Tenants who spit could face eviction in China city

A city in southern China is considering issuing a penalty system for anti-social behavior which could lead to public-housing tenants being evicted.

The potential offences in government housing in Guangzhou include spitting in public, parking illegally or drying laundry on fences.

More serious offences include throwing rubbish out of upper floors or storing flammable or explosive material.

Anyone gathering 20 points within two years will be evicted.

'Harmonious community'

Spitting - which is common in public in China despite government campaigns to try to wipe it out - attracts a penalty of three points.

GUANGZHOU'S PENALTY POINTS Spitting - three points Urinating - three points Illegal parking - three points Drying laundry on fences - three points Building greenhouse - three points Dropping litter from upper storeys - seven points Three months' rent unpaid - 20 points

Urinating in public is also worth a three-point penalty, dropping litter five points, and dropping items from upper storeys seven points.

Failing to pay rent for three consecutive months attracts a maximum 20 points - enough to trigger eviction. The Guangzhou Land and House Management Bureau says on its website it has "borrowed the ideas from the advanced experience of Hong Kong on public housing management".

It says the plan is to "build a civilised, hygienic, safe and harmonious community environment."

Feedback from the public is being sought before the plan is implemented.

Some Chinese people have already criticised the plan on internet forums, saying it represents "discrimination against the poor".

"What if a rich person did all these things?" asked one web user.

Guangzhou, the capital of the province of Guangdong, is one of China's more prosperous cities and hosts the Asia Games in November 2010.

Fire breaks out on passenger train in south-west London

A fire has broken out on a passenger train in south-west London, leading to the evacuation of 300 passengers.

The fire broke out in a power unit on the South West Trains service in Berrylands, Surbiton, at 1030 GMT.

It took firefighters an hour to bring the fire under control. No-one was hurt in the incident.

Rail services from Guildford and Basingstoke into Waterloo have been suspended and services out of Waterloo have been disrupted.

A London Fire Brigade spokeswoman said: "A small fire broke out in a power unit under the train carriage."

It caused a "small amount" of damage to one of the carriages and two fire crews attended the incident.

She added: "Passengers were evacuated as a precautionary measure and there were no reported injuries."

'Walked on tracks'

A Network Rail spokesman said: "Passengers have been taken off the train safely by emergency services.

"There have been no injuries but there will be some disruption."

One passenger onboard the train said he had been delayed for two hours on his journey from Weybridge to Waterloo.

The 30-year-old, who did not want to be named, said some commuters got off the train and walked down the tracks to nearby stations.

He said: "Some people decided to brave the cold to get to other stations.

"Ironically, the meeting I was due to attend in London had actually been cancelled."

Women 'too busy' to go for cancer screenings

Practical reasons could be more significant than emotional ones in explaining why many women miss cervical cancer screenings, a study suggests.

It had been thought emotional factors - such as embarrassment or fear - were largely to blame for low take-up rates.                           

But a Journal of Medical Screening study found women who said they rarely or never voted in elections were more likely to be overdue for screening.

And researchers say the women could simply be too busy for either activity.

The team, from the charity Cancer Research UK, found the association was strongest in women aged 26-44.

Cervical screening saves about 4,500 lives every year.

Researcher Dr Jo Waller said: "With uptake of cervical screening in England still much lower than we would like, these findings suggest that overcoming practical barriers may be the most important factor in maximising cervical screening uptake.

"These results are encouraging. In the past, it was thought that emotional factors such as concern about embarrassment and pain were the best predictors. Minimising practical difficulties is a more achievable goal.

"In terms of the correlation between voting and screening attendance, it may be that as both activities require a degree of organisation, women who do not manage to vote because of busy lives may also be unlikely to attend screening."

Practical

The researchers suggest that measures to minimize practical difficulties, such as evening and weekend clinics, could have a significant effect.

A separate US study, published in the same journal, suggests the more children living in a household, the lower the cancer screening attendance in adults from that household.

The researchers suggest that parents could have less time to attend screenings and prioritise the needs of their children above their own.

Professor Julietta Patnick, director of the NHS Cancer Screening programmes, said: "We have been concerned for some time about falling acceptance rates for screening, particularly amongst certain groups in society, such as women under 35 and the over 55s.

"This study helps us understand what the issue might be and will be useful for us in addressing the issues."

