HANGZHOU – A Chinese boy chased his mother’s car for some distance after she drove off without him unwittingly, reports said.

She had dropped a relative off at a train station in Zhuji, a city in Zhejiang in eastern China on Sunday (Dec 25) morning.

Not aware that her seven-year-old son also got off the car, she drove off, and the boy was caught on video chasing her car.

When other car drivers sounded their horn to alert her, she thought she was obstructing traffic and drove faster, China Press reported.

Her son even caught up with her at one point and pulled the car door, but it was locked.

A taxi driver finally managed to get her attention, and told her that a boy was chasing her car earlier.

She was about 1km into her journey, and realising her son was missing, sought help from the police.

Police found her son about 2km from the train station.

Police told local reporters that the mother was extremely distraught. When she finally saw her son, she hugged him tightly and refused to let him go, photos showed.

This article was first published on Dec 29, 2016.
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A 64-year-old woman who lost her only child gave birth to a healthy baby boy by Cesarean section and herself remained stable in Changchun, Northeast China’s Jilin province on Dec 28.

The news was released by a Sina Weibo user named “Your eyes are not bigger than me”, with two photos posted. One photo shows the gray-haired mother looking at her baby and another shows a group photo of the woman and the medical staff in the delivery room at the Second Hospital of Jilin University.

This Weibo piece was widely shared. Many netizens praised the mother for her achievement and sent good wishes.

“She is brave and touches me,” said Teng Hong, the doctor in charge of the delivery, adding that the woman got pregnant through in-vitro fertilization and turned to her for prenatal care since the 13th week of gestation, as Xinwenhua News reported.

“She was an elderly pregnant woman and lost her only child previously, so she faced both psychological and physical pressure,” Teng said, “But every time she came in for a check, she was smiling and gentle, and was brave enough to face the changes of the whole pregnancy.”

Aged pregnant women usually face risky healthy problems. Teng said that the 64-year-old was found to have gestational diabetes in the 28th week and total placenta previa in the 30th week.

As total placenta previa may cause hemorrhage and even become life-threatening, the doctor advised the woman to enter the hospital. “She trusted us wholeheartedly by doing exactly what we told her to do and kept in good spirits every day,” said Teng, “When her situation went well, we let her stay at home.”

The woman had a C-section on her due date. The operation went smoothly. Though the woman was completely exhausted after delivery, she instantly reached out her hand and touched the Teng’s face, saying, “Thanks for your hard work.”

“I was really moved at the moment, and my nerves, which were tense for months, were eventually stretched,” Teng said.

“The mother and baby are both healthy, and the woman can leave hospital in a few days,” Teng, added, saying that the happy ending is a result of the mother’s rigorous prenatal care and pleasant mood.

Teng said the woman was the oldest she had accepted as a patient, and may be the oldest across the country so far.

In May, 2015, a 62-year-old woman delivered a baby in Zibo, East China’s Shandong province, setting a record of the world’s oldest mother to naturally conceive and the oldest to deliver in China, according to the Luzhong Morning Post.

Delivery women who broke world records

Annegret Raunigk, a German, delivered a daughter and three sons at the age of 65 on May 19, 2015, becoming the world’s oldest mother of quads.

Indian Omkari Panwar, 70, gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, through artificial insemination and became the world’s oldest mother in 2008.

A tall bridge hung 565 meters (1,854 feet) above the canyon in southwestern China on Thursday, with state media calling it the world’s tallest bridge.

The Bibi River Bridge spans 1.34 km (0.83 mi) between Xuanwei City in Yunnan and Shuicheng County in Guizhou, costing 1.023 billion yuan (about S $ 213 million) to build, the Central Television Station said.

CCTV said that the four-lane bridge takes three years, will Xuanwei and Shuicheng between the time from more than four hours to an hour or so.

Bangkok – Thailand’s military government on Thursday granted the king power to appoint the Buddhist country’s top monk, a move aimed at resolving a bitter power struggle over the venerated post.

The position of Supreme Patriarch has been left open for several years as Thailand’s Buddhist factions tussle over a successor.

Thai junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha has refrained from endorsing the front-runner nominated by the kingdom’s ruling council of monks, a body known as the Sangha.

The 91-year-old nominee, Somdet Phra Maha Ratchamangkhlacharn, has drawn criticism from some circles for his perceived links to the scandal-hit Dhammakaya sect.

Critics say the breakaway order emphasises materialism and many mainstream Buddhists fear it is poised to take over the nation’s faith.

On Thursday Thailand’s rubber-stamp parliament approved an amendment that hands the king power to appoint any monk for the post – thereby cutting out the vote of the Sangha.

Lawmaker Somchai Swangkarn denied that the move was calculated to block the rise of Phra Ratchamangkhlacharn, who is also facing a probe for alleged tax evasion on a luxury car.

“The amendment of this law is not to prevent any single person,” he said after the amendment sailed through the junta-appointed parliament in three rapid-fire readings.

While the move opens up a path for a new monk to lead the faith, little is known about who Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn might favour.

The rancorous battle over the patriarch post is only the latest controversy to dog the clergy in a country where 95 percent of the population are Buddhist.

Monks routinely make lurid headlines for their lavish lifestyles, sex scandals and gambling.

The ultra-rich Dhammakaya temple in particular has become engulfed in legal scandals, with its elderly abbott accused of money laundering and land encroachment.