Grief in China as girl who was run over dies
Beijing: A two-year-old Chinese girl, who was hit by two vehicles on a market street and subsequently ignored by 18 passers-by, died early Friday after a weeklong battle for life in hospital, doctors said. Her death triggered a nationwide wave of mourning.
The incident has been closely followed by people who are concerned about a seeming lack of morality in Chinese society.
Wang Yue died of brain failure at the General Hospital of the Guangzhou Military Command in south China’s Guangdong province at 12.30 a.m., Xinhua quoted doctors as saying.
Wang had been in critical condition since she was checked in the hospital last Friday.
The girl’s death ranked as the day’s most popular topic on Sina Weibo, a popular Chinese microblogging site, garnering over 1.9 million posts within hours.
Many microbloggers decried the apathy and cruelty of the drivers and those who walked by Wang after she was hit by the vehicles.
On Oct 13 a surveillance video posted online showed Wang being hit by two vehicles and left to bleed on a market street in the city of Foshan.
The video shows 18 pedestrians and cyclists walking by the bleeding toddler without stopping to help. The 19th pedestrian, a migrant woman collecting trash, pulled her to the side of the street and alerted the girl’s mother.
Internet users responded to the video in great number, criticising the drivers and passers-by, putting out messages calling for more “good Samaritans” and vowing to give a helping hand to anyone in need.
Many even donated money for Wang’s medical treatment.
Media reports said her father received 270,100 yuan ($42,400). Some were offered by kindergarten students, while other donations were sent by Chinese people living in Australia and Thailand.
The incident has left many people wondering if China’s rapid economic development has had an effect on ethics and morality in the general public, said Xinhua.
Wang Yang, a senior official at Guangdong, told a high-level provincial meeting that the tragedy should be a “wake-up call” for society and that such incidents should not be allowed to occur again.
“We should look into the ugliness in ourselves with a dagger of conscience and bite the soul-searching bullet,” he said. (IANS)
BBC London newsroom ‘overrun’ by mice
London: The BBC newsroom at the Television Centre in London has been ‘overrun’ by mice as the cold weather is driving the rodents indoors.
The problem has reached to such a level, that Nigel Charters, the newsroom’s managing editor, sent an email to staff to address the problem and encourage workers not to leave food on their desks, the Telegraph reports.
Charters said the Corporation had developed a “three-pronged plan” to rid itself of the vermin.
The plan includes laying hundreds of poison bait boxes, “electronic traps” and traditional mousetraps under the floorboards, installing “mice-proof food bins”, and moving cables so the cleaners can vacuum.
He added that it was vital that staff made “all efforts to starve the mice of crumbs” and reported rogue rodents wherever they were found. (ANI)
Hitler went blind by mental illness, not British mustard gas attack
London: Adolf Hitler’s temporary loss of sight was actually caused by a mental disorder known as ‘hysterical blindness’, and not by a British mustard gas attack as a heroic First World War soldier as he had claimed, a new research has revealed.
The Nazi leader described in his book Mein Kampf how the British had attacked in October 1918 south of Ypres using a “yellow gas unknown to us.”
By morning, his eyes “were like glowing coals, and all was darkness around me,” he wrote in the book.
But now historian Dr Thomas Weber, of the University of Aberdeen, has uncovered a series of unpublished letters between two American neurologists from 1943, which debunk Hitler’s claim.
The letters revealed that Otfried Foerster, a renowned German neurosurgeon, had inspected Hitler’s medical file.
He found that Hitler had been treated for hysterical amblyopia, a psychiatric disorder that can make sufferers lose their sight.
“There were rumours suggesting that his war blindness may have been psychosomatic, but this is the first time we have had any firm evidence,” the Daily Mail quoted the Dr Weber as saying.
He said discovering the letters was ‘crucial’ because Hitler’s medical file, at the Pasewalk military hospital in Germany, was destroyed.
“Hitler went to extreme lengths to cover up his First World War medical history,” Dr Weber said.
“The two people who had access to his medical files were liquidated as soon as he took power and the other people who knew of it committed suicide in strange circumstances,” he claimed.
The letters could help to explain Hitler’s radical personality change after the war, Dr Weber said.
He said the evidence also gave a crucial insight into Hitler’s mental state during his leadership.
The historian’s described details of Hitler’s blindness in a new edition of his book Hitler’s First War. (ANI)
Cows kill elderly lady
London: An elderly woman in Britain was trampled to death by a herd of cows while she was taking walking with her dog.
Geraldine Grace, 67, was found dead by another dog walker in a field with cows, calves and a single bull, the Daily Express reported.
An inquest heard that Grace suffered multiple injuries to her ribs consistent with being trampled. (IANS)
Replacing a bulb can take 12 people in Britain!
London: An elderly man in Britain was shocked beyond his wits when he discovered that it took 46 days and a dozen workmen to replace a street lamp bulb.
It all began when pensioner Jack Doran reported that a street light outside his home in Cheltenham town of south west England’s Gloucestershire county was broken. But it 46 days and 12 visits by workmen before it was fixed, the Daily Express reported.
Fixing the bulb took so much time after it was noticed that the base of the lamp was surrounded by a hedge and workers could not get access to the junction box. It meant the parks’ department had to be called out.
Thereafter, another team of workmen found water was leaking into the light. But when this was repaired, they discovered it needed a special bulb.They borrowed one from a nearby lamppost and returned for another try. But then, they discovered the fuse had gone.
“I started to wonder what on earth had gone wrong,” the 74-year-old Doran said.
Ken Pitt, street lighting manager for Gloucestershire county council, said: “We appreciate this repair has taken longer than usual but it wasn’t straightforward.” (IANS)