consecutive win in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) league.
SHAANXI
Poor display of characters
An exhibition in Taiyuan entitled the “wall of culture”includes 33 mistakes in the works of famous Chinese poets like Li Bai, Chinanews.com reports. The errors involve the use of characters that sound the same but have different meanings to the one that should have been used. Internet users renamed the exhibit “the embarrassing wall of culture”.
Man finds family dead
A man returned home in Xian on Monday night to find his mother, wife and two-year-old child had been killed, Chinanews.com reports. During the afternoon, money from the man’s bank account kept disappearing mysteriously. When he arrived home, his house was on fire and smelled of gas. Inside he found his family dead in a pool of their own blood. Police are investigating.
SHANDONG
Man dies in ‘shootout’
A man has been killed in a gunfight with police in Qingdao while resisting arrest, Iqilu.com reports. Police were responding to a call about an armed man trying to steal a car, when the suspect raised his weapon. The officers returned fire, hitting him twice. It was then discovered that the man was not carrying a firearm, but an old nail gun that was banned for being too powerful.
Baby suffers rare reaction
An 18-month-old child is in hospital in Heze with a rare condition that destroys skin in a similar way to burns, Iqilu.com reports. He was admitted about two weeks ago with a persistent fever. Instead of getting better, top layers of skin started to peel and bleed, and the boy lapsed into a coma. Toxic epidermal necrolysis was diagnosed, a condition usually caused by a reaction to drugs. It can be treated in a burn units, but the mortality rate is between 25 to 30 per cent.
YUNNAN
Girl’s near miss
Police in Ningbo , in Zhejiang were alerted to the case of a 13-year-old girl who had been sent from Yunnan for a possible arranged marriage to a 29-year-old man, the Xiandai Jinbao reports. Police received an emergency call from the girl, who claimed she had been kidnapped in her home province. Suspecting a case of child trafficking, police found the girl was staying with distant relatives, who said she had come to meet a potential husband. That same afternoon, the 29-year-old unmarried man arrived to the meet her, but he immediately said she was too young.
Wrong number
A large building in Kunming shaped like a mobile phone has attracted much public comment, most of it negative, Youth.cn reports. The main criticism of the newly completed 13-storey building on Huancheng Road is that its design – from a mobile handset a decade old – doesn’t reflect the new smart phone generation.
ZHEJIANG
Wandering implants
A 36-year-old woman in Lanxi has been told that strange growths that appeared around her stomach and pelvis are the remnants of Amazingel breast implants she received five years ago, Zjol.com.cn reports. The patient said she received injections of the gel that gave her C cups at a cosmetic surgery clinic the day after her boyfriend criticised her small breasts. The gel was linked to complications in patients and banned in China eight years ago.
Tourism show in India
Zhejiang’s provincial tourism bureau opened its second promotion in the Indian capital, New Delhi, yesterday, the People’s Daily reports. The theme of “Poetry and Painting in Zhejiang” represents the culture and history of the region.
