IN BRIEF (Page 22)

Inquiry into deserted Guizhou charity school

The China Youth Development Foundation released the results of an investigation into a deserted primary school that was built with charitable donations, Xinhua News Agency reported. The Lingchuan Laoshan Hope Primary School, in Longchang, in the city of Kaili, in Southwest China's Guizhou province, was closed just one year after opening. The foundation launched an investigation following media reports that stirred public criticism regarding the disused school. The school was one of many schools built by the Hope Project, which was launched in 1989 by the CYDF and the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China to give poor children greater access to education. The Lingchuan school was built in 2008 with 200,000 yuan donated by the Hong Kong Lingchuan Charitable Foundation and 150,000 yuan in supportive funds provided by the Kaili municipal government, it said. Although the school was supposed to have about 200 enrolled students from five adjacent villages, the CYDF investigation showed that just 30 students were enrolled in March 2009. In January 2010, a plan to build an expressway was issued that called for expropriating the land that the school was built on, although the school was not closed. In September 2010, the 11 students remaining at the school were transferred to the Longchang Primary School. After the school was abandoned, it was turned into a chicken farm before becoming a garbage recycling center. It is scheduled to be demolished when construction on the expressway begins. The CYDF and its local branch has urged the local government to transfer the school's assets to the Longchang Primary School. In response, local education authorities chose to spend the 549,900 yuan that was allocated as compensation for the expropriation of the school's land to fund the construction of the Longchang school's main building.

Call to extend trial human organ donations