 China Scene: North
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-20 07:39
Free ride is over for car, gasoline thief A man in Beijing was arrested nearly a year after he stole a car so he could return to his hometown. The man stole gasoline from parked cars in order to drive his stolen car mostly from ones in the housing estates in Fengtai district. The migrant worker, Zhang, from Hebei province, felt homesick prior to the Festival of Lanterns in 2008, and tried to buy a train ticket to get home but failed, he said. He stole a car parked near a newspaper building and drove it home for the festival. He's been using the car as his own in Beijing and in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province. After gas prices went up, he began to steal it from other cars but was caught red-handed on Jan 6 as he used a homemade oil drain pump to take gasoline from another car in a Beijing parking lot. He will be prosecuted. (Beijing Times) Homeless duo using fire to keep warm stir anxiety A group of firefighters who rushed to investigate a fire inside an underground passage in Beijing quickly discovered it was just a homeless person trying to stay warm. After they saw dense smoke traveling out of the passageway late Saturday night, passersby called the firefighters. However, they showed up to find a man burning papers while a second person was sleeping like a log and they saw smoke rushing out of the passageway. They put out the fire. (Beijing Times) Sick vulture suddenly falls in front of ranger A female forest ranger in Yanqing, Beijing, was startled when a giant vulture fell down in front of her. She called in experts who concluded that the 1-m-tall bird is a vulture, a protected species, and they sent it to the Beijing Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center for recovery. After it was fed, the bird was doing well. It will be released back into the wild once it's fully recovered. (Beijing Times) Woman sues convicted guards for killing husband A woman, whose thieving husband was beaten to death by security guards at a construction site, is suing the jailed men for 340,000 yuan ($49,700). The husband apparently stole construction concrete bars from the site and was caught and was fatally beaten by the guards in February. The man died a day after he was beaten near the construction site in Fangshan, Beijing. After the six were sentenced for the killing, Chen's wife brought the lawsuit, arguing that she and her children have lost their sole means of income. A court in Fangshan has accepted the case and will hear it. (Beijing Morning Post) Bar owners behind bars for allowing drug use Seven bar and cafe bosses from Beijing's famous Sanlitun bar street got 12 or 36 months in prison for allowing drug use on their premises. Liu Hailiang and six other managers of the bars were found guilty of turning their bars into drug-use places for patrons, including foreigners, for about a year. Acting on a tip, the police raided the bars where more than 2,400 grams of heroin and marijuana were seized, along with 36 drug users, including some foreigners suspected of drug trafficking and other related crimes. (China News Service) Angry husband kills wife's secret lover A Dalian man faces murder charges after he killed a man he suspected was having an affair with his wife. Sun Ming and his wife worked at a factory in Dalian, Liaoning province, where they met Liu and became friends. But Sun later discovered that Liu had a fling with his wife. Last Thursday, he met Liu on a street in Dalian and apparently asked him to stop seeing his wife, but they got into a fight and he stabbed Liu to death. Days later, he turned himself in to police and is being held as authorities investigate. (New Cultural View) Student stabs teacher, tries suicide over grades Angry about his low grades, a 21-year-old male student from the Beijing University of Technology stabbed a female instructor in her office and then tried to commit suicide. After he received a notice to leave the university, Li's father blamed him for the poor grades and he became depressed. He tried to kill the first female teacher he came across in the department, and then jumped down on an over-bridge to kill himself. The teacher is expected to recover and he failed to kill himself. The case remains under investigation. (Beijing Times) University romance ends with tragedy A pair of young lovers from Beijing Sports University were involved in an argument that left one dead and the other seriously injured. The girl, 22, a dance major graduate, left her boyfriend, Zhang, a few weeks earlier and he was apparently upset. Zhang, a 23-year-old martial arts student, showed up at her home and had an argument. Police found her blood soaked dead body in her home with her ex-boyfriend next to her. The man tried to commit suicide but failed. (Beijing Times)
(China Daily 02/20/2009 page6) |
