■ China
Protest halts rail traffic
Disgruntled residents blocked railway tracks in Jiangxi Province for almost six hours to protest a government redistricting plan that they fear could reduce social welfare benefits, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday. The protest began shortly before noon on Wednesday when a crowd descended on a railway station in Guixi, voicing anger over a proposal to place part of the city under the jurisdiction of a neighboring district, Xinhua said. "They worried that the re-division would affect their salaries and welfare," the report said. It gave no details. Benefits and public sector salaries vary widely in China depending on the local economy and tax base.
■ China
Reporters test hospitals
A group of reporters came up with a novel idea to test how greedy local hospitals were -- pass off tea as urine samples and submit the drink for tests. The results: six out of 10 hospitals in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, visited by the reporters over a two-day period this month concluded that the patients' urinal tracts were infected. Five of the hospitals prescribed medication costing up to 400 yuan (US$50), the online edition of the semi-official China News Service said in a report seen on Wednesday. Of the hospitals, four were state-owned.
■ India
Man makes threat on plane
Police on Wednesday arrested a drunken Mexican passenger on a New Delhi-bound flight from Bangkok after he allegedly threatened to blow up the plane, officials said. The state-run Indian Airlines flight with 88 people aboard made an emergency landing after passengers raised the alarm, airline spokesman Ashok Sharma said. "The Mexican passenger, F. Edwardo, 47, is still under the influence of alcohol. He is lying at the immigration department of the airport," police Superintendent Pravin Kumar said. The plane, carrying 82 passengers and six crew, made an emergency landing at Dum Dum International Airport in Kolkata, India.
■ Indonesia
Volcano alert raised
Authorities have raised the alert level for the smoking Mount Batutara volcano, warning fishermen and others to stay away from the remote island it is situated on. "We recommend ... to be alert and not to go close to the mountain," local official Sentianus Medi said, as the alert level was raised to the second of four possible levels. The volcano is located on a normally deserted island in the Flores sea, but fishermen and others who occasionally land there were warned to stay at least 2km away. "The mountain has shown increased activity with smoke rising between 500 meters to 1,500 metres above the volcano," Medi said.
■ New Zealand
Man to exhibit father's ashes
An artist is planning to exhibit his father's ashes, saying he was "much more useful dead than he ever was alive," a report said yesterday. Nigel Madden, from Napier, North Island, previously exhibited photographs of his father Neville, an alcoholic and one-time radio announcer, lying on a mortuary slab after suffering a fatal heart attack. The photographs shown last year in the Norsewood Art Awards offered an insight into his dysfunctional relationship with his father, Madden said. This year Madden plans to display his father's ashes in a pewter urn, he told the Dominion Post newspaper.
■ United Kingdom
Chopin's piano found
The grand piano Frederic Chopin took on his last concert tour in 1848 has been found in an English country house thanks to detective work by a Swiss music scholar. "It came as a bolt from the blue," said British collector Alec Cobbe after discovering that the piano he bought 20 years ago for £2,000 (US$3,900) is a piece of musical history. For more than 150 years after the composer's death, Chopin's piano vanished until Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger researched the ledgers of French pianomaker Camille Pleyel. He came to see the collector armed with details of where and to whom all the Pleyel pianos were sold.
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