China Digest, November 15, 2012

BEIJING

Top flight travel

Hainan Airlines will begin offering luxury flights between Beijing and Shenzhen next month featuring 34 first-class seats with sleeping berths, as well as 82 business-class seats, the Yangcheng Evening News reports. A one-way ticket will cost at least 2,100 yuan, but some online commentators said that was too expensive for a three-hour flight.

Out of the running

Several Beijing universities have cancelled long-distance running events in their annual athletic competitions, fearing that undergraduates are too out of shape to compete and may suffer injuries, the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily reports. Physical education teachers said most undergraduates sit indoors all day studying, and few get enough exercise. The women's 3,000-kilometre race and the men's 5,000-kilometre race will no longer take place.

FUJIAN

Mum sells son for trip

Police arrested a young mother from Minhou county, Fuzhou , who allegedly sold her two-year-old son to pay for a trip to meet her lover in Zhejiang , the Strait City Daily reports. The woman left her partner, the child's father, in early October and allegedly sold the boy at a bus station for 5,000 yuan. She then bought new clothes, a mobile phone and a bus ticket to Zhejiang. The boy was found and returned to his father.

Ready to pedal

More than 500 athletes from 22 teams will participate in this year's three-day, 300-kilometre, Tour of Fuzhou bicycle race, which will take place in the provincial capital from Sunday to Tuesday, China News Service reports. Twelve of the teams will be made up of foreigners from nine European and Asian countries, and the 10 remaining teams will be composed of undergraduates from mainland universities.

GANSU

Jail for illegal flat sale

A 30-year-old woman has been sentenced to 12 years in jail and fined 10,000 yuan in Lanzhou for illegally selling an apartment she did not own, the Lanzhou Morning Post reports. The court found that the woman used to rent the apartment, but when her lease expired, she found a man to pay her 800,000 yuan for it. The woman was also ordered to forfeit the payment.

Fake cop behind bars

A man has been sentenced to one year in jail by the Chengguan district court in Lanzhou after he pretended to be a police officer to steal two scooters last year, the Lanzhou Morning Post reports. The man approached two scooter owners on separate occasions and said he was an officer who needed the vehicles for an emergency. He was arrested after one of the victims called the real police.

GUANGDONG

Toeing the line

Assembly-line workers at a shoe factory in Dongguan have come to an agreement with the factory's owners after being banned from wearing shoes at work, because the owners feared they would steal expensive leather shoes off the line and sneak them out by wearing them, The Southern Metropolis Daily reports. Workers complained after they were told they could wear only slippers, even in the winter, so the owners agreed to allow them all to wear the same kind of white sneakers.

Plans boost home costs

The average price of housing in Nansha district, Guangzhou, increased to 9,651 yuan a square metre this month - a high for the year - after the State Council announced plans to boost infrastructure development in the area during the next five years, such as by constructing public utilities, schools and hospitals, China News Service reports. However, analysts said the rapid price increase was not yet justified, as the area is remote and would not feature the promised infrastructure for a few years.

HUBEI

Girl joins dad's drug deals

A drug dealer caught recently in Zhijiang was found to have brought his seven-year-old daughter with him when he sold 200 grams of methamphetamine and 50 Ecstasy tablets earlier this month, China News Service reports. The father said he brought the girl along on his drug sales because there was nobody to look after her, as the mother had left. Police placed the girl in the care of relatives.

Clean academic record

More than 3,800 undergraduate students at Hubei University of Technology must spend an hour and a half each week cleaning up the campus, as part of a new university initiative that began this month to show young people what it is like to work, as many of the students have never had jobs, Xinhua reports. The compulsory "course" is worth one academic credit.

HUNAN

Three killed in farm feud

A farmer is in court facing charges of endangering public safety after his actions caused the deaths of two policemen and a reporter in Chenzhou in March, the Sanxiang City Express reports. The man got into a feud with another farmer, and police were called. Three officers and a reporter arrived at the scene. The man was being transported to a local police station when he tried to get control of the police car, which plunged into a river. Two of the officers and the reporter drowned, while another officer and the man survived.

Swindler gets 13 years' jail

A 39-year-old farmer with only a primary school education defrauded people of more than one million yuan in the past six years by posing as a government official, contractor and businessman, Xinhua reports. A court in Pingjiang county, Yueyang , recently sentenced the man to 13 years in jail and seized 500,000 yuan from him. The farmer swindled money from his victims by saying he could get them civil service jobs, help them purchase cheap homes and win bids for government projects.

JIANGSU

Diabetes affects 6.5pc

About 6.5 per cent of all Jiangsu residents over the age of 18 have diabetes, Xinhua reports. The proportion was higher in urban areas of the province, at about 7.1 per cent, compared with about 5.6 per cent in rural areas, according to provincial health authorities. About 9.7 per cent of all mainland residents have diabetes.

Kennel to pay for 12 deaths

An animal-care facility in Nanjing has been ordered to pay a dog owner 70,000 yuan after 12 rare dogs belonging to him died at the facility in May because it was too hot, Xinhua reports. Police ordered the man to bring all of his 42 dogs to the facility that month after neighbours in his apartment building complained that the dogs were too noisy.

SHANDONG

Teens held for robberies

Eight teenagers aged 15 to 19 in Weifang were arrested for allegedly robbing more than 10 people on the street and using knives to injure five victims who tried to resist, the Qilu Evening News reports. The robberies occurred over the past three months.

Greedy teachers shamed

Primary, middle school and high school teachers in the province who are caught accepting money or gifts from students or parents, or who charge students for receiving additional tutorial sessions, will be publicly shamed and removed from their posts, the Shandong Business Daily reports. Education authorities said the new regulations will go into effect January 1.