■CHINA
Doc played game, baby died
A five-month-old baby died in a hospital amid pleas for help from his parents while his doctor played video games online, health authorities said yesterday. An investigation showed Mao Xiaojun was playing an online version of “Go” on the night shift and did not take the parents’ pleas for help seriously, the Jiangsu Province health department said in a press release. “When efforts were being made to save the baby, the mother got on her knees in the doorway of the ear, nose and throat department and pleaded for help,” the statement said. The baby died the next morning, Nov. 4, from complications caused by an eye infection, the statement said. The department’s statement said Mao “covered up the truth” in an initial investigation. But more probing found that she had been playing “Go” on an instant messaging system, the statement said. Mao was stripped of her medical license and fired.
■HONG KONG
Cemetery in skeleton mix-up
The skeletons of at least two people have been jumbled up after casks of bones fell down a flight of stairs in an accident in a cemetery, a news report said yesterday. The skeletons of seven people were transported on a motorized trolley in the Catholic cemetery when the trolley toppled down a flight of stairs, the South China Morning Post reported. At least two of the seven stone casks broke open and the bones were jumbled in a pile on the ground, making it impossible to tell which bones were from which casket. The bones were being moved from graves to a crematorium, a common practice in Hong Kong where because of shortage of grave space skeletons are cremated after 10 or more years. Families of the deceased people whose bones were jumbled up may be offered compensation, a spokesman for the cemetery said, adding that it would depend upon “whether the bones can be sorted out.”
■SOUTH KOREA
Cops nab golf ball thief
A man who dived by night into water hazards at dozens of golf courses to collect lost balls has been arrested for theft, police said yesterday. The man identified only as Lee, a 42-year-old former golf club employee, is accused of stealing some 26,000 lost balls worth 13 million won (US$11,226), police said. Wearing a diving suit and an oxygen tank, Lee searched water hazards by night to retrieve the balls. Police said he either worked alone or teamed up with his niece or a friend.
■NEW ZEALAND
Flasher causes furore
A man who exposed himself to a woman on a bus in the city of Hamilton yesterday sparked a chain of events that led to the vehicle hitting a police station. A police statement said the flasher’s behavior terrified the woman, who began screaming. The driver headed for the nearest police station where he stopped and switched on the emergency door lock to trap the offender. Unfortunately, the bus was still in gear and rolled into the station’s entrance, cracking its windscreen and damaging the building. “No-one was injured in the incident and the man was arrested — in a flash,” a police statement said.
■AUSTRALIA
Woman packs meat
A 24-year-old caught with four steaks in her underwear pleaded guilty to stealing at Darwin Magistrates Court yesterday. The court was told that when the woman was stopped outside a local supermarket she had meat worth almost A$500 (US$460) in her underwear. “Her life had taken a turn for the worse,” her lawyer told the court.
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