China Scene: North

Corridor surgery saves man's life

A medical team saved a middle-aged man's life on Wednesday after he collapsed on his way to an outpatient clinic at the Gong'an Hospital in Tianjin municipality.

Medical staff rushed to help the man, creating a makeshift operating theater in the hospital corridor. The hospital said he was operated on for acute epiglottitis and would have died without immediate treatment.

"He's recovering well with his family," a hospital spokesman said.

(Daily Update)

Veteran donates, tells students to study hard

A 92-year-old veteran from Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province, donated part of his pension to local school students from poor families on Wednesday.

With the help of a walking stick, Li Shanxun visited 12 poor students at their school on the third day of the new semester, presenting them with 1,200 yuan ($168) for tuition fees and encouraging them to study hard.

The students saluted Li and vowed to finish their schooling despite any future difficulties.

"Li has donated part of his pension to the school's poor students for the past two decades," Xu, a teacher at the school, said.

(Shijiazhuang Daily)

Illegal villa razed in Beijing suburb

A new two-story luxury villa illegally built by a Shanxi businessman was demolished in a Beijing residential area on Wednesday.

Several years ago Wang bought two neighboring villas for himself and his cousin after a traffic accident left them both in wheelchairs.

But Wang found the villas didn't have adequate wheelchair access. He had them demolished and had one large villa built in their place - without going through building permission procedures.

Law enforcement staff notified Wang and the building was removed.

(Southeast Express)

Men arrested for urn theft, extortion

Two men were taken into custody on Monday for allegedly stealing cinerary urns from a cemetery and extorting 20,000 yuan ($2,810) from the memorial park's authorities in Chifeng, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Mao and Chen met while serving time in prison in the early 1980s.

Police said they read about cinerary urns being stolen for money in the newspaper and decided to give it a try.

The two allegedly unearthed cinerary urns from the cemetery and extorted money from park staff in December.

"It was the first cemetery theft in Chifeng," police said.

(Inner Mongolia Daily)

(China Daily 03/04/2008 page6)