AHSA: It’s not every day a father wakes up to find his eight-year-old daughter brandishing a knife to his throat, but this is what happened to a man in this Eastern Province town. According to a report in yesterday’s Okaz newspaper, the man would often joke that he was going to have a second wife. He said he loved to see the reaction of his daughters, until, of course, one of them took it a bit too seriously. One night, the girl came into her parent’s bedroom while her poppy was snoozing, seemingly bent on his destruction. Fortunately for the man, his wife screamed when she saw what was happening and awoke him in time to prevent having his throat slit. The young child couldn’t distinguish between sarcasm and reality.
Authorities pour cold water on plans to charge worshippers for ablution
ASIR: An overambitious local entrepreneur in this southern region, which is popular among vacationing Saudis seeking respite from the soaring temperature, thought he had a genius plan to charge people money to provide water for pre-prayer ablutions, according to yesterday’s Al-Jazirah newspaper. The man in a local popular resort decided he would try to sell two categories of bottled water to the visitors: SR10 for drinking water and SR5 for ablution water; same water: different prices. The problem was, people aren’t used to paying for water to perform ablutions – mosques have washing stations and, needless to say, the devout do not pay or charge for this water. Outraged over this exploitation of religious duties, people complained to local authorities who quickly put an end to this odd marketing strategy.
