Secondary school suicide: A secondary school girl in el-Sahel, Shubra drank insecticide, after her father beat her and cut off her hair, because she came home late one evening. The teenager was rushed to el-Sahel General Hospital and from there was transferred to the Poisons Centre at el-Demerdash Hospital, where she died four days later. Detectives discovered that the deceased, aged 15, had come home an hour later than expected by her father, a 55-year-old accountant, who became very angry when she answered him impolitely after he asked her where she'd been. Her father has been arrested, on suspicion of ‘exposing his daughter's life to danger'. (Al-Akhbar) Saddest of stories A newborn baby who had been decapitated was found in a rubbish skip in Shubra el-Kheima, Qaliubia Governorate. In fact, it was an unavoidable decapitation. What happened was that the boy's mother, 22-year-old Samia from the village of Tahanoub near Shebeen el-Qanater, had got married the orfi (unregistered) way. She didn't tell her parents, but they twigged when she started showing obvious signs of pregnancy. When Samia went into labour, her father took her to a private hospital in Shubra el-Kheima to give birth. It all went tragically wrong when the baby got stuck in his mother's vagina and the doctor had to pull his head off, in order to remove his body and save his mother's life. The deceased's grandfather then disposed of his body on the rubbish tip. Samia was discharged from hospital, but her condition didn't improve, so her father drove her to el-Demerdash General Hospital. She died on the way there. The 52-year-old father, a farmer, and the 26-year-old doctor are both being questioned by police. (Al-Akhbar) Mechanic's murderous moment A mechanic killed the owner of a coffee shop in el-Matariya, after they'd argued over the price of the drinks he'd ordered. The killer stabbed his victim to death in front of horrified customers. Sayyed Farag (22) has admitted murdering Reda Mohamed (54) in a moment of anger. Sayyed ran away after knifing Reda and was found hiding in the home of one of his relatives. (Al-Gomhuria) The missing suspect No-one is spared these days ��" even the dead get prison sentences. Anyway, that's what happened to Ibrahim Ramadan, who, a few days ago, was sentenced to three years behind bars by el-Beheira Court of First Instance, although he died 11 years ago. Ibrahim was found guilty (in absentia it need hardly be said) of prodigality and failing to pay the instalments on some agricultural land he'd bought. The mistake came to light when Ibrahim's son was informed that his father had received a three-year sentence. When he protested that the deceased was innocent, police discovered that three men had forged an official report against Ibrahim. In court, they claimed they'd asked the late defendant to sign the report and that he'd refused to. The three, who all work for the Beheira Agricultural Reclamation Directorate, have been arrested. They were named as Mohamed Hussein, Moustafa Abdel-Sattar and Maher Shehata. Perhaps we'll find out soon what their real motives were for having Ibrahim prosecuted, as he's not around to shed light on the matter. (Al-Ahram) Don't blame Chemical Ali Last week, Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and better known internationally as ‘Chemical Ali', was executed, having been sentenced to death four times for crimes against humanity. He was most notorious for fatally gassing as many as ten thousand people in the Kurdish town of Halabja, northern Iraq, in the late 1980s. Meanwhile, another gassing (thankfully not an intentional one) nearly proved fatal when a lorry owned by a drinking water and sewage company started leaking chlorine in its gaseous form as it was being driven along the Zaqaziq-Minya el-Qamh Road in el-Sharqia Governorate. The lorry, on its way from Giza to Zaqaziq, was carrying five cylinders of chlorine gas. It was when a mistiness developed in the cabin of the lorry that the driver, Youssef Mohamed, stopped by the side of the road. Realising that one of the cylinders was leaking, he phoned his supervisor, Engineer Ahmed Mohamed. The police were soon on the scene and they cordoned off the road, diverting traffic. As they dealt with the leak, around 30 people suffered from the effects of inhaling the chlorine ��" motorists, police, ambulancemen and passersby. The injured were taken to Minya el-Qamh General Hospital for treatment, supervised by Dr el-Sayyed Abul Kheir, Assistant Minister of Health for el-Sharqia Governorate. Most of them were swiftly discharged, although six of them, one being a 29-year-old ambulance driver called el-Sayyed Abdel-Aziz, had to be detained overnight. Two of those who were discharged were named as Mohamed Fouad and his friend Mohamed Mohamed. They were walking home to where they live in the village of