WorlDvignettes — Corpse exhumed

BEIJING: Construction workers have unearthed an ancient corpse of a women with clearly distinguishable features from one of the 14 tombs lo...

BEIJING: Construction workers have unearthed an ancient corpse of a women with clearly distinguishable features from one of the 14 tombs located in the construction site of a middle school building in Shanghai. The corpse, said to be some 400-500 years old, is believed to be the oldest well-preserved corpse ever excavated in Shanghai. A leading daily reported that the corpse, dressed in silk clothing and probably aged 40, was so well preserved that her joints could move and her muscle tissues were not stiff. Even her nose isl intact. Ancient corpse researcher Xu Yongqing said the body, possibly from the middle years of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), was found in a pool of fragrant, coffee-coloured fluid when her coffin was opened.

A `helping’ hand

LONDON: A British former medical director of the United Nations admitted to helping at least 50 people die in “mercy killings” in an interview on Sunday. Michael Irwin told The Sunday Times that in more than half the cases in which he was involved, he personally administered lethal injections of morphine. “They wanted to die. I helped them,” he told the paper.

Driven by Speed

CHARLOTTE (North Carolina): A man armed with a knife and talking about the movie, Speed, commandeered a bus and drove it 95 kms before a driver and some passengers overpowered him. The hijacker died, although police couldn’t immediately say how. The man was obviously unruly and he had been “drinking” when he took over the bus yesterday from the outside of Columbia, South Carolina, said Charlotte-Mecklenburg police Capt J C Felder.