Printer not impressed: When a man got home from work unexpectedly earlier, he'd thought he would give his wife a nice surprise. However, he was the one who got the surprise and it certainly wasn't a nice one. He knocked at the door of the flat and his wife took a long time in opening it. Curiously, she was totally naked. Another curious thing was that he could smell cigarettes, but his wife didn't smoke. His suspicions aroused, her husband started looking round the flat. It was in the living room that he found someone hiding under the sofa. The man who made the discovery, a 27-year-old printer, went to Bashteel Police Station to report that he'd found the owner of a shoe shop hiding in his flat, while there on his own with his 32-year-old wife. Before informing the police, however, the printer had rung his wife's brothers, who came round and given the shoe seller a good duffing. The couple had been engaged for ten years before tying the knot eight months ago. Even though he discovered on their wedding night that she wasn't a virgin, the printer remained loyal to his wife. He'd also put up with the fact that she didn't look after him properly. (Al-Messa) Fatal failure A schoolboy at the preparatory stage committed suicide, because his mother told him off for not doing his homework and called him a failure. Moustafa Idris (12) used some cloth to hang himself from his bedroom window in the family's flat in el-Minya. (Al-Messa) No masticating in class There was a nasty incident at Bahteem Industrial Secondary School in Shubra el-Kheima, Qaliubia Governorate, when one of the pupils used his mobile to phone his paternal cousin, a construction worker, asking him to come immediately to the school and discipline his teacher. The cousin soon turned up and punched and stabbed the teacher, whose only ‘crime' had been to give the pupil a telling off for refusing to stop chewing bubble gum in class and also to remove the gold chain he was wearing around his neck. The cousins have been arrested. (Al-Akhbar) All for a seat A student at Zaqaziq Social Services Institute in Sharqia Governorate killed a teenage law undergraduate in an argument over the seating arrangements on a train. The pair started fighting over one of the seats and the unnamed 21-year-old social services student stabbed the 19-year-old law student at Zaqaziq University, Mohamed Abdel-Hakim, to death. (Al-Gomhuria) Ibrahim's beef It seems that greedy traders are to blame for the dramatic rise in the prices of foodstuffs. An interesting gloss on this was provided by a violent incident involving two butchers in Fayoum. One of them recently raised his price for a kilo of beef, but his neighbour, the other butcher, didn't follow suit. In a bid to force the second one to raise his prices too, the first one stabbed him in the neck and arm, and he was taken to Fayoum General Hospital for treatment. The butcher who was admitted to accident and emergency was named as Nabil Moawad (55). He is said to be in a serious condition. The knifeman who wanted more cash was named as Ibrahim Heeba (40). (Al-Wafd) Lashings of alcohol? Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has threatened to have anyone who manufactures, sells or imbibes alcoholic beverages flogged. His comments came while he was campaigning for re-election in the village of Omdawaban, a suburb of Khartoum and a stronghold of the Qadaria School of Sufism. He added that he would not make any concessions for human rights organisations or the United Nations. The Sudanese Law on Punishments forbids alcohol, as does the Sharia (Islamic Law). Anyone found guilty of alcohol infringements can be flogged 40 times. But the articles of the peace agreement, ratified between the predominantly Muslim north of Sudan and the predominantly Christian and animist south of the country, exempts the south from the Sharia. Poor women in the Sudanese countryside often make a bit of extra cash be brewing alcohol from dates. This drink, not unlike potheen, is also made in Egypt, where it is known as erqi (arak). The Sudanese equivalent is called merissa. Both are very dangerous, especially if it's been distilled at the wrong temperature. Last year, Nigerian footballer Stephen Worgu, who plays for el-Marrikh in Khartoum, was sentenced to 40 lashes, having been found guilty of drinking erqi. He has appealed and we're still waiting for further news. Meanwhile, the last thing most people in Sudan are thinking about at the moment is alcohol. There are far more pressing matters like the presidential elections, which started on Sunday and end today. The next big date in the