DAMMAM, 8 August — An Arab woman in a remote village in the eastern part of the Kingdom cheated a taxi driver by giving him a box of stones, Al-Bilad Arabic newspaper reported yesterday. The woman stopped the taxi and asked the Bangladeshi driver, Shaheedullah Muhammad, to take her to a shopping center in downtown Dammam. “The woman told the man to wait until she completed her shopping and gave him a box of ‘coins’ to win his confidence,” the paper said. “The taxi driver kept waiting and then went around the shopping center to look for the woman but there was no sign of her. He did not know what to do with the ‘treasure box’ and was afraid of opening it.” The driver then went to a nearby police station to get their help to open the treasure. The box, it turned out, was full of stones. Knives out for unclean barbers By a Staff Writer JEDDAH, 8 August — The Jeddah Municipality has closed down 16 barbershops in the city and imposed fines ranging from SR1,000 to SR5,000 on them for violating health rules. The penalized saloons did not keep their knives and scissors clean or sharp. Nor did they sterilize their equipment. Arab News has learned that all the barbers will also be tested for the HIV/AIDS virus. Meanwhile, security officers in Gurayat have confiscated 150 knives in the form of pens and lighters.
