■INDIA
PM in hospital debacle
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh awarded compensation to the widow of a man who died after being prevented from receiving emergency treatment because the premier was touring a hospital. Singh’s office said on Wednesday that a check for 200,000 rupees (US$4,250) had been handed to S. Verma’s family, who said he was held up for two hours outside the hospital by the prime minister’s security staff. Singh also wrote a letter to the family expressing his regret that Verma “could not get access [to the hospital] in time because of the restrictions in place for my visit there.” The family said security teams outside the hospital in the northern city of Chandigarh had ignored their pleas that Verma, a 32-year-old with a history of kidney problems, was in a critical condition.
■INDIA
Nanny rented out baby
A nanny in Bangalore was fired after she regularly drugged a seven-month-old baby in her care and rented him out for US$2 a day to be used by street beggars, a newspaper reported yesterday. The child’s mother found her baby missing when she returned home early from work at a multinational firm, the Times of India newspaper said. The nanny confessed to renting out the baby for the previous three weeks, it said.
■HONG KONG
Honest cab driver rewarded
A cab driver who found diamonds worth HK$1 million (US$130,000) in his taxi and handed them to the police has been rewarded for his honesty, a news report said yesterday. The diamonds were left under the back seat of the taxi of Yau Chi-keung (丘志強) by an Indonesian businessman in April last year, the South China Morning Post said. Yau, 57, reported the bag to the police not knowing what was inside it. Yau was rewarded for his honesty with a Quality Taxi Driver Award by the transport commissioner on Thursday. He also received a cash reward from the owner of the diamonds which he gave to charity.
■NEW ZEALAND
Doll found in baby’s grave
Police found a doll when they exhumed a casket from a cemetery while investigating the reported death of a baby, a newspaper reported yesterday. A 33-year-old woman later confessed to staging a funeral to avoid admitting to her partner, who wanted a baby, that she had not been pregnant, the Manukau Courier reported. Detective Darrell Harpur said the woman, who was not named, initially believed she was pregnant, but then discovered she was not. “For some reason she couldn’t tell him, so she embarked on this subterfuge,” Harpur said. The detective said police exhumed a casket from the Mangere Lawn Cemetery, South Auckland, after authorities became suspicious when they received a request for birth and death certificates for a baby with no doctor’s certificate.
■SOUTH KOREA
Driven woman passes test
A woman who tried to pass the written exam for a driver’s license with near-daily attempts since April 2005 has finally succeeded on her 950th time. The aspiring driver spent more than 5 million won (US$4,200) in application fees, but had failed to score the minimum 60 out of 100 points. Cha Sa-soon, 68, finally passed the exam with a score of 60 on Wednesday, said Choi Young-chul, a police official at the drivers’ license agency in Jeonju, 210km south of Seoul. Now she must pass a driving test before getting her license, Choi said.
■FRANCE
Guard escapes with millions
Police in Lyon were searching yesterday for the driver of an armored van who apparently made off with 11 million euros (US$16.4 million) belonging to the Bank of France, media reported. The 39-year-old driver apparently simply drove off Thursday while the van’s two other guards left him alone when they stopped at a branch office of the security company they worked for. The van, stripped of the 38 bags of bills it was carrying, was found several hours later in a Lyon suburb. France Info radio reported that police believe the heist had been meticulously planned. The suspect had drawn all the money out of his bank account and the refrigerator in his home was empty.
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