Controversial parts of a textbook for primary school students, including a story about Thomas Edison saving his mother, will be removed from a new edition for the autumn semester, according to its publishers.

A Chinese-language textbook for Grade 2 students includes a story that Edison’s mother needed surgery for appendicitis, but light in the operating room was too dim, so the inventor – only 7 years old at the time – came up with the idea of placing mirrors near an oil lamp to better illuminate the room.

Some teachers complained that the text is incorrect, as the world’s first appendectomy is widely believed to have been carried out in 1886, while Edison would have been 7 in 1854.

Zhang Min, the principal of Hangzhou Foreign Language Experimental School, said he was “astonished to see the text” and called for a revision.

The Edison story is not an isolated case.

Another piece in the same book tells the story of a young George Washington, the first president of the United States, cutting down a cherry tree, despite archaeological evidence showing there were no cherry trees near the house Washington lived in as a child.

People’s Education Press, which publishes a series of school textbooks, told China News Service on Wednesday that these sections had been removed for a new edition that will be used in classrooms from September.

Wang Xuming, director of the Language and Culture Press, another major publisher, said some basic criteria – for example, respecting the truth of history and accuracy – should be followed when selecting content for textbooks.

“In the meantime, I think students could be encouraged to challenge the content of textbooks,” he said.

People’s Education Press said earlier in an online statement that the Edison story first appeared in Chinese publications in the 1980s and was chosen as a text for primary school textbooks in 2002.

“People at that time already questioned it. We inquired with some experts, but their views were divided,” the statement said. “Due to the recent controversy, we are asking more experts for suggestions.”

The publisher also said the Ministry of Education paid great attention to school textbooks and had organised a group of prominent experts to compile new Chinese-language textbooks since 2012.

The current textbooks will gradually be replaced, it said, adding, “We will be more attentive and will invite experts to help double-check the content to prevent mistakes.”

The selfless Filipino father at Jollibee has taken his daughters out for another meal of fast food. But this time, he didn’t merely watch – he got to eat too!

Ryan Arebuabo, 38, rose to online fame after he was pictured looking on as his two girls, aged six and eight, enjoyed his treat of fried chicken at a Jollibee outlet in the Philippines. It was later revealed that the feast was to celebrate the six-year-old’s upcoming graduation from kindergarten.

After the photo was uploaded on Mar 12, netizens came to learn the tragic story about how he suffered a stroke and was living in a slum as a single dad after his wife left him.

The touching photo and story quickly went viral with netizens expressing their adoration for the selfless father, as Arebuabo has come to be known.

ABS-CBN reported early this morning (Mar 27) that Jollibee offered to treat the family to anything they wanted from the menu.

A video by Philippine news agency ABS-CBN shows the trio having spaghetti and burgers.

Arebuabo is also seen doing rehabilitation therapy exercises, sponsored by the ABS-CBN Lingkod Kapamilya Foundation, for the stroke he suffered four years ago which left him partially paralysed and impaired his speech. He previously told ABS-CBN that he had never gone for rehabilitation therapy, and that he last visited the doctor three years ago.

At around the time of his stroke, Arebuabo’s wife left him, taking their daughters with her.

Arebuabo later managed to get the custody of the kids, and has been providing for them by working at a convenience store he set up using a stall cart he received from the Philippines’ Department of Social Welfare and Development. He earns 100 to 200 pesos (around S$2.80 to S$5.50) from there, and gets a monthly cash grant of 2,200 pesos from a government initiative for the poor.

Due to overwhelming interest in helping Arebuabo, a Facebook page has been created to share contact information and updates.

huizhen@sph.com.sg

HONG KONG – A Beijing-backed civil servant, Carrie Lam, was chosen to be Hong Kong’s next leader on Sunday amid accusations that Beijing is meddling and denying the financial hub a more populist leader perhaps better able to defuse political tension.

The majority of the China-ruled city’s 7.3 million people have no say in deciding their leader, who is chosen from among several candidates by a 1,200-person “election committee”stacked with pro-Beijing and pro-establishment loyalists.

Lam, who will become Hong Kong’s first female chief executive when she takes office on July 1, won 777 votes compared with 365 for her closest rival, former financial secretary John Tsang, who polls show is more popular.

There were several invalid protest ballots including one that carried an obscenity.

“Hong Kong, our home, is suffering from quite a serious divisiveness,” Lam said in a victory speech.

“My priority will be to heal the divide and to ease the frustration, and to unite our society to move forward.” Lam also pledged to follow through on election promises including introducing a “two-tier” profits tax, reducing tax to spur research and development, tackling the high cost of housing by increasing land supply and boosting education spending.

She also promised to defend the rule of law and freedom of expression as integral to underpinning prosperity. “Hong Kong needs new thinking,” she said.

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Carrie Lam elected Hong Kong chief executive

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TENSIONS

Some scuffles broke out outside the voting centre between protesters and police, who used metal barricades to keep the demonstrations well away.

The activists denounced Beijing’s “interference” amid widespread reports of lobbying of voters to back Lam, rather than Tsang.

Some protesters chanted “I want universal suffrage” and unfurled yellow umbrellas, a symbol of the civil disobedience”umbrella movement”, when the result was announced.

“Lies, coercion, whitewash,” read one banner. A big yellow banner calling for full democracy was hung from the Lion Rock peak overlooking the city.

“The central government has intervened again and again,”said Carmen Tong, a 20-year-old student. “It’s very unjust.” Hundreds of Lam’s supporters waved Chinese flags and cheered inside and outside the venue after her win.

