China Digest, February 22, 2013

A medical centre to treat children with various chronic diseases recently opened in Beijing featuring an expert panel of doctors from 26 hospitals across the city, the Beijing Evening News reports.

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Published: 12:00am, 22 Feb 2013

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A medical centre to treat children with various chronic diseases recently opened in Beijing featuring an expert panel of doctors from 26 hospitals across the city, the reports. Figures released by municipal health authorities showed that 20 per cent of primary and middle school students in the capital were obese, and a survey found that 9 per cent of all Beijing children suffered from hypertension, while 10 per cent had high cholesterol.

A community health centre in Beijing that bungled a woman's breast-enhancement surgery must pay her 230,000 yuan in compensation, an intermediate-level court ruled on Wednesday, upholding an earlier district-court verdict, the reports. The woman paid 5,000 yuan for the surgery in 2001, but it left her breasts saggy, misshapen and of different sizes. She was forced to have them removed in 2007, and she sued the centre for 500,000 yuan in 2011. Her husband also divorced her after the operation.

A 39-year-old man has been detained for allegedly killing his wife, their 12-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son at their home in Shenzhen on Sunday, reports. The parents worked in different cities, and the suspect told police he fought often with his wife and didn't like the children, who he said were being raised poorly by their mother's parents. The victims were suffocated, and police found their bodies in a refrigerator.

Police were questioning a transport bureau worker this week for accidentally running over a hit-and-run victim who had been struck just minutes earlier in Xuwen county, Zhanjiang , on Saturday the reports. The victim died, and the hit-and-run driver was still at large yesterday. The civil servant said he couldn't see the body on the road because the lights of oncoming cars were too bright.

Zhengzhou police have defended their decision to detain a man for three days because he carried a pocket-sized, foldable knife from a key chain on his belt, Chinanews.com reports. The man was taken away by a plain-clothes officer who noticed the dangling knife on the afternoon of January 28. The man said he bought the 10cm-long knife at a supermarket, but police said that anyone found possessing guns or knives illegally could be fined 500 yuan and be detained for up to five days.

The head of a police station in Luyi county, Zhoukou , has been removed from his post after he dragged a 21-year-old woman by her hair on Sunday for being unco-operative when he visited her family's fireworks store and started asking questions, Dahe.cn reports. The woman was dragged for about 10 metres. Police said the shop was found to be hoarding and selling fireworks illegally, and that it was under investigation.

Police returned about 380,000 yuan worth of stolen car parts to a components shop in Wuhan on Wednesday, about five months after a former employee stole the items and hastily pawned them for 20,000 yuan, the reports. The suspect was caught in December, and two of his accomplices were also arrested.

The death toll from a traffic accident in Jiangshi county, Enshi , on Tuesday has climbed to 10, after a 59-year-old man died in hospital on Wednesday, Chinanews.com reports. A van carrying 19 people overturned when its driver swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle. Six people died at the scene and four died later. The remaining nine passengers were still being treated at hospital, and police are investigating the incident.

The standing committee of the Yongzhou People's Congress has condemned five members who skipped the legislative body's plenary meetings late last year without a legitimate excuse, the reports. In future, delegates who miss such meetings without a good excuse will be asked to resign.

A deeply indebted 30-year-old masseur confessed on Monday to using a fake name when media reported that he saved a six-week-old infant from a house fire in Changsha late last year, Voc.com.cn reports. The man, Hu Changgui, identified himself as Tian Jiuhong and was widely called a hero. He hid his name because he owes a businessman 18,000 yuan, which he borrowed a year ago to set up a massage shop that quickly folded. He said he was ready to face the consequences if the businessman found him.

After a year collecting evidence, police in Jinxian county, Nanchang , said on Wednesday that they detained a 79-year-old man for allegedly raping his 34-year-old niece repeatedly from 2010 to 2011, the reports. The woman went to police early last year and said she had been too afraid to tell them sooner.

Provincial tourism authorities recently issued new regulations on the development and management of rural tourism sites across Jiangxi , the reports. Tourism infrastructure will be upgraded in the coming years, and authorities expect 110 million people to visit rural Jiangxi areas in 2015.

Residents of Minhang district will soon have to pay a 200-yuan security deposit to rent free public bicycles, as many have not been returned, the reports. There are about 20,000 bicycles available for rental using a card that more than 230,000 people in the district now possess. About 1,500 cards have been frozen because their owners didn't return bikes.

People have been lining up for hours in front of popular dim sum shops in the city this week to buy glutinous rice balls - a traditional food of the Lantern Festival, which falls on Sunday, the reports. Some shops said they had to hire up to 60 people just to make the treats by hand every day.

A 22-year-old woman in Hangzhou is considering moving from her apartment because she has been harassed by a pedicab driver who retrieved her laptop in his vehicle after dropping her off on Saturday, the reports. She said the man told her to deposit 300 yuan on his phone card, and he requested sex and nude pictures of her in exchange for the laptop.

Hangzhou traffic authorities have refuted a rumour circulating in recent months that the city in April would follow other mainland cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou by restricting purchases of cars in order to ease road congestion, Zjol.com.cn reports. The restrictions may be put in place in the future, but not before a long period of planning. Authorities said there were other ways to tackle road congestion.

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