Briefs | HONG KONG: Mainland tourist beaten to death near shop

Chinese authorities are urging Hong Kong to fully investigate the death of a mainland tourist who was fatally beaten outside a shop. The death has spurred calls in China for a boycott of travel to Hong Kong, where inexpensive tours often include pressure to buy merchandise at selected shops. China National Tourism Administration yesterday urged Hong Kong authorities to protect the rights of mainland tourists. Hong Kong police say they arrived at a shop in the city Monday to find a 54-year-old man lying unconscious outside, and that he died yesterday. Police say the man was attacked after trying to mediate a fight between two women over shopping. The women are believed to be the tour leader and a fellow tourist.

3 boys fatally beat teacher during robbery

Three boys aged 11 to 13 attacked and killed a teacher and robbed her of a cellphone and a few hundred dollars in cash in southern China, state media reported yesterday. The state-owned Beijing News said the boys were hanging out around an elementary school in the township of Lianqiao in the province of Hunan on Sunday when they decided to rob the only teacher guarding the school. The boys — who are students at other schools — beat the 52-year-old teacher with a wood stick, stuffed her mouth with cloth and dragged her into a bathroom, where she died, the Beijing News said. The report said the students ran away with the teacher’s cellphone and about 2,000 yuan (USD330) in cash. They were arrested on Monday. A police officer reached by phone confirmed the case but declined to give more details. Other media reports said the three boys were “left-behind” children of migrant workers.

Gang builds fake interrogation room to extract money

Four Chinese men are accused of building an official-looking interrogation room where they posed as anti-corruption investigators and extracted a promise of a payment from a local official in return for dropping their phony investigation, an official newspaper said yesterday. The gang in the northeastern city of Suihua planned to scam as many officials as possible, but made just one attempt before apparently losing their nerve, the Legal Daily reported. After snatching Zhang Wei, a manager in the city Agriculture Department, and his wife from their home, they blindfolded them, drove them to the interrogation room and obtained a promise of a 400,000 yuan (USD63,000) payment after several hours of questioning. However, after the couple alerted police, nobody appeared to collect the money, and one of the four turned himself in before police had time to make arrests. Three are now in custody and police are searching for the fourth. The interrogation room, complete with furniture, computers, cameras and official seals on the wall, was built by the four in an abandoned shopping center at a cost of 200,000 yuan ($32,000), the Legal Daily reported. According to the newspaper, Zhang said he’d done nothing wrong but agreed to make the payment to “ensure his own personal safety.”