Hornets kill three, Ferrari driver in hit-and-run, apology for ‘dogs’ jibe, free entry for poets
A service has been set up so motorists from the capital can put their car on a train to Hangzhou and visit the West Lake and other tourist attractions in the area without making the long drive down the country
BEIJING
Car train service
A service has been set up so motorists from the capital can put their car on a train to Hangzhou and visit the West Lake and other tourist attractions in the area without making the long drive down the country, the Qianjiang Evening News reports. The first service carrying about 60 cars arrived on Tuesday.
Written in ancient stone
More than 100 pieces of ancient calligraphy, including 53 examples from the Tang dynasty (618-907), are on exhibition at the Forbidden City, the former imperial palace in the centre of the capital, The Beijing News reports. The pieces, many on show for the first time, were rubbed from stone inscriptions once owned by a collector in the early part of the last century who donated them to the museum. The exhibition runs until November 15.
CHONGQING
Three people were killed and two injured when they got too close to a giant hornets nest in the municipality, the news website Chinanews.com reports. A survivor told police the insects poured out of the nest and attacked them when they put a ladder against a tree in Qianjing district on Wednesday. The species, Vespa mandarinia, is the biggest hornet in the world and kills scores of people on the mainland each year, according to the report.
More boarding schools
About 140 village schools in the municipality have been replaced by boarding schools, Chongqing Daily reports. The authorities believe it will give children whose parents are working away from home in other cities a better education. Thirty more boarding schools were due to open by the end of the year, the report said.
GUANGDONG
Long-haul hawker
A foreigner tried to sell battery chargers for electronic devices at Baiyun airport in Guangzhou on Sunday night as he was waiting for his flight to New Delhi, the Information Times reports. The man had 21 of the chargers in his luggage and started hawking them until he was stopped by security staff.
Gunfight deters residents
Only two families have moved back to their homes in a residential block in Guangzhou’s Haizhu district two weeks after suspected drug dealers traded gunfire with police in the building, the Information Times reports. Residents said they still felt scared after the gunfight in which one resident was killed and a police officer injured.
‘Arms dealers’ face trial
Two men face trial on charges of illegally trading in guns and ammunition in Chenzhou using an online store selling honey as a front for their business, the news website Chinanews.com reports. Police said the two, one from Chenzhou and the other from neighbouring Guangxi , were accused of manufacturing gun parts and selling them online. Police seized more than 1,000 firearm components, an imitation gun and 63 bullets. The men were arrested after a delivery company reported that a parcel containing honey also had gun parts in it.
Poetic people get in free
Tourists can get into an ancient Song dynasty (960-1279) tower in Yueyang for free if they can recite a poem of the period within five minutes, Xinhua reports. The poem is the %368-word Memorial to Yueyang Tower written by the poet Fan Zhongyan.
Qinghai
Snow leopard cub dies
The second of baby twin leopards born at Xining Safari Park has died, the China News Service reports. The cub, born in June, died of heart failure. Her younger sister died two weeks ago of diarrhoea. The report said the park had a breeding centre for the endangered species, housing eight adults.
Phone security crackdown
Telecommunications regulators have ordered checks to be tightened to ensure that people in two ethnic-Tibetan counties in the province, Haibei and Hainan, register their phones under their real names, People’s Posts and Telecommunications News reports. Previous reports suggested that people in the area were breaking rules that allowed the authorities track phone users’ numbers and personal details.
SHANANXI
Fatal Ferrari hit-and-run
A 20-year-old Ferrari driver who killed an elderly woman in a hit-and-run accident in Xianyang has turned himself in to the police, Huashang Daily reports. The man hid in a cornfield after the accident and later fled the scene of the crash in a taxi.
Anti-litter initiative
Tourists in Xian’s Lintong district will be given a free bottle of water if they hand in a bag of rubbish after visiting attractions during the week-long National Day holiday, Xinhua reports. The government was concerned about the amount of rubbish left by visitors during previous public holidays. Attractions in the area include the world-famous Terracotta Warriors.
SHANGHAI
Runaway from sweets ban
A 10-year-old girl from the city who was diagnosed with diabetes ran away from home on Monday after her parents forbade her to eat sweets, the Shanghai Morning Post reports. The girl, who was found by police near her home in Jiading district, at first lied to the police saying she was separated from her parents after a traffic accident. She has since been returned home.
A soccer commentator based in the city has been forced to apologise after he described players from a team from Jiangsu province as dogs, the news website Ifeng.com reports. The commentator from an online television station made the comments when introducing the teams during the first leg of a cup semi-final between Shanghai Shenhua and Jiangsu Sainty. The commentator later apologised in his social media blog. Shanghai won 2-0.
SICHUAN
An artwork shop in Chengdu has attracted attention after distributing business cards to customers at an exhibition that look like 100 yuan notes, the news website Chinanews.com reports. One side looks like cash and the other is printed with the contact information of the business. Some financial experts warned the design might have breached government currency regulations.
Row over contrite boy
A photograph of a boy kneeling down in apology in front of his class in Anyue county near Ziyang has prompted debate on social media, with some blaming the teacher for apparently excessive discipline, Xinhua reports. The education bureau said it had conducted an inquiry and found the boy had decided himself to go down on his knees in apology and his teacher was not in the room at the time.
