Flying high An Egyptian man has been arrested at Luxor Airport, trying to smuggle drugs to Kuwait. The suspect, a farmer from Sohag Governorate, had stuffed pigeons with hallucinogenic pills. What drew suspicion to the smuggler was the huge number of pigeons he was planning to take to the Gulf in a large cardboard box. The suspect admitted buying the drugs in Cairo, adding that he'd be able to sell a strip of tablets costing LE30 in the Egyptian capital for the equivalent of LE500 in Kuwait. (Al-Akhbar) Maazoun marries minor In the past few months, there have been a number of cases of maazouns (marriage registrars) marrying underage girls to men who are, in many cases, far older than them. In such a marriage, the girl's family are happy, because they get lots of money from her bridegroom; the maazoun is happy because he too gets lots of money for his co-operation; and the bridegroom (often he's a rich old man from the Gulf) is happy because he gets lots of something else. Only the poor girl is unhappy. Meanwhile, a maazoun who works in the Zeinhom district of el-Sayyeda Zeinab forged the age of an underage girl from Minya Governorate in Upper Egypt, so that she could marry – you've guessed it – the maazoun himself! The maazoun divorced his previous wife on 17th January this year, so he wasn't lonely for long. (Al-Masry Al-Youm) 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) A useful message A worker in Assiut Governorate found a mobile phone in the street. In a bid to establish the identity of its owner, he read the text messages in the memory. One of them was very interesting. The sender asked the owner of the mobile to meet him at a certain place and time and not to forget to bring the drugs. The worker went to the police, who turned up for the meeting, where they were able to rest the owner of the phone and his accomplice, in possession of 12kg of hashish. The owner was a small fish, his accomplice a big-time dealer. Useful things those text messages. (Akhbar Al-Youm) Saved from the sludge by a slender Saudi A little Egyptian boy living with his mum and dad in Saudi Arabia cheated death when he fell down a manhole, from which the cover had been removed, in a street in the Saudi capital, Jeddah. Abdel-Rahman el-Shahat (aged two) plummeted down the hole when he got out of his father's car, as they parked in the street. His parents, who with some of their relatives had gone to visit a friend of theirs, were unable to rescue him, because the 5m-deep hole, located outside their friend's house, was too narrow. Their other son, Ahmed (aged eight), could have fitted in the hole, but it was too dangerous. Twenty minutes later, Abdel-Rahman's mother and father, who works as a teacher in Jeddah, were at their wits' end, terrified that the toddler might be overcome by the fumes of the sewage into which he was sinking in the bottom of the hole. But help was at hand in the shape and form of a passerby, a slender Saudi citizen called Mohamed Abdullah el-Qahatani (34). Mohamed, less bulky than Abdel-Rahman's father, was able to squeeze into the hole and descend the ladder inside to the bottom. He extricated the wee fellow from the sludge and carried him up the ladder to safety, much to the relief of his parents and elder brother. (Al-Ahram) Sewage shock in Sohag Meanwhile, a worker died in el-Baleina, Sohag Governorate, while rescuing his friend who'd fallen into a sewage pit. Alaa Gabreel, also a worker, recovered in el-Baleina General Hospital after passing out due to the gas emitted from the sewage. The friend who pulled him out and was fatally overcome by the fumes was named as Ali Kamel. Alaa was cleaning the pit when he nearly came to grief. (Al-Wafd) Ambitious compensation claim Nasser Amin, a human rights activist, has filed a case against Egypt's Ministry of Interior, demanding it compensate the family of a young Libyan man who died in el-Zaqaziq Prison in the Delta to the tune of LE800,000. Nasser has accused the Ministry of negligence leading to the death of their son, who was buried without their knowledge. According to the activist, the Libyan died although the medical reports showed that there was nothing wrong with him. The case has been filed at a court in southern Cairo. The deceased's father, Mohamed Maraga' Taher al-Abdali, believes that there was something suspicious about his death, especially as there was nothing in his passport to suggest that he'd ever entered or left Egypt. Mohamed says that he only found out that his son had been arrested and imprisoned in Egypt several years after he'd been banged up. Another curious thing, according to Mohamed, is that the postmortem on his son happened before he'd even died, according to the date on the death certificate given to him by the Libyan Consul, el-Fargani Salama. The young man's maternal uncle received his body and buried him in Egypt, even though his fellow inmates knew he was Libyan – al-Abdali is certainly a Libyan name. It does seem strange that Mohamed has so little information about his son's death. The only thing that is sure is that, were he paid LE800,000 in compensation, the families of many other people who've died in Egyptian prisons would start jumping on the wagon. (Al-Masry Al-Youm) The Prof has it off A man got home from work early, only to discover his wife in bed with a well-known assistant lecturer from the Faculty of Agriculture. The 37-year-old worker, with the help of the neighbours, took him to Toukh Police Station, where he was arrested. The academic, named as Hisham Mohamed Abdel-Basset, who lives near the couple, took advantage of the fact that the worker, 31-year-old Rafiq Mahdi, does nightshifts to start an affair with his wife, who has also been arrested. (Al-Gomhuria and Al-Wafd) Dealer disappears When police officers in Omraniya, Giza Governoraate were in the process of arresting a young drug dealer whom they caught in possession of three fixes of heroin, ready for sale, he managed to steal their patrol car and drive off in it. They'd ordered him to get into the back of the vehicle, but, before they knew it, he'd climbed into the driver's seat and started up the engine. The police then used the suspect's own car, for which he didn't have a licence (he didn't have a driver's licence either) to chase him. They radioed for help and other police cars joined in the chase. Half an hour later, they found the patrol car in the Hadaieq Al-Ahram district, near Giza Pyramids, but no suspect. Perhaps he'll come back for his car. (Al-Wafd and Al-Akhbar) Water at a price The whole issue of water in the Nile Basin countries has become a very serious one. In any case, there are often water shortages in the hot summer months, so there might be worse to come. Meanwhile, Hassan Allam, one of the owners of Building 12 in Youssef el-Guindi Street, Abdeen, is suffering from a water-related problem, but it's not a shortage. The problem started for him and the residents in the building, when the Greater Cairo Water Company removed their defective water meter but didn't replace it. That was in 2005. The residents were delighted, because they thought this oversight meant that they wouldn't have to pay for their water anymore. So imagine their shock the other day, when a man from the company turned up at 12 Youssef el-Guindi Street and told the residents they must pay more than LE86,000. He said this was what they must pay for water they'd used in only 15 months, from February 2009 to April of this year. Meanwhile, the protest on the pavement outside the People's Assembly (the Lower House of Egyptian Parliament) continues, organised by the founders of the ‘Citizens against the Price Hikes' movement. The founders of the movement are landlords of blocks of flats. The purpose of the protest is to send a message from every stratum of society to the members of the People's Assembly to protect citizens from the strange behaviour of the National Authority for Potable Water. No-one can deny that the protesters have a point. (Al-Ahram) Their student days are over Two university students died after falling from the steps of a train, on which they were travelling from Alexandria to Cairo. In fact, tragedy struck in Greater Cairo: so many people got on at the village of Meet Nima near Qaliub in Qaliubia Governorate that the undergraduates were forced to stand on the steps. They were unable to hold on for long in this exposed position and tumbled out. The deceased were named as Shaaban Hussein and Ramadan Moustafa (both 22). They were travelling up to town to resume their university courses. (Al-Akhbar)
