Unsuitable cellmate: A housewife went to el-Bassateen Police Station in southern Cairo, where her son, Abdullah Ramadan, was detained, and informed officers that he was suffering from AIDS. She backed up her claim with a medical certificate from the central laboratories of the Ministry of Health, which confirmed this. The 27-year-old suspect's mother asked the head of the station to isolate him in a separate cell, for the sake of the other prisoners. Meanwhile, the Bassateen Prosecutor has asked officials in the ministerial central labs to verify the certificate. (Al-Ahram and Al-Akhbar) Delicious but deadly Pupils at the Manshiyet Abdullah Primary School near Sunta in Gharbia Governorate were shocked when their headmaster died and three of their other teachers were taken sick, after breakfasting on some delicious sandwiches containing cheese, beef luncheon meat and fuul (fava beans), all washed down with a nice glass of tea. The three teachers were treated in Sunta General Hospital, while the boss passed away in Tanta University Hospital. The deceased was named as Sami Mohamed el-Babali (62), from the village of Jaafariya, also near Sunta. The other three teachers were named as Shukri Abdel-Moeti (58), Abdel-Latif Daoud (40) and Ibrahim Ahmed (35). They too are all from Jaafariya. (Al-Wafd and Al-Masry Al-Youm) No end of smokes Cairo Police have arrested an unemployed man and a driver, who stole 30 large boxes of foreign cigarettes worth LE170,000 from a big cigarette distribution company in Sharabiya near Ramses. The thieves drilled a hole in the wall of the warehouse in order to get their hands on the smokes. It was Hani Mohamed (48), the security guard at the warehouse, who discovered the hole in the wall and noticed that the ciggies had vanished into thin air, or perhaps smoke. The thieves were named as jobless Tareq Abdel-Aziz (38), from Qaliub in Qaliubia Governorate, with a criminal record for theft, and his friend, the driver, 31-year-old Amgad Waguih. (Al-Ahram) Time for some tourism Some students at the Tourism and Hotels Institute were given fake certificates by the institute, to say they'd passed their course. One of the students went to Heliopolis Police Station and presented a senior officer with a statement signed by herself and 46 others, which claimed that they'd been duped by the director of the institute. The problem was that the certificates the director issued weren't corroborated by the Ministry of Higher Education. The director was questioned by the police and claimed that the students were well aware that they'd been awarded certificates by the Tourism and Hotels Institute, not by the Ministry of Higher Education. Investigations continue. In the meantime, perhaps the students should indulge in a bit of tourism to let off a bit of steam after this unfortunate clash with authority. (Al-Messa) Café owner suffers shell shock The owner of a cafeteria in Wadi el-Natroun found an unexploded shell, left over from one of the wars, on wasteland at Kilo 107 on the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road. The unnamed owner found the 60cm-long shell, 10cm in diameter, in a hole in the sand, 3m across and 4m deep. (Al-Gomhuria) Giza's sexy big cats Staff at Giza Zoo have a big problem ��" the lions keep reproducing and they're running out of space. Dr Nabil Sedqi, the Director of the Zoo, says that the problem is that a lioness normally gives birth to three or four cubs, while gestation only lasts about three-and-a-half months. Then, before you know it, she's pregnant again. "One of the things we're trying to do is increase the number of gardens [small zoos] in various governorates up and down the country, so they can welcome the overflow. But we now have 48 lions. Sixteen of them are female and they keep on reproducing," he explains. Dr Nabil adds that he and his staff have also been considering other possible solutions, such as giving the lionesses contraceptive pills in their dinner. (An alternative solution might perhaps be to train the lions to use condoms, but then again their claws might tear holes in them). One more interesting thing, according to Dr Nabil, is that it is the finest pedigree lions that are the sexiest, wanting to have more and more pedigree cubs. Well that's something encouraging anyway. (Al-Akhbar) Saved by the trash A schoolboy was saved from almost certain death when he fell from his fourth-floor classroom in Qaha, Qaliubia Governorate. Sayyed Magdi (10) was sitting on a chair by the window in their classroom at Osama Nassar Primary School, larking around with his pals, when he tumbled out, only for his fall to be broken by a large heap of rubbish behind the school. Sayyed, who escaped with no more than a broken arm, was taken to Qaha General Hospital for treatment. The incident was reported to police by Afifi