Compiled by C.ARUNO, DIYANA PFORDTEN AND R. ARAVINTHAN
WHAT was supposed to be an anti-smoking campaign at a culinary school in Guizhou, China, became a source of ridicule as participants ended up inhaling large amounts of second-hand smoke, Sin Chew Daily reported.
Video footage of the event at Guizhou New Oriental Cuisine Technical Institute showed staff and students placing confiscated cigarettes in several large woks in the school field before setting them on fire.
Thick acrid smoke began to fill the area and started spreading on campus.
The move by the school to destroy cigarettes by burning them has drawn intense backlash online, with Internet users dubbing it as a “second-hand smoke disaster”.
Students at the institute joked that they ended up enjoying a “group smoking session” for free.
Non-smokers, however, were not pleased and complained that they were forced to inhale second-hand smoke without warning.
Local authorities have launched an investigation into the matter.
The event was organised in conjunction with the World No Tobacco Day on May 31.
> A man in Zhejiang, China, suffered severe abdominal pain after swallowing Chinese bayberry seeds which he assumed could help digestion and relieve constipation, China Press reported.
Identified only as Huang, 48, the man ended up at the Hangzhou First People’s Hospital after undigested seeds caused an intestinal blockage.
Apparently, Huang had often loved eating Chinese bayberries, believing that it was a traditional remedy to promote bowel movements and improve digestion.
He had swallowed the seeds along with the flesh.
Huang recently ate half a basket of the fruit by himself and experienced constipation for the next two days.
His abdomen started to hurt and the pain worsened, causing him to break out in cold sweat.
His family rushed him to hospital where an X-ray of Huang’s abdomen showed that his intestines were full of the seeds, which resembled small stones. Luckily, doctors managed to dislodge the seeds without surgery.
(The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.)
