‘We’re a village, not a virus!’
TAIF: Towns, or rather the people that live in them, can be sensitive to publicity. For example, recently the mayor of Las Vegas criticized US President Barack Obama for associating the city with wasteful spending. Well at least Las Vegas doesn’t have Al-Khurma’s problem. According to a report in Friday’s edition of Al-Shams, this village near Taif has become the namesake for a virus that causes conditions similar to dengue fever after the potentially fatal virus was identified in butchers in Jeddah who slaughtered goats that came from there. Local officials are demanding the Health Ministry officially change the name of the virus. Considering that “Alkhurma virus” now has its own Wikipedia entry: good luck with that!
Haia gets engagement going
TAIF: The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia) often gets bad publicity, especially from the international press or from incidents that have occurred that have attracted the ire of public opinion. But this story depicts a different face of the Haia: the face of negotiators rather than enforcers. According to a report in yesterday’s Al-Madinah newspaper, members of the Haia were given notice of a young man who was hanging out a lot in front of a girl’s high school in Taif. His lingering attracted the attention of school officials, who reported him to higher authorities, who brought in the religious police to investigate. The young man admitted to the vice patrol that he was deeply in love with a student at the school, and that she was also interested in him. But the young man said he feared rejection from the girl’s family were he to approach them for her hand in marriage. The Haia then went into negotiation mode and convinced the family that the boy had their stamp of approval. The family agreed to the proposal.
Pop imposes poetic demand
DAMMAM: A father in the Eastern Province has made a demand on any potential suitor for his 22-year-old daughter’s hand in marriage: he must be a poet. Problem is: the daughter doesn’t want this requirement, and religious scholars have said that the father’s expectation violates Islamic marriage rules. Perhaps he’s just proud of the fact that his daughter is a poet herself who has memorized great Islamic works, such as poems by Al-Mutannabi and Antar ibn Shaddad. And perhaps the father lives in a fantasy where he would live out his days immersed in verse showered on him by his daughter, son-in-law and (hopefully) grandchildren. Never mind, says Ghazi Al-Shammari, an official involved in family counseling: the father is in violation of the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islamic rules say that the only requirement for a suitor is that he be a Muslim of good moral standing. The girl herself says she wouldn’t marry a man who didn’t pray five times a day, but she has no problem with a man who isn’t a poet.
Oz court holds ‘tweeted’ trial
SYDNEY: A landmark copyright trial that rebuffed a Hollywood bid to hold an Internet provider responsible for illegal downloads, was also Australia’s first proceedings reported live on Twitter. Federal Court judge Dennis Cowdroy approved the unusual measure, which resulted in hundreds of postings on the micro-blogging site. “This proceeding has attracted widespread interest both here in Australia and abroad, ,” he said in a summary of the case released on Thursday. “So much so that I understand this is the first Australian trial to be Twittered or tweeted. I granted approval for this to occur in view of the public interest in the proceeding, and it seems rather fitting for a copyright trial involving the Internet.”
Gravestones for ‘broke’ tycoon
DUBLIN: A property tycoon left “broke” by the spectacular collapse of Ireland’s construction boom plans to revive his fortunes by erecting gravestones instead of raising apartment blocks. Bernard McNamara, who last month said his businesses had debts in the region of 1.5 billion euros ($2.1 billion), is seeking planning permission to develop a graveyard in west Dublin, the Irish Independent reported on Thursday. McNamara, who bought a number of high profile Dublin hotels at the height of the Ireland’s ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom, said he was “broke” last month after a court ordered he personally repay 62.5 million euros to investors over a soured deal. The deal concerned a piece of land bought for 412 million euros in 2006 but valued by the court at an estimated 50 million euros and likely to become one of the most high profile assets to be owned by the state under a ‘bad bank’ plan.
