Soft-hearted woman pays off and frees car thief

A woman, surnamed Pan, who caught a thief breaking into her car on Saturday, in Dalian, Liaoning Province, paid him off and let him go after he begged for mercy.

Pan freed the man after he appealed to her better nature and said he had not eaten for three days. She also gave him 50 yuan ($6.60) to buy food.

Witnesses advised Pan the thief was probably lying to save his skin, but Pan was determined to show charity.

"By showing forgiveness I hoped to show him that he could give up evil and return to good," she said.

(New Business)

It's never too late to take a road trip

Twenty-eight pensioners are taking a 50-day road trip by bike to the summer resort of Sanya, in South China's Hainan Province. The Heilongjiang Province bicycle club members set off from Harbin on Friday.

"It will take 50 days for us to cover some 4,000 km through more than 10 provinces," the tour leader, a pensioner surnamed Xu said.

Since living standards have risen it has become popular for old people in the north to spend winters in the south.

(www.xinhuanet.com)

Dalian strives to be: 'City of no sputum'

Dalian University of Technology students in Liaoning Province have been cleaning up sputum and chewing gum left by tourists in a public square to raise public awareness of the environment.

The 70 students additionally made a 30 m scroll for people to add their signatures to a petition calling on people not to spit, throw away chewing gum or discard cigarette ends in public places.

Hundreds of residents and tourists signed the petition calling on people to make Dalian a "city of no sputum" and some said they would give up their bad habits.

(Peninsula Morning Post)

Orangutan honored for being good team member

Tianjin Zoo in Tianjing Municipality held a ceremony on Friday making an orangutan called Ni Kou an honorary member.

The 25-year-old primate has been on loan at the zoo for five months, from Zhengzhou Zoo in Central China's Henan Province.

Ni Kou is the only zoo-born and -bred orangutan in the country and was so happy in Tianjin he put on 15 kg.

Zhengzhou Zoo was impressed and invited two keepers and a veterinary surgeon from Tianjin Zoo to take care of the animal when it returns to Zhengzhou.

(www.xinhuanet.com)

(China Daily 10/18/2007 page4)