Farag, Director of Qaha Educational Administration, who described to detectives how the young lad had cheated death. (Al-Akhbar) Thirsting for knowledge The children of families who live in the heart of Lake Manzalla, attached to Port Said Governorate, face a real challenge every morning. In order to get to school ��" there are four local schools ��" they have to take a punt, as do their teachers. Every day, more than 1,600 pupils and tens of teachers and other members of staff risk drowning, in order to reach these schools. The children's parents have to accompany them to and from school every day, as they dare the chilly waters of the lake. Mohamed Sabah, a teacher at one of the schools, regrets that there isn't a safer way for these children to get to school every morning. He also regrets the lack of hospitals and medical centres for the people who live on the island in the middle of the lake, while the schools are old and falling apart. "I dread to think what might happen if one of those punts capsized." (Al-Akhbar) Death of a salesman It must be very annoying for a shop owner when a street vendor sets up his little stall and starts selling his wares on the pavement outside the entrance to his shop. This was certainly the case with the owner of a frozen meat shop in Hadaieq el-Qubba, when a street salesman started selling his goods outside. He told the salesman to move elsewhere. He refused, they started arguing and the shopkeeper fatally stabbed him. The angry meat seller is still at large. (Al-Ahram) She never made it home A little girl was on her way home from school. She got off the school bus near her home and somehow the driver managed to run her over. She was DOA at Nasser General Hospital. The driver has been arrested. Presumably he will be charged with negligence. Little Maye Salah, aged six, was a pupil at Yehia el-Mashad Primary School, a fee-paying educational establishment in Shubra el-Kheima, Qaliubia Governorate. The name of the driver was given as Omar Mohamed (30). He said that he thought Maye had walked away from the bus, which was why he drove off. (Al-Wafd and Al-Masry Al-Youm) Cutting off your nose… There's an English expression ‘Cutting off your nose to spite your face', which means doing something self-destructive to harm someone else, but which also harms oneself. It often applies to domestic situations. This is exactly what happened in a bizarre incident in Boulaq el-Dakrour, Giza Governorate, when a coffee shop waiter hit himself on the back of the head with a hammer, then went to the police station to file a report against his wife, claiming she'd attacked him. Eight hours later he was dead; the blow he'd given himself with the hammer had killed him. The neighbours and his wife all said that the wife hadn't hit him with the hammer, but that the victim did this because the couple had fallen out with each other. The 29-year-old waiter died of his injuries in the marital flat. He was found lying on his stomach on the bed, with a hole in the back of his head. After hitting himself on the head, the neighbours and one of his relatives had tried to disarm him in his home, but he threatened them with holes in the head too. His widow said that, prior to her husband's fatal outburst, he'd got very angry with her for refusing to lend him money. In his rage, he'd thrown her out of the house, followed by a suitcase full of her clothes. This pitiful scene was witnessed by the neighbours. The unnamed victim also took drugs and, on a previous occasion, he'd tried to commit suicide by poisoning himself and had to be taken to hospital for treatment. (Al-Masry Al-Youm) Dyeing of divorce A young woman from the village of Belabeesh, near Dar el-Salam in Sohag Governorate, fatally poisoned herself because her marriage had fallen apart. Samia Farag (25) died in hospital of the effects of drinking hair dye, on the day that her husband divorced her. The couple had constantly argued. (Al-Messa) Airhostess-cum-pharmacist Customs officers at Cairo International Airport have arrested an airhostess, who flew into the country from the United States with ten suitcases, full of pharmaceuticals. The officers described the suitcases as a chemist's shop. Two months ago, she'd been caught trying to pull off a similar stunt. The unnamed suspect had flown into Cairo from New York on an EgyptAir flight, when she aroused the suspicions of two officers, Mohamed Saad and Mohamed Abdel-Wahab. The fact that she had ten items of luggage must have surely raised officers' suspicions in the first place. She told them that she'd worked for an airline company which had given her the sack in February, because of her previous attempt at smuggling. The hostess told detectives that she was planning to sell the medicines, worth around LE500,000, cheaply to local chemists'. (Al-Gomhuria)
