The parents of a boy who died in a centre for children with autism have hired a lawyer to help collect evidence against the institution.

Zhang Wei, mother of Lai Rijia, also hired a local medical institution to conduct an autopsy to find the real reason for her son’s death.

He would have turned four years old in a month.

Zhang, from Dandong, Liaoning province, sent her son to the Tiandizhengqi centre in Guangzhou’s Panyu district on March 2. She was informed that he had died on April 27.

The boy suffered from a fever and was pronounced dead after he was sent to a hospital at about 11pm.

Doctors said Lai had inflammation of the brain; bleeding lungs; and hand, foot and mouth disease. The boy had been unconscious for more than 30 minutes before he was sent to the hospital.

Zhang said her son suffered from light autism and she had sent him to the centre after it promised to help cure him.

“The treatment includes marching 10 to 20 kilometres a day,” Zhang said.

A training record provided by Zhang showed that the boy participated in a 10-kilometre run in the morning and a 9-km run in the afternoon on April 26, one day before his death, Nanfang Metropolis Daily reported on Wednesday.

The centre closed on Wednesday and the more than 10 other children under its programme were sent home.

Zhang has vowed to sue the centre, reported Shanghaiist.

According to The Global Times, the institution was not registered with Guangzhou Civil Affairs Bureau and private rehabilitation firms are not required to abide by any industry regulations.

Zhang questioned whether the centre, which opened in 2013, was qualified to cure autism, because it is registered only as a health centre with the local industrial and commercial administration.

Various departments, including industrial and commercial administrations and police, have promised to launch a further investigation.

Zou Xiaobing a senior doctor in children’s development at the Third Affiliated Hospital with Sun Yat-sen University, asked why the centre could promise it could cure autism through a camp and field training involving long distances.

“New methods need to be proven effective before they are used to cure children’s autism,” Zou said.

Li Xiaofeng, another senior pediatrician at the hospital, said 20 kilometres of camp and field training a day is too much for children who are still growing.

“Children under 12 should not run more than 1,000 metres at a time, or their health might be damaged,” he said.

A MAN in Hangzhou, China, was shocked to find that his genitals were putrefying because he was wearing underwear that had been soaked in poison, reported Kwong Wah Yit Poh.

The man, known only as Zhang, in his 50s, had quarrelled with his wife recently.

Investigation by the police showed that his wife then soaked his underwear in poison and dried it in the sun before handing it over to him to wear during their daughter’s wedding.

Zhang only realised something was wrong when his genitals started to putrefy and he suffered breathing difficulties after a few days.

When he sought treatment at a hospital, he was told that he had been poisoned.

Zhang was discharged from the hospital after being warded for three weeks, including a two-week stay in the intensive care unit.

His wife was detained by the police for further investigation.

MANILA – Voting was underway in the Philippines on Monday to elect a new president, with anti-establishment firebrand Rodrigo Duterte the shock favourite after an incendiary campaign in which he vowed to butcher criminals.

Polls opened at 6:00am (2200 GMT Sunday) and voting was to continue until 5:00pm, election officials said.

Television reports showed lengthy lines, mostly outside schoolhouses that are serving as voting centres.

There were no immediate reports of disruption of voting as people who had been queueing up since dawn finally got a chance to cast their ballots.

Duterte, the longtime mayor of the southern city of Davao, has held a commanding lead over other presidential rivals in recent surveys as he hypnotised millions with profanity-laced tirades promising brutal but quick solutions to the nation’s twin plagues of crime and poverty.

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AFP, Reuters

He has rocked the political establishment with cuss-filled vows to kill tens of thousands of criminals, threats to establish one-man rule if lawmakers disobey him, and promises to embrace communist rebels.

However Duterte’s critics have warned he will plunge the country into another dark period of dictatorship and turmoil, three decades after a “People Power” revolution ended the regime of dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Departing President Benigno Aquino, whose mother led the democracy movement that ousted Marcos then led the nation for six years, has warned repeatedly the nation is at risk of succumbing to another dictatorship.

Aquino, who is limited by the constitution to a single term of six years, has overseen average annual economic growth of six percent and won international plaudits for trying to tackle corruption.

However his critics say he has done little to change an economic model that favours an extraordinarily small number of families that control nearly all key industries, and has led to one of Asia’s biggest rich-poor divides.

His handpicked successor, former interior secretary and fellow Liberal Party stalwart Mar Roxas, also a scion of a prominent political family, is tied in second place, behind Duterte in surveys.

Senator Grace Poe, the adopted daughter of a late movie star, is in equal second place, having seen her popularity slide after critics pointed to her taking US citizenship then later giving it up.

Vice President Jejomar Binay, an early leader in the presidential race but who later fell behind due to charges of corruption, was among the early voters, casting his ballots mere minutes after the polls opened.

In an intriguing sub-plot, Marcos’s son and namesake is equal favourite to be elected vice president, which would cement a remarkable political comeback for his family.

The fierce presidential contest has further contributed to political tensions in a country where cheating and election violence are a recurring problem.

The police have reported 15 dead in confirmed election-related violence this year although many others have been killed or hurt in incidents that are merely suspected of being linked to politics.

MANILA – Seven people were shot dead and another was wounded when a convoy of vehicles was ambushed in the Philippines Monday just hours before polls opened for national elections, police said.

Unknown gunmen opened fire on the jeep and two motorcycles before dawn in the town of Rosario, just south of the capital Manila, said Chief Inspector Jonathan del Rosario.

The motive for the attack was not yet known.

However the incident took place in the province of Cavite which has been identified by election officials as an “area of concern,” due to heated political rivalries, said del Rosario, spokesman of a special election violence monitoring task force.

The task force previously said 15 people had been killed in election-related incidents since the start of the year. But there are many other cases of violence that have yet to be fully linked to the elections.

Millions of Filipinos are expected to cast their votes on Monday to select new leaders ranging from president to town councillor.

Political violence is a recurring problem in the country, fuelled by lax enforcement of laws and entrenched political “dynasties,” some of whom have their own private armies.

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AFP, Reuters