Since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, Beijing has gradually increased control over it even though it promised wide-ranging freedoms and autonomy not allowed on the mainland under the formula of “one country, two systems”, along with an undated promise of universal suffrage.

Many, including opposition democrats, fear Lam will stick to the tough policies of staunchly pro-Beijing incumbent Leung Chun-ying, who ordered the firing of teargas on pro-democracy protesters in 2014 and who was not seen to be defending Hong Kong’s autonomy and core values.

“She doesn’t have a strong foundation, nor will she have a honeymoon after she’s elected,” said political scientist Ivan Choy. “

But whether she will further divide society we still have to wait and see what she does, whether she will continue the approach of Leung.”

All of Hong Kong’s three other post-handover leaders have struggled to balance the demands of China’s stability-obsessed Communist Party leaders, with the wish of many residents to preserve the global financial hub’s liberal values and rule of law that have long underpinned its economic success.

In 2014, parts of the city were paralysed when tens of thousands of protesters blocked major roads for nearly three months to demand Beijing allow full democracy; demands that were ignored amid some violent clashes.

China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office congratulated Lam, saying she should not disappoint the people and should seek to “comprehensively unite all sectors of society”, strengthen development, and “work hard to forge a new situation”, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Some city residents see China’s creeping interference in business, media, politics, academia and the judiciary as tarnishing the city’s international business allure.

The detention in 2015 of five Hong Kong booksellers who sold material critical of Beijing also dismayed many residents.

The upheavals over the city’s autonomy and democratic reforms have roiled a new generation and weighed on the city’s economy, ranked 33rd globally by the World Bank in 2015. Hong Kong’s richest man, Li Ka-shing, warned this week the city couldn’t afford another five years of strife.

Hong Kong had been presented with a reform package, offering the possibility of a direct vote for this leadership race, though only of candidates essentially pre-screened by Beijing. The blueprint was vetoed in 2015 by pro-democracy lawmakers as”fake” Chinese-style democracy.

Political and social divisions have led to some legislative and policy-making paralysis and the stalling of major projects, including a cultural hub and high-speed rail link to China.

While Hong Kong’s proximity to China has been a boon, bringing investment and spending, businesses have also faced growing competition from mainland firms in sectors like services and property.

Housing prices, now among the world’s highest, are widely seen to have been pushed up by a wave of buying from rich Chinese, intensifying anti-mainland China sentiment.

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President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s call for religious leaders and politicians not to mix religion and party politics has received a sceptical response from some quarters, with the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) dismissing the statement as the promotion of “secularism” in an otherwise religious country.

Faced with worsening sectarian tension in the lead-up to the runoff round of the Jakarta gubernatorial election, President Jokowi warned over the weekend that mixing religion and politics was dangerous as it could lead to divisions within society.

“[The two] should be separate so people can know what is religion and what is politics,” Jokowi said during the unveiling of a monument to the birthplace of Islam Nusantara (Islam in the Archipelago) in South Tapanuli, North Sumatra, on Friday.

Read also: Farmers in tears after disappointing meeting with Jokowi

Responding to the statement, MUI deputy secretary general Tengku Zulkarnain said that in making the statement, Jokowi was promoting liberal values of a type that should prevail only in western countries and that the organisation would oppose any efforts to promote them.

“That’s secularism. We haven’t yet convened a meeting to respond to it but I am sure [all MUI members] will oppose and criticise it,” Tengku told The Jakarta Post.

In 2005, the MUI issued an edict outlawing secularism, pluralism and liberalism, considering them to be western values that were not compatible with Indonesian society. Last year, the organisation also issued an edict stating that Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja “Ahok” Purnama blasphemed against the Quran after suggesting that Muslim leaders had duped voters by using a verse in the Quran that instructs the faithful only to vote for Muslim candidates. Ahok is currently standing trial for the alleged blasphemy.

In recent months sectarian tension has risen, especially in Jakarta, where the stakes in the gubernatorial election are so high. Many observers regard the Jakarta election as the harbinger of things to come in the 2019 presidential election.

Read also: Indonesian president Jokowi’s approval rating hits 66%: Survey

In an unprecedented move against Ahok and his supporters, a number of Muslim clerics have launched a campaign to deny proper burial rites to deceased Muslims who had voted for Ahok, a Christian of Chinese descent, in the election.

Contacted separately, Sohibul Iman, the chairman of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), which backs Ahok’s rival, Anies Baswedan, in the Jakarta election, said Jokowi’s statement ignored the Islamic character of the country and its history.

Sohibul claimed that the country’s struggle for independence from colonial rule had been motivated by religion and it was religious values that lay at the nation’s foundation.

“I suspect the statement reflects his incomprehension and his inability to manage diversity in this country. The fact is that tension has risen during his time in office,” Sohibul told the Post.

The PKS chairman said Jokowi’s call for a separation of faith and politics could in fact increase tension.

Read also: Jokowi gets measured for wax figure at Madame Tussauds Hong Kong

“I wish the President would think wisely before making such a sensitive statement […] this could create more tension,” Sohibul said.

Meanwhile, the deputy chairman of the country’s largest Islamic organisation Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Maksum Machfoedz, said he backed Jokowi’s call, insisting that it was dangerous to drag religion into what he called “transactional politics.”

He said religious leaders should take the high road and remain aloof from electoral politics, maintaining that religion should only be used to inspire political leaders and the public in general to do good.

“NU has opted to stay away from promoting political interests,” Maksum said.

NU and Muhammadiyah, the country’s second-largest Islamic organisation, have been the champions of a moderate version of Islam in the country while allowing political parties that have their roots in their organisations, the National Awakening Party (PKB) and the National Mandate Party (PAN), respectively, to engage in politics.