Compiled by PANG SHIANG YIH, C. ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN

       THE United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) welcomed the construction of a new independent Chinese school in Selangor, reported China Press.

       Its president Tan Tai Kim said as the current eight schools in the state were already full, they turn away thousands of applicants each year.

       “The number of applicants to independent Chinese schools in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur has always been high.

       “Due to a lack of classrooms and vacancies, (schools) were only able to accept 40% of 50% of applicants. We have always had to say ‘no’ to about 3,000 to 4,000 applicants each year,” he said.

       A new school, which was recently announced by the Selangor government, would help to alleviate this problem, Tan said.

       According to Tan, the number of students at independent Chinese schools across the country reached an all time high of 85,000 in 2017.

       Due to a fall in the Chinese population, enrolment dropped to only 82,000 in the most recent school year.

       Dong Zong looks after independent Chinese schools in Malaysia and determines the syllabus for the UEC examinations.

       > A man in China, who was kidnapped and spent more than half a year as an unwitting blood donor in Cambodia, has escaped his captors and is receiving treatment, reported China Press.

       The 31-year-old man from Jiangsu, who wanted to only be known as Li Yaming, said he got a highly-paid job offer to be a maintenance man in China’s Guangxi province in June 2021.

       He ended up being kidnapped, beaten and sold several times by human traffickers before being shipped to Cambodia.

       According to Li, his captors would draw three large bottles of his blood every 45 days to be sold in the black market, leaving him with just enough blood to survive.

       As he had the Group O blood type, he was a universal donor and was deemed a valuable “asset” by his captors, Li said.

       Li managed to escape in February and has been receiving treatment at the Bethune Cambodia China First Hospital in Phnom Penh since Feb 11.

       The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.