April 22, 2009
Two brothers took a woman hostage in Guangzhou yesterday, reports the Southern Metropolis Daily in a large feature story. The front page photo captures the moment when plainclothes police officers subdued one of the kidnappers.
According to the report, the woman was walking on a street in Guangzhou’s Baiyun District around 10 o’clock yesterday morning when she was kidnapped. During the 90-minute standoff with the police before the hostage was rescued, one kidnapper held a knife to her throat and demanded a ransom of 10,000 yuan.
The other kidnapper held a board with “fundraising” written on it. After his arrest, he confessed that he and his brother had intended to use the crime to raise money to save their mother, who suffered an accident from farming work and had been hospitalized.
The top headline announces that Premier Wen Jiabao just finished his three-day inspection to Guangdong Province from April 19 to 21. This was his third visit in ten months to the province, which is suffering the most from the effects of the economic downturn.
- Southern Metropolis Daily (Chinese): Brother kidnappers say they just want to save their mother, Wen Jiabao finised his third trip to Guangdong in one year