Witch-doctors reveal extent of child sacrifice in Uganda

A BBC investigation into human sacrifice in Uganda has heard first-hand accounts which suggest ritual killings of children may be more common than authorities have acknowledged.

One witch-doctor led us to his secret shrine and said he had clients who regularly captured children and brought their blood and body parts to be consumed by spirits.

Meanwhile, a former witch-doctor who now campaigns to end child sacrifice confessed for the first time to having murdered about 70 people, including his own son.

The Ugandan government told us that human sacrifice is on the increase, and according to the head of the country's Anti-Human Sacrifice Taskforce the crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity, and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly.

In the course of our investigation we witnessed the ritual torching of the shrine of a particularly active witch-doctor in northern Uganda by anti-sacrifice campaigners.

The witch-doctor allowed ceremonial items including conch shells and animal skins to be burned in his sacred grove after agreeing to give up sacrifice.

He told us that clients had come to him in search of wealth.

"They capture other people's children. They bring the heart and the blood directly here to take to the spirits… They bring them in small tins and they place these objects under the tree from which the voices of the spirits are coming," he said.

Asked how often clients brought blood and body parts, the witch-doctor said they came "on average three times a week - with all that the spirits demand from them."

We saw a beaker of blood and what appeared to be a large, raw liver in the shrine before it was destroyed, although it was not possible to determine whether they were human remains.

Extortion

The witch-doctor denied any direct involvement in murder or incitement to murder, saying his spirits spoke directly to his clients.

He told us he was paid 500,000 Ugandan shillings (£160 or $260) for a consultation, but that most of that money was handed over to his "boss" in a nationwide network of witch-doctors.

Three-year-old Mukisa had his genitals cut off by a witch-doctor In pictures: Children in danger

Head of the Anti-Human Sacrifice and Trafficking Task Force, assistant commissioner Moses Binoga of the Ugandan police, said he knew of the boss referred to - involved in one of five or six witch-doctor protection rackets operating in the country.

"The senior ones extort money from lower people because they deal in illegal things," he told us.

Mr Binoga said police had opened 26 murder cases in 2009, in which the victim appeared to have been ritually sacrificed, compared with just three cases in 2007.

"We also have about 120 children and adults reported missing whose fate we have not traced. We cannot rule out that they may be victims of human sacrifice," he said.

But child protection campaigners believe the real number is much higher, as some disappearances are not reported to police.

Activism

Former witch-doctor turned anti-sacrifice campaigner Polino Angela says he has persuaded 2,400 other witch-doctors to give up the trade since he himself repented in 1990.

Mr Angela told us he had first been initiated as a witch-doctor at a ceremony in neighbouring Kenya, where a boy of about 13 was sacrificed.

"The child was cut with a knife on the neck and the entire length from the neck down was ripped open, and then the open part was put on me," he said.

When he returned to Uganda he says he was told by those who had initiated him to kill his own son, aged 10.

"I deceived my wife and made sure that everyone else had gone away and I was with my child alone. Once he was placed down on the ground, I used a big knife and brought it down like a guillotine."

Asked if he was afraid he might now be prosecuted as a result of confessing to killing 70 people, he said:

"I have been to all the churches… and they know me as a warrior in the drive to end witchcraft that involves human sacrifice, so I think that alone should indemnify me and have me exonerated."

Uganda's Minister of Ethics and Integrity James Nsaba Buturo believes that "to punish retrospectively would cause a problem... if we can persuade Ugandans to change, that is much better than going back into the past."

Child protection activists in organisations such as FAPAD (Facilitation for Peace and Development) and ANPPCAN (African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect) have highlighted recent cases of ritual killing and called for new legislation to regulate so-called "traditional healers".

Witness testimony

In some cases against alleged witch-doctors due to come to trial later this year, police will use the testimony of children who managed to survive abduction.

One such witness is a three-year-old boy called Mukisa, who was left for dead after his penis was hacked off by an assailant.

He survived thanks to quick work by surgeons, and later told police he had been mutilated by a neighbour who is known to keep a shrine.

Mukisa's mother told us: "Every time I look at him, I ask myself how his future is going to be - a man without a penis - and how the rest of the community will look at him, with private parts that can neither be attributed to a man or a woman. Every time I recall the normal birth that I had and the way Mukisa is now, it is like the end of the world."