TAIF, 16 July 2007 — A primary school teacher in the western highland city of Taif got canned from his job for shaking down students for their lunch money, the daily Al-Madinah reported yesterday. Technically speaking, the teacher was giving lessons on bribery: He threatened the students with distributing failing grades to those who don’t pay him a regular stipend. The teacher was, oddly enough, also sending letters home to parents asking them for money because, he said, of financial problems. Kids complained, parents complained and eventually, after several warnings, the teacher was expelled from school.
90-Year-Old Man Gives Us All the Creeps
HAIL, 16 July 2007 — An elderly man in Ghazala, a northern Saudi Arabia town, insisted that his 15-year-old bride be given blood tests for sexually transmitted diseases, according to a report in a local newspaper. He said he didn’t want to risk his manhood with some “diseases of modern times.” During the engagement ceremony, a bunch of men started singing and dancing to songs about the old man’s virility. The man said he plans to take his 15-year-old bride to a hill resort in the southern region of Saudi Arabia, to which many of us might simply want to stop thinking about this story.