el-Kharas, having just sat one of their mid-year exams, when they noticed a lorry with half-a-dozen large cylinders on the back. There was a funny smell and they started to feel sick. Their families, taking no chances, rushed them to hospital. The incident could have been a lot worse, but thankfully no-one suffered any permanent damage. (Al-Messa) The ‘cheesy seven' sentenced Giza Criminal Court has sentenced 27-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, who owns a koshari shop, to life imprisonment. Six other men were sent down for five years in the same case: Hisham Abdel-Samie (47), the owner of a car showroom; his three sons, Ahmed (28), Moustafa (23) and Islam (21); the sons' paternal cousin, Mohamed Moustafa (29); and a worker called Hussein Mohamed, who was sentenced in absentia. They were found guilty of murdering a 30-year-old lawyer called Mohamed Abdel-Halim and a worker called Ahmed Ali, in a supermarket in el-Omrania, owned by the lawyer's father. The pair were shot dead, after they refused to reimburse a boy who worked for Ahmed Mohamed in his koshari shop, when he brought back some white cheese to the supermarket. His boss had bought this foodstuff and decided he didn't want it. He became murderous when Mohamed Abdel-Halim and Ahmed Ali wouldn't take it back. (Al-Wafd) Dangerous Doweiqa Just a few yards from the cliff edge above el-Doweiqa in eastern Cairo, a mother of three tries to shove a piece of cardboard into a crack that has appeared in her home, to try and protect her children from the bitter cold of an Egyptian winter, made worse by the fact that it can get pretty windy up there. If only she can keep them relatively warm, they'll sleep properly and be able to go to school in the morning. It was when the tragic rock fall occurred in el-Doweiqa in September 2008, crushing hundreds of residents to death, that the fissures first appeared in the walls of the home of Faten Abdel-Moneim in Al-Azhar Street, in an area known as Ard el-Mala'b. The fissures appeared in her garden too. About three weeks ago, Faten reported the latest cracks to the emergency operations room in nearby Manshiet Nasser. But she says the District Council didn't take any action, not even sending anyone to assess the damage; they wouldn't even give her a number for the complaint she filed. She went again to the operations room a few days later and met with the deputy head of the Council. He promised to send someone the following day. She was only concerned about her children. After all, the holes in the walls also let in rats, as well as scorpions and other nasty insects. But cracks are not the only problem facing Faten and her neighbours. Another problem is the sewage. It leaks into the rocks above el-Doweiqa, causing them to split. That's why they came crashing down in September 2008. Some of her neighbours' homes disappeared, as the rock beneath them gave way. Another housewife, Ragaa Abu Deif, complains that sewage from the homes above hers is leaking into her home. In fact, the wardrobe where she keeps her clothes is flooded with the sewage. Ragaa says that they have no drinking water, so they have to buy tap water for PT50 per jerry can from a truck that struggles up the hill. Fifty piastres might not sound much for many readers, but it is for poor families. Sometimes too many people want to buy water from the truck ��" only the physically strongest succeed. The cliffs below their homes are strewn with rubbish. Every morning, trucks drive up to the edge of the cliffs and dump tonnes of trash, while all the local residents also toss their bags of household rubbish over the edge. No-one does anything to stop them. Despite the dangers, the residents of el-Doweiqa Plateau refuse to move, because the price of flats in central el-Doweiqa below them has doubled since the rock fall nearly 18 months ago. If you want to buy a single room there, it now costs you around LE10,000 (nearly $2,000). When Al-Masry Al-Youm went to the District Council, they finally sent some experts to assess the homes in Ard el-Mala'b. The experts condemned them all as dangerous and an evacuation order has been issued, with the residents being promised new homes elsewhere. If this really does happen, Faten, Ragaa and their friends will have something to smile about. (Al-Masry Al-Youm) Teenager's train tragedy A young man died under the wheels of a train while attempting to cross the line at the Abdel-Hakim Amer level crossing near el-Ismailia. Islam Mohamed (18) was hit by the Zaqaziq-el-Ismalia train. (MENA) Beer and Sparrow Also in el-Ismailia, police have arrested two men for robbing taxi drivers and their passengers at knifepoint. The suspects, both with criminal records for similar offences, were named as Ali Ahmed (25), better known as ‘Beera' (Beer), and Tareq el-Sayyed, aka ‘Asfoura' (Sparrow). (MENA)
