Child Abandoned at Australia Train Station

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Police in three countries are hunting for the parents of a little girl in a red jacket nicknamed "Pumpkin" after she was abandoned at an Australian railway station.

Staff at the main country railway station in the southern city of Melbourne found three-year-old New Zealand toddler Qian Xun Xue crying and alone on Saturday.

Security images showed Xue being led by a man police believe was her father, Nai Zin Xue, who left the station without his daughter to catch a flight to the United States.

"The girl remains calm and composed. Sometimes she spikes in emotions when she wakes up and mum's not there but the carers settle her back into a routine," Victorian state police inspector Brad Shallies told Australian television on Tuesday.

The girl is being looked after by a foster family in Victoria.

The case attracted blanket media coverage in Australia and New Zealand as authorities attempted to identify the toddler, who was dubbed "Pumpkin" after the Pumpkin Patch brand of clothing she was wearing when she was found.

Police later identified the girl and her father, a 54-year-old magazine publisher who had moved to New Zealand from China about 10 years ago. Police said people rang in after recognizing the girl and father from images broadcast on television.

The father and daughter had arrived in Australia last Thursday on a flight from Auckland.

Australian police were working with police in New Zealand and the United States to try to find her parents.

Police in Auckland said they had looked unsuccessfully for the child's mother, Anan Liu, known as Annie, for the past three days and were now gravely concerned about her safety.

"You can jump to all sorts of conclusions, but there are concerns we haven't heard from her, so yes the inquiry is being ramped up considerably," Detective Inspector Dave Pearson, told the NZ Press Association.

New Zealand Police searched Xue's family home on Tuesday, taking away several items for examination.

"We have recovered some items of interest from an address. There is nothing to indicate, though, where Anan is," New Zealand police spokesman Simon Scott told New Zealand television.

New Zealand lawmaker Pansy Wong said Xue was an active member of the Chinese community, and his wife was a very private person.

"The mother and daughter are obviously very close. She is very sweet," Wong said.

The Longest Underwater Tunnel In The World

this strange-looking beast in tokyo is an artificial island and tourist attraction by the name of umihotaru (translation: marine firefly) which forms part of the tokyo bay aqualine, a bridge-tunnel that connects kawasaki and kisarazu.

cars can either drive over the 4.4km bridge to the island and park in order to admire the view or drive straight through to the tunnel entrance where they will be taken under the water for 9.5km until they reach kawasaki.

the tunnel is apparently the longest underwater tunnel in the world.

Source:- Deputy Dog

12 Foot Long Alligator Attacked 59 Year Old Bill Heddon

A snorkeller whose arm was bitten off and swallowed by a monster alligator underwent a major operation to re-attach it after the beast was shot and the arm found in its belly.

The 12-foot long alligator attacked 59-year-old Bill Heddon and chewed off his arm as he snorkelled on a lake.

Beast: Alligator with the arm which was later taken from its stomach and re-attached to the victim

Witnesses raised the alarm and emergency services and officers from the Department of Natural Resource rushed to Lake Moultrie near Charleston, South Carolina.

As medics treated the injured man, officers shot the alligator. When they slit open the alligator's stomach they discovered the limb has been swallowed whole.

Rescue: The victim, suffering blood loss, is taken by air ambulance to hospital

A group of Filipinos gathering for a nearby religious ceremony offered a box of ice and a cooler for the severed arm and the man and his limb were rushed to hospital.

Doctors are waiting to see whether the operation to re-attach the arm has been successful.

Dead Man Wakes Up under Autopsy Knife

CARACAS (Reuters) - A Venezuelan man who had been declared dead woke up in the morgue in excruciating pain after medical examiners began their autopsy.Carlos Camejo, 33, was declared dead after a highway accident and taken to the morgue, where examiners began an autopsy only to realize something was amiss when he started bleeding. They quickly sought to stitch up the incision on his face.

"I woke up because the pain was unbearable," Camejo said, according to a report on Friday in leading local newspaper El Universal.

His grieving wife turned up at the morgue to identify her husband's body only to find him moved into a corridor -- and alive.

Reuters could not immediately reach hospital officials to confirm the events. But Camejo showed the newspaper his facial scar and a document ordering the autopsy.

Death Defying School Run

A bridge is to be built in a Chinese village where children are forced to cross a raging torrent on a steel cable to get to school.Nearly 500 children, from Maji village in Fugong town, Yunnan province, cross the most dangerous stretch of the Nujiang River each day.
They fasten themselves to the cable with a metal carabiner and a rope and slide across the 200 metre wide canyon, reports the Beijing News.

The youngest student, A Qia, 4, has to go over by herself each day.

"I have to hand walk for about 60 metres, since my light weight makes me stop about two thirds of the way across," she said.

The villagers say that usually four-year-old children are taken by their parents, and begin to go by themselves from the age of five.

A Pu, five, who was stuck in the middle of the cable for nearly 20 minutes once, said: "I used to dream of having a bridge, but then I learned that my dream was too expensive."

But officials finally agreed to spend £35,000 on a bridge after a TV programme was made about the children's dangerous daily journey.

The Smallest And Biggest Teapot In The World

This is the smallest bronze teapot ever made. The picture was taken at a Chinese folk art expo held in Shanghai on September 16.

This is the picture taken on the same day, of the biggest teapot in the world.

Venezuela Claims Big Soup Record

Venezuelan officials claimed a world record Saturday for making the largest pot of soup, a giant cauldron of stew prepared by President Hugo Chavez’s government.

The hulking stainless steel cooking pot, set up outdoors in downtown Caracas, contained about 3,960 gallons of “sancocho” stew, Food Minister Rafael Oropeza said. That would dwarf the current record-holder listed on the Guinness World Records Web site, a pot of 1,413 gallons of spicy soup prepared in Durango, Mexico, in July.


Oropeza called it “Bolivarian stew” _ a play on the name of Chavez’s socialist movement, named in honor of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar. He said it was enough to feed 60,000 to 70,000 people.

Workers stood on raised platforms stirring the soup with poles, and then dished out servings to a crowd at a state-run market.

It contained 6,600 pounds of chicken, 4,400 pounds of beef and tons of vegetables.

Addressing reporters next to the pot, Oropeza said the government is solving supply problems that have made it difficult for Venezuelans to find staples like milk and eggs in recent months. He said the state-run market had ample reserves of all products.

With price controls in place, rising demand has outstripped domestic production of some foods, prompting an increase in imports. Oropeza said the only product that remains in short supply is milk, a situation he blamed on a “world problem” of unusual cold snaps and dry spells hurting milk production.

As for the soup, he introduced a representative of Guinness World Records who he said was on hand to certify the record.

The 5,413-gallon pot was about three-quarters full.

“We didn’t add more for security reasons,” Oropeza said. “There’s plenty for second helpings.”
Source:-InstaBlogs