Egypt honours woman who dressed as man to work
Cairo: An Egyptian woman who says she had to dress as a man to get work has been hailed as an “exemplary working mother” by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Sisa Abu Daooh, 65, showed up yesterday at the presidential palace to receive an award from Sisi and a cash prize of 50,000 pounds, wearing a male robe and turban, a day after Egypt marked Mother’s Day. The money, the equivalent of about USD 6,500 (6,000 euros) is a large sum in the conservative rural south where she lives. Abu Daooh told AFP she first started dressing as a man in the city of Luxor 43 years ago after her husband died and she was left to tend to her daughter alone. “I cut my hair and wore a man’s robe and turban, and a man’s shoes to get a job. It was hard to get opportunities as a woman,” she said. Abu Daooh worked as a brick maker and field hand, and then when her health worsened took up shoe shining. “It was hard (to dress as a man), but without it men would have hassled me and stopped me from working, and maybe even assaulted me.” Despite now having become famous, she says she will continue to work in men’s clothes. “I will work dressed in a man’s robe until I die,” she said. Women in Egypt are legally equal to men, and many are employed outside the house, but advocates say the country still has a long way to go in advancing their participation in politics and the economy. (AFP)
Felled century-old tree to grow again from a clone in UK
London: A giant redwood tree that was felled 125 years ago in the US state of California to satisfy a drunken bet is all set to be reborn with scientist cloning the stump in the UK. The Fieldbrook Redwood Stump, whose stump is 35 feet in diameter, towered as high as a 30-storey building over the course of nearly 4,000 years in the US would have been the biggest tree alive today had it not been so ignominiously felled in 1890. The tree was felled to satisfy a drunken bet about making a table big enough to seat 40 guests from a single slice of tree-trunk, The Independent reported.
The tree is about to be reborn as a clone planted on the coast of Cornwall, possibly as early as this spring. Scientists have managed to cultivate cuttings from the Fieldbrook Redwood Stump, which is 35 feet in diameter, and 10 of its clones are now growing as knee-high saplings in the plant nursery at the Eden Project, near St Austell in UK. This new plantation will be a library of the tallest, oldest living things on Earth.
“The notion of putting back trees that have their own story has huge appeal,” one of the scientist said. “There are lots of ancient trees in Britain that have a piece of history attached to them.” The Fieldbrook stump is a Californian coast redwood which was felled under the orders of William Waldorf Astor, a wealthy American living in Britain, who became embroiled in a bar-room bet about making a table seating 40 from a single cross-section of a tree. (PTI)
Woman who spent 23 years on US death row cleared
Washington: A woman who spent 23 years on death row in the United States over the killing of her young son saw her murder charge dismissed and the case against her closed. Debra Milke, 51 and of German origin, had always maintained her innocence in the fatal shooting of her son in 1990 in Arizona. The boy was aged just four and was shot in the back of the head. Milke had been sentenced to death based on the uncorroborated testimony of a senior investigator who claimed to have a confession from Milke, but who had a long history of misconduct. Milke, who has been on bail since 2013, becomes the 151st person — but just the second woman — to be exonerated of the death penalty in four decades in the United States. After spending more than two decades languishing on death row, Milke’s conviction was overturned two years ago by a court of appeal because of the “egregious” conduct of the lead investigator. On March 17, the Supreme Court of Arizona refused to hear the final appeal of the prosecution and Judge Rosa Mroz dropped all the charges Monday. According to the detective, Armando Saldate, the divorced mother had confessed to hiring two killers to murder her son because she no longer wanted him around, but there were no independent witnesses. The detective had a long history of accusations against him of corruption and lying under oath, but that was never revealed to the court by prosecutors, according to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). “Arizona’s prosecutors have been accused of misconduct in more than half of all cases in which the state has imposed death sentences.” the DPIC said. Separately, the two men, Roger Scott and Jim Styers, pleaded guilty and were sentenced to death for the murder of the boy. They are still on death row in Arizona. (AFP)
World’s largest asteroid impact zone found in Australia
Canberra, March 23 (IANS) Scientists have uncovered in central Australia what is believed to be the largest asteroid impact zone ever found on Earth, a media report said on Monday. A team lead by Andrew Glikson from the Australian National University (ANU) said two ancient craters found in central Australia were believed to have been caused by one meteorite that broke in two, ABC reported. “They appear to be two large structures, with each of them approximately 200 km,” Glikson said.”So together, jointly they would form a 400 kilometre structure which is the biggest we know of anywhere in the world,” Glikson added. The material at both impact sites appears to be identical which has led researchers to believe they are from the same meteorite. According to the researchers, there are many unanswered questions about the underground site and whether the twin asteroid impact could have affected life on earth at the time. “When we know more about the age of the impact, then we will know whether it correlates with one of the large mass extinctions at the end of specific eras,” Glikson said. (IANS)
Orchid named after Singapore’s founding PM
Singapore: An orchid named after former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew was on Tuesday presented to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at Istana.Lee Kuan Yew passed away Monday morning at the age of 91. National Parks Board CEO Kenneth Er and National Orchid Gardens nursery manager David Lim, who bred the flower, presented it to Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported.
Lee Hsien Loong, the eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew, accepted the hybrid flower which produces flower sprays of up to 10 flowers each. The hybrid is the result of a cross between a native orchid, the arachnis hookeriana, and another Hawaiian orchid in the Vanda series similar to Vanda Kwa Geok Choo, which is named after Lee Kuan Yew’s late wife who died in 2010. The orchid can be seen by visitors to the wake in the main hall of Sri Temasek, where Lee Kuan Yew’s casket lies, on Tuesday. The public can see the orchid in Parliament House when the founding prime minister’s body will lie in state there from Wednesday to Saturday. As for the private wake, it’s estimated that about 2,500 visitors from local organisations are expected to offer their condolences on Tuesday. (IANS)
Japanese PM’s advisers split over WWII ‘aggression’
Tokyo: An expert panel advising Japan’s nationalist prime minister on a highly sensitive statement about World War II has run into disagreement over how to describe Tokyo’s wartime military action.
The latest tussle in the ideological battle between Japan’s nationalist right-wing and its liberal mainstream saw the committee of academics, journalists and business leaders split on the use of the word “aggression”, according to minutes released on Monday. For Tokyo’s neighbours — its wartime adversaries — the term is a crucial marker of Japan’s acceptance of its wrongdoing in the 1930s and 1940s as it marched across Asia, leaving millions dead in its wake. While many Japanese accept the global narrative that their country was an aggressor in the conflict, right-wingers insist Tokyo’s war was largely defensive and intended to liberate Asia from Western colonialists. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to make his statement later this year on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. His language is being closely watched by China and South Korea for any signs of backsliding by Japan. Beijing and Seoul vociferously argue that Tokyo has not properly atoned for its actions in the 1930s and 1940s, and does not fully accept its guilt, insisting that a landmark 1995 statement expressing remorse must stand. (PTI)