CHINA DIGEST

BeijingFleecing foreignersA woman has been arrested for stealing hundreds of thousands of yuan and valuables from drunken foreign tourists, the Beijing Times reports.迷你倉 In August the woman approached a foreign man at a bar in the Chaoyang district and went back to his hotel with him. The man later discovered the woman had disappeared with his computer and mobile phone. Police checked surveillance video and later found the woman in a bar looking for another victim. She confessed she had stolen 400,000 yuan (HK$506,000) from another foreigner in the same way in May.Cat deaths mysteryAn investigation into the suspicious deaths of stray cats in the Temple of Heaven park has been dropped even though cats keep disappearing, the Beijing Morning Post reports. Cat-lovers noticed the cats had begun disappearing at the beginning of last month, and then bodies turned up with wounds caused by blunt instruments. They said at least 80 cats had gone, but the park said an investigation since October 25 had led nowhere because the area where the cats disappeared had no security cameras.GuangdongFirst to the topA marathon runner from Qingdao has finished first in a race to the top of the 103-storey Guangzhou IFC tower in a time of 13 minutes and 54 seconds, the Guangzhou Daily reports. The man averaged eight seconds per storey for the 438-metre-tall building. A science major student from Beijing finished first in the women's race, with a time of 16 minutes and 47 seconds.Tragic fire deathsA 26-year-old woman in Guangzhou who woke up everyone in her building to alert them to a fire was herself killed with her baby in the blaze early on Sunday morning, Southcn.com reports. The woman, who lived on the second floor with her family, woke up in the night and ran upstairs to warn other households about the fire. However the woman and her two-year-old daughter were trapped at the top of the building and died.HenanNightclub raidPolice raided a nightclub in Zhengzhou on Friday night and took away 10 busloads of people for investigation, the Zhengzhou Evening News reports. The provincial public security department said on its microblog account that the operation was related to a crackdown on pornography and was still under way. Witnesses said that numerous staff, including revealingly dressed women, were taken away in 10 buses.Those pesky pedalsA security guard at a police station in Nanyang mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal in a car and injured four women on Friday, the Dahe News reports. The off-duty man saw an electric car company offering a test drive. He only had a motorcycle driver's permit and got the pedals mixed up. Two of the women were seriously injured.HubeiMouldy lunch payoutThe Wuhan Railway authority has paid 3,850 yuan in compensation to each of 11 passengers who bought dinner boxes containing mouldy food, the Wuhan Evening News reports. The passengers bought the beef dinner boxes on the high-speed train from Guangzhou to Wuhan and found mould on the rice. Passengers demanded an explanation after finding out that the food box had been produced almost a month previously. The railway authority said the food likely had been improperly stored and offered compensation equal to 10 times the price of the food box.50,000 yuan headacheA woman is looking for ways to deposit 50,000 one-yuan coins after being turned down by several banks, the Wuhan Evenmini storageng News reports. The woman was paid 50,000 yuan in coins for a construction project she worked on. Her car suffered a punctured tyre as a result of carrying the heavy money, and banks refused to deposit it because they did not have enough personnel to count it.JiangsuPayout for jealousyA woman in Nanjing has paid her long-time friend 3,000 yuan in compensation after she cut her hair in a fit of anger while she was asleep, the Jinling Evening News reports. The women were classmates in university and shared an apartment after graduation. One introduced her new boyfriend to the other, who has had long hair since she was a child. But the man changed the target of his affections and started to pursue the long-haired flatmate. The jealous woman cut her friend's hair off while she was asleep on a couch. The flatmate called police.Charged over blackmailA woman has been charged with blackmailing a married businessman by posting defamatory messages online that she was only one of his many mistresses, the Yangtse Evening Post reports. The man had met the woman three times before turning down her request to be his girlfriend. She then registered a microblog account and made up stories that he had several mistresses. The man agreed to pay her four million yuan for her to delete the postings, but called police after paying her 550,000 yuan. She was arrested in August.ShaanxiCorruption probe droppedAn investigation into a report about the deputy chief of Ningshan county and other officials misusing public funds has been dropped, the China Youth Daily reports. A man made a report to the county's disciplinary body in September about senior county officials, including the deputy chief, who had spent public funds on a trip to Europe. The matter was widely reported in the media, but the man has not been told of any findings. However he was contacted by a county official and told not to give media interviews.Robbed after sexXian police have detained a man and two minors who robbed 24,000 yuan from a 28-year-old woman with whom the man had sex in a hotel, the Xian Evening News reports. The woman went to a hotel room with the man as agreed but two other men broke into the room after the two had had sex and threatened her with a knife, demanding her bank cards. Her 4,000 yuan in cash was stolen and 20,000 yuan of her savings were withdrawn from a bank. The three were detained by police on Saturday.ZhejiangTroubling snakebiteAn 18-month-old boy in Jiaxing is finally recovering after being treated in seven hospitals for a snake bite, Zjol.com.cn reports. The boy was taking a walk with his mother when he saw what he thought was a twig on the road and tried to pick it up. But the twig turned out to be a snake and bit the boy on the hand. The boy was moved to seven hospitals before being treated properly in Jiaxing with Calmette's serum. He has improved greatly.Van carrying cash burnsA van loaded with clothes and containing hundreds of thousand yuan burst into flames on a highway in Ningbo , Zjol.com.cn reports. A couple driving the van were taking the clothes for resale in Cixi when suddenly the van was engulfed in flames. The couple could do nothing but watch the clothes and their money burn. They went to the local highway traffic police department on to make a statement about the fire in the hope that what remained of the burned notes could be changed in a bank.儲存