Israelis protest against gender segregation and violence towards women by ultra Orthodox Jewish extremists on December 27, 2011 in Beit Shemesh, Israel. The protest comes following a series of incidents that have seen women being forced to sit at the back of segregated buses, being forced to walk only on certain sides of the road and the harrassment of schoolgirls due to their choice of attire. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

Sabera Bayanne, 20, a student of the Shaolin Wushu club, practices in Kabul, Afghanistan January 29, 2017. On a snowy mountaintop to the west of Kabul, a group of Afghan girls practise the flowing movements of Wushu, a sport developed from ancient Chinese kung fu martial arts, stretching and bending and slashing the air with bright swords. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

A young woman employee of North American Aviation Incorporated, working over the landing gear mechanism of a P-51 fighter plane, Inglewood, California, 1942. (Photo by Alfred T. Palmer/Buyenlarge/Getty Images)

United States' defender Crystal Dunn (R) vies for the ball with Sweden's forward Sofia Jakobsson during the France 2019 Women's World Cup Group F football match between Sweden and USA, on June 20, 2019, at the Oceane Stadium in Le Havre, northwestern France. (Photo by Bernadett Szabo/Reuters)

On July 7, Chinese archaeologists from the Academy of Social Sciences announced that they have reconstituted a 5,300-year-old Mongolion pottery statue found at a relic site in North China, according to Xinhua news agency.

“Kim Jong-il, also written as Kim Jong Il, birth name Yuri Irsenovich Kim (according to Soviet records) (16 February 1941/2 – 17 December 2011), was the supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). He was the General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, the ruling party since 1948, Chairman of the the National Defence Commission of North Korea, and the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, the fourth-largest standing army in the world”. – Wikipedia

Photo: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il inspects a military unit in North Korea. (Photo by Korean Central Television/Yonhap)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.

“The Yao nationality is a government classification for various minorities in China. They form one of the 55 ethnic minority groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, where they reside in the mountainous terrain of the southwest and south”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A woman combs her hair at the Huangluo Village of the Yao ethnic group in Guilin, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, July 15, 2012. The Huangluo Village of the Yao ethnic group locates at the Longji Terraces in Heping Town of Longsheng County in Guilin. Women here have the tradition of keeping long hair. They believe that long hair brings good luck and fortune. The average length of hair of 180 women in the village is 1.7 meters. (Photo by Lu Boan/Xinhua)