China finds ancient tomb of ‘woman prime minister’
Beijing: The tomb of the most influential woman ‘prime minister’ in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) was discovered in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province earlier this week.
The tomb, which is 36.5 metres in circumference and 10.1 metres in depth, was recovered in damaged state and only a few burial accessories could be excavated, according to the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology.
Engravings inside the tomb confirm the grave belongs to Shangguan Wan’er (664-710), an influential woman politician and a poet during the regime of Empress Wu Zetian (624-705), China’s first woman ruler, Xinhua quoted archaeologists as saying.
“Archaeologists believe it was not damaged by common grave robbers but by officials in ancient China,” said Yu Gengzhe, a history professor at Shaanxi Normal University.
Her epitaph has nearly 1,000 words that record the details of Shangguan’s life, year of death and tomb location.
The findings have “major significance” for ancient Chinese literature studies, say experts.
Shangguan was killed in a palace coup in 710. But her legend remains the theme of many films and TV series in China.
The archaeological site of the tomb was closed for cleaning and preservation work, said the officials. (ANI)
US girl aged 12 commits suicide after cyber bullying
Washington: A 12-year-old Florida girl who suffered months of ruthless cyberbullying from other girls committed suicide this week, authorities say. Rebecca Ann Sedwick of the town of Lakeland in central Florida jumped from a platform at an abandoned cement plant near her home on Monday, according to the Polk County sheriff’s office.
Her death is the latest in an apparently growing phenomenon of youths driven to taking their own lives after suffering cruel treatment online via text and photo messaging applications. More than a dozen girls have been identified as possibly involved in the bullying of Sedwick, Polk County sheriff Grady Judd said at a news conference Thursday.
The bullying apparently started with a dispute over a boy that Sedwick had dated for a while, the New York Times reported. According to her mother Tricia Norman, Sedwick received text messages that said things like ‘You’re ugly’, “Why are you still alive?” and “Go kill yourself.” Judd, the sheriff, said the girl was “absolutely terrorised on social media.” At one point, the mother had pulled her daughter out of school and transferred her to another, closed down the girl’s Facebook page and took away her cellphone.
Things seems to be getting better and Rebecca’s spirits seemed to be lifting at her new school. But she also secretly signed on to new apps such as a cellphone message application called Kik Messenger and the bullying resumed, the Times said. In Kik Messenger, Sedwick had changed her user name to “That Dead Girl,” the Times said. (AFP)
Man gets 20 lashes for beating wife
Abu Dhabi: A court in eastern Saudi Arabia has sentenced a husband to 20 lashes for allegedly hitting his wife on her shoulder.
The case was filed one month ago in Al Qateef by the wife, who presented a medical report supporting her claim.
According to Gulf News, the husband, in his 30s, said that he did not mean to hurt his wife and said that he was merely joking with her.
Even though the wife later told the authorities that she was dropping the case after reconciliation with her husband, the prosecution refused to dismiss the public charges.
The judge ruled that the wife had the right to attend the flogging. (ANI)
World’s oldest man dies at age 112 in US
Brisbane: World’s oldest man, Salustiano Sanchez-Blazquez died on Friday at a nursing home in New York, aged 112, who became the oldest when Jiroemon Kimura died on June 12 at the age of 116.
According to The Courier Mail, born June 8, 1901, in the Spanish village of El Tejado de Bejar, he was known for his talent on the dulzaina, a double-reed wind instrument that he taught himself and played at weddings and village celebrations.
At 17, he moved with his older brother Pedro and a group of friends to Cuba, where they worked in the cane fields, the report said. In 1920, he came to the United States through Ellis Island and worked in the coalmines of Lynch, Kentucky, the report added. (ANI)
Australia could become first nation to outlaw smoking
Sydney: Australia could become the first major nation to outlaw smoking.
A federal government-funded trial is about to test the viability of electronic cigarettes as a safer, permanent replacement for tobacco.
Medical experts, cancer groups and anti-smoking lobbyists battled for decades to rid cigarettes from public spaces, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
According to the report, ‘E-cigarettes’ are battery-powered devices that simulate the effects of smoking by heating a nicotine liquid into vapour, which the user then inhales and exhales. (ANI)
Greece scraps extra holiday for civil servants using computers
Athens: Greece’s austerity drive has cost public sector workers a privilege they have enjoyed for more than two decades – six extra days of paid holiday every year if they use a computer.
The decision to scrap the bonus was a “small, yet symbolic” step in modernizing an outdated civil service, said Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the administrative reform minister who has taken on the challenge of overhauling public institutions.
Bailed out twice by the euro zone and the IMF, Greece has started cancelling arcane benefits to cut state spending and reform a public sector widely seen as profligate and inefficient with a 600,000-strong workforce.
Allowances that have already gone include a bonus for showing up to work and one regulation letting unmarried daughters receive their dead father’s pension.
The ministerial decision giving a day off every two months to those who sat in front of a computer for more than five hours a day was taken on 12 June 1989, a week before Mitsotakis’s father Constantine won a general election.
“It belongs to another era. Today, in times of crisis, we cannot hold on to anachronistic privileges,” Mitsotakis said, according to a statement from his ministry on Friday. (IANS)
New snail species with translucent shell discovered
London: Scientists have discovered a new snail species, with a beautifully shaped dome-like translucent shell, lurking underground in one of the world’s deepest caves in Croatia.
Biologists from the Croatian Biospeleological Society and Goethe University, Frankfurt discovered the new species Zospeum tholussum in one of the 20 deepest cave systems in the world, Lukina Jama-Trojama in Croatia.
The species belongs to a genus of minute air-breathing land snails that have lost visual orientation and are considered to be true eutroglobionts, or exclusive cave-dwellers.
The miniature and fragile snail is described in the journal Subterranean Biology.
Only one living specimen was found during the expedition around the galleries of the Lukina Jama-Trojama cave system. The animal was found at the remarkable depth of 980 metres, in an unnamed chamber full of rocks and sand and a small stream running through it. All known species from the cave-dwelling genus Zospeum possess a limited ability to move. Their preference of a muddy habitat and the fact that they are usually located near the drainage system of the cave, in a close proximity to running water, however suggest that these animals are not exactly immobile. Scientists hypothesise that dispersal is achieved through passive transportation via water or larger mammals. The Lukina Jama-Trojama is the deepest cave system in Croatia and is known for its extraordinary vertical shape, long pits and great depth of minus 1,392 metres. (PTI)