You think we got problems, think again...
 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36840902...fic/?Gt1=43001

BEIJING - A knife-wielding man attacked a kindergarten class of 4-year-olds in eastern China on Thursday, slashing 28 children in what an expert said was a copycat rampage of two other episodes at Chinese schools in the past month.

A 47-year-old jobless man, Xu Yuyuan, burst into a classroom at the Zhongxin Kindergarten early Thursday, waving an eight-inch knife and stabbing a security guard who tried to stop him, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Five students were in critical condition following the attack in Jiangsu province's Taixing city and two teachers and the security guard were injured, said Zhu Guiming, an official with the Taixing propaganda department.

A series of school attacks in China in recent years have mostly been blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness, leading to calls for improved security.

China's inadequate mental health network has left millions of unstable people without the help they need. Many otherwise healthy Chinese also feel frustrated and powerless because they aren't able to adapt to the constant social upheaval and because they believe the changes favor the corrupt. That kind of anger has occasionally erupted in mass violence and in isolated attacks.

It is not known why schools are targeted.

On Wednesday, a teacher on sick leave due to mental illness broke into a primary school in Guangdong province's Leizhou city in southern China and wounded 15 students and a teacher in a knife attack. That attack came on the same day a man was executed for killing eight children last month in stabbings that shocked China.

It was not known if Xu knew about the previous day's attack in Guangdong, but Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociology professor at Renmin University in Beijing, said these sorts of violent attacks often happen in clusters because one may trigger copycat attacks.

"It's like suicide, which is another type of mental health problem that can spread in a community," said Zhou. "Normally, with these kind of violent events we hope the media won't blow them up too much. Because that tends to make it spread."

A survey of mental health in four Chinese provinces jointly done by Chinese and U.S. doctors that was published in the Lancet in June concluded that China likely had about 173 million adults nationwide with mental health disorders and that most, 158 million, had never gotten any professional help for their problems.

But state media said Zheng Minsheng, 42, had no history of mental illness before he rampaged through a school in Fujian province in March, killing eight children.

During his trial, Zheng said he killed the children because he had been upset after being jilted by a woman and treated badly by her wealthy family.

The court also heard that Zheng lived with his 80-year-old grandmother in a one-bedroom apartment and slept on the balcony in summer and in the living room in winter. He testified that he had trouble dealing with people at work but had not gotten the help he needed from his boss, so he quit his job but was unable to find another one.

'Blood for blood'
Yu Jianrong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has said China's sweeping social changes might be partially to blame for Zheng's anti-social rage.

"A social environment lacking fairness and justice, in which those who abide by the rules gain nothing, while those who do not can profit, could bring about resistance by the weak against the entire society," Yu was quoted as saying by the Southern Weekly newspaper a few weeks after the attack.

Zheng was executed Wednesday, just weeks after his crime. Zhou, the Renmin University professor, said China's use of capital punishment helps fuel the cycle of violence by enforcing a belief in "blood for blood."

He said China should abolish the death penalty, improve human rights and make its justice system more fair and transparent.

After a 2004 attack at a school in Beijing that left nine students dead, the central government mandated tighter school security nationwide.

The Ministry of Education did not immediately respond to a fax Thursday asking whether the attacks would result in orders to step up school security.

In Wednesday's attack, in which a teacher stabbed fourth and fifth graders in their heads, backs and arms, Xinhua said the suspect suffered from mental illness and had been on sick leave from another school since February 2006. He is now in police custody.

None of the victims in that case had life-threatening wounds, said the director of the command center at the Leizhou Public Security Bureau, who gave his name as Qin.

Two weeks ago, a mentally ill man hacked to death a second grader and an elderly woman with a meat cleaver in southern Guangxi, and wounded five other people.

China and their army of mentally unstable knifemen. :( Pretty fucked up.

Onliners hear about all kinds of things happening in the states and this does not ring a bell, thankfully.:helpme

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36864339...ws-asiapacific

BEIJING - A farmer wielding a hammer attacked kindergarten students Friday, injuring five, before burning himself to death in the third horrific assault on Chinese schools in as many days, state media reported.

Wang Yonglai used a motorcycle to break down the gate of the Shangzhuang Primary School in the eastern city of Weifang and struck a teacher who tried to block him before hitting students with the hammer, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Wang then grabbed two children before pouring gasoline over his body and setting fire to himself. Teachers were able to pull the children away to safety, but Wang died. None of the five injured students had life-threatening injuries, Xinhua said.

The attack was confirmed by an employee at the Weifang Public Security news office in Shandong province, but the motive for Wang's rampage was unclear. Xinhua described him only as a local farmer.

Most of the recent school attacks have been blamed on people with personal grudges or suffering from mental illness ? seen as a growing problem because of feelings of social injustice and alienation in the fast-changing country.

The government on Friday issued an urgent directive to schools to tighten security.

The hammer attack follows a rampage Thursday by a 47-year-old unemployed man armed with an eight-inch knife at a kindergarten. Some 29 students, aged 4 or 5 years old, were wounded, five of them seriously at the school in Taixing city in neighboring Jiangsu province.

And on Wednesday, a 33-year-old former teacher broke into a primary school in the city of Leizhou in southern Guangdong province and wounded 15 students and a teacher with a knife. The attacker had been on sick leave from another school since 2006 for mental health problems.

In all, there have been five such attacks on schools in just over a month and many more in preceding months and years ? although gun crime and other extreme violence in China is comparatively rare. Sociologists suspect the recent school rampages ? usually by lone, male attackers ? could be copycat actions.

The Education Ministry's directive Friday, posted on its website, called for schools and local education departments to "strengthen the security activities at schools to ensure the safety of students and teachers," particularly at particularly elementary and middle schools.

It urged "concrete actions" including strictly implementing a rule already on the books to register all visitors coming to school campuses and preventing unidentified people from entering.

Calls for beefing up security at schools are nothing new. They were initially ordered by the central government in 2004 following an attack that year that left nine students dead at a Beijing school. Since 2006, schools have been required to register or inspect all visitors.

According to news reports, the latest attacks have prompted schools in various parts of the country to take action. In a district of southern Nanjing City, guards will be armed from Saturday with police batons and pepper spray. In Beijing's Xicheng district, guards at kindergarten, elementary and middle schools have been given long-handled metal restraint poles with a hook on the end. In eastern Jinan city, police posts are being built on elementary and middle schools campuses.

In an editorial Friday, the English-language China Daily said that security should be tightened at all schools nationwide, but stressed the need to prevent attacks in the first place.

"It can be easy to put killers on trial and execute them but it is far more difficult to find out the deep-seated causes behind such horrifying acts. Our efforts should be focused on preventing these from happening," it said. "We should find out what propelled them to such extremes. What problems do they have? Could anyone have helped, especially the authorities?"

Accounts in China's state media have largely glossed over what motivates attackers, but experts say outbursts against the defenseless are frequently due to social pressures. An egalitarian society only a generation ago, China's headlong rush to prosperity has sharpened differences between the rich and poor, while the public health system has atrophied.

China likely has about 173 million adults with mental health disorders, and 158 million of them have never had professional help, according to a mental health survey in four provinces jointly done by Chinese and U.S. doctors that was published in the medical journal The Lancet in June.

Awful, awful news. I feel sorry for the killer, and I am sorry for the victims and their families.

i could be wrong but with such a huge population, such poverty and their culture i would imagine mental illness is typically ignored.

WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE.:Oh crap The 150 million with mental illness left untreated is half of the entire US population. Staggering numbers when you look at it.

more bad news. The flow of information is going to kill us mentally some day

crazy peps