25 halala owed = loan denied

AHSA: It’s always simpler to borrow money from a friend or a chit fund than it is to deal with the giant squid called the modern financial services system. A schoolteacher here learned this the hard way when an unpaid 25 halalas (about six cents) from a previous finance arrangement for a SR320 ($85) kitchen appliance not only blocked his ability to re-borrow, but left him with no way to pay off the coin. According to Thursday’s edition of Al-Yaum newspaper, a loan application was denied because the coin owed another bank was considered an outstanding loan. But when he went to pay the pittance, the other bank refused to accept the coin payment because the sum was so small. The man told the paper he felt wedged between the rock of one bank and the hard place of another bank.

Cash-strapped city to sell Lenin statue

MOSCOW: A city in Russia’s south is selling its bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, as it can no longer afford the cost of repairs, Russian media reported Wednesday. The 14-ton, balding figure has stood upright with one arm outstretched  in the main square of Voronezh, some 500 km southwest of Moscow, for 60 years, state-run Vesti-24 television showed. But the city-owned company responsible for his upkeep has gone bankrupt and is looking for a new owner who can afford present repairs costing 1.5 million rubles, popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda reported. During the time of the Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991, statues of Lenin of all sizes were omnipresent. Though most ex-Soviet countries have since removed them, most Russian cities still have at least one, usually in the main square.

Crabby customer slugs grocery clerk

SANDUSKY, Ohio: Police say a man in Ohio got so upset over a mistake on the price of crab cakes that he punched a grocery store manager several times and spit in his face. Authorities in Sandusky arrested 61-year-old Ralph Barr on charges of assault and criminal damaging. Police said the store made a mistake in the price of crab cakes and offered to sell the first pound at a discounted price but the rest at the correct price. The store manager said he was punched five or six times and head-butted. Barr told police that the manager hit him with a price gun, but witnesses said the manager didn’t fight back.

Man battling frost incinerates car

BERLIN: A 76-year-old German man trying to thaw out his car incinerated it instead when he decided to speed things up by putting a blow heater under the hood. “He burned the vehicle out completely,” said a spokesman for police in the western city of Hildesheim. Police said the man left the heater on next to the frozen windshield washer tank and returned indoors. Shortly afterwards he heard two explosions and returned to find the car ablaze. He alerted fire services, who arrived in time to prevent the flames from destroying his house. Including charring of the building, total damages were estimated at 40,000 euros ($56,240).

Burglar steals the wrong drugs

MEDFORD, Ore.: A burglar who broke into a Medford pharmacy had the right letter, but not the right drugs. Police said someone broke out a window Saturday night at the West Main Pharmacy and grabbed the prescriptions in the “O” section. The Mail Tribune in Medford said investigators think the burglar was after the narcotic oxycodone — but the drugs in that section were filed alphabetically by customers’ last names. Police said the burglary could be related to a robbery at the same drugstore on Friday and an attempted robbery of another pharmacy that day.

Italian mobsters buck downturn

ROME: Italy’s mafia crime syndicates bucked the recession in 2009 to raise ‘profits’ by almost 8 percent with the financial crisis making companies and even the stock market even more vulnerable to cash-flush mobsters. “Mafia Inc. is reinforcing its position as the number one Italian company,” said a report published on Wednesday by a body whose members bear the brunt of mafia extortion and crimes, the small business and shopkeepers’ association Confesercenti.

— Compiled from agencies