calendar is January, 1, 2011, when the South can vote for secession from the North. Occasions like this are often fraught with violence in Sudan. If things pass off peacefully, it would surely augur well in a country that desperately needs genuine, permanent peace. (Al-Ahram) Dozy dozer driver When a bulldozer demolished a building in Manshiyet Nasser, eastern Cairo, a 35-year-old salesman called Yasser Mohamed, who was inside clearing away some of the rubble, had his skull crushed. Other workers clearing away rubble caused by the demolition found the injured party and rushed him to hospital. Yasser's 32-year-old wife, Manal Esheeri, said that Sayyed (the bulldozer driver) knocked down one of the walls of the building, located in el-Wahayid Street near the Suzanne Mubarak Buildings, and it landed on her husband's head. Yasser is now in ICU in el-Zahraa Hospital. One of the doctors treating him, who refused to give her name, said that Yasser, still unconscious, is in a serious condition. As well as the fractured skull, he has water on the lungs and injuries to other parts of his body. The head of Manshiyet Nasser District Council, Moustafa Ebada, wasn't available for comment on the incident. (Al-Masry Al-Youm) Incest in Benha Strange things happen in Benha. One of the strangest was when a man of 40 there married his brother's 17-year-old granddaughter. It was the girl's father who told the police what his paternal uncle had done. He said that the suspect had deceived his daughter into marrying him the urfi (unregistered) way, adding that they then lived together as man and wife without her father's knowledge or approval. The girl's great-uncle has been charged with two offences: incest and marrying an underage girl (now that girls have to be 18 before they can marry). (Al-Akhbar) A happy way to go The gas cylinder crisis appears to have been solved. Let's hope so. In the meantime, although this column hasn't reported any tragedies involving piped gas leaks for quite some time, that's not to say there haven't been a lot of such tragedies in the past few months. In a recent case, a couple died in el-Hawamdia, 6th October Governorate, due to a gas leak in the bathroom. The victims were newlyweds. Their bodies were found by the wife of the bride's brother, who'd come round with some groceries for them, having been asked to buy them by the bride. The bridegroom was a police NCO working in the Passport Administration. The couple were named as Rasha Ahmed (22) and Ahmed Mohamed (28). Their bodies were discovered in the bathroom by Rasha's sister-in-law, Sahar Mahmoud (35), two days after the wedding. There was a strong smell of gas in the flat. Both Rasha and Ahmed's fathers said they didn't suspect foul play. There could be two reasons why the couple didn't notice the gas leak before it was too late. Firstly, they'd just got married and were enjoying a whole new romantic experience together. Secondly, they'd only been in the marital flat for 48 hours when their sister-in-law found them dead. What probably happened was that they hadn't got round to checking that all the facilities in their new home worked properly. The one consolation is that they probably died a very happy death together. (Al-Masry Al-Youm) Lonely Laila If you were to keep an eye on all the reported suicides in Egypt, you would immediately notice that most of the people who take their lives here are men. But there are some women too. One such case involved a housewife from Faraskour near Damietta, who hanged herself with the washing line in her bedroom. The body of Laila Mossa'ad (65) was found by the neighbours who broke in, alerted by the nasty smell that was seeping out of her flat. All of her children had grown up, got married and left home. Sadly, they never visited her, and it appears that it was the loneliness that killed her. Laila's mobile phone, gold jewellery and LE9,000 were found near her body in the bedroom. (Al-Wafd) Trouble and co-strife It was jealous that drove a housewife in Kafr Shukr to set fire one night to the furniture in the flat her husband shares with her co-wife. The arsonist's husband and first wife were fast asleep when she struck. A lot of the furniture in the flat was destroyed and the couple had to be taken to hospital, suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation. There had been trouble prior to this. When the 26-year-old owner of the flat, a teacher called Ayman Abdel-Rahman, took a second wife (the arsonist), his first wife beat her up at the wedding party. Ayman's second wife, Walaa (24), is helping police with their inquiries. (Al-Wafd)
