Habib Toumi

Nader Al Dheeba - Okaz

A Saudi obese man has been sent to prison for failing to pay debts of SR 200,000 he accumulated in his attempts to reduce his weight.

Nader Al Dheeba, 27, weighed more than 350 kilogrammes and has been borrowing money to help bring down his weight. However, his attempts to shed kilos have been unsuccessful and his situation was compounded when he failed to pay back his debts, prompting the local authorities in Najran, in the southern part of Saudi Arabia,to send him to prison 47 days ago despite his bad health, Saudi daily Okaz reported on Tuesday. continue reading…

Al Fadhala carrying his son - Al Qabas

Two leading Kuwaiti activists were allowed to go home after an appeals court overturned a six-month jail term on one and ordered the release of the second.

The court reversed an earlier decision by the lower court to sentence Khalid Al Fadhala, the secretary general of the liberal National Democratic Alliance, to three months in prison for allegedly using a public rally to accuse the prime minister of collaborating with others in money laundering. Under the new verdict, Al Fadhala was sentenced to ten days in prison, a sentence that allowed him to go home amid a thunder of applause and euphoric scenes of jubilation by his relatives and supporters. continue reading…

In a rare incident, a Qatar prosecutor is in police custody after he refused to comply with a policeman’s request to report to the traffic department to face disciplinary action. The prosecutor was over-speeding when a policeman stopped him and requested him to report to the traffic department.

However, the prosecutor ignored the request and continued driving, injuring a policeman, Qatar News Agency (QNA) said. continue reading…

Qatar’s tally of traffic accidents deaths in the first six months of the year has slightly decreased compared with that of the same period in 2009, traffic authorities have said.

According to the figure, 101 people died in road accidents in the Arabian Gulf country in 2010, down from 104 last year.

A vast majority of the fatalities occurred in accidents resulting from over-speeding while two people died after drivers jumped traffic lights, traffic department officials said, quoted by Qatari daily The Peninsula.

The drop in the death toll in the first half of 2009 was the result of preventive measures taken by the traffic department and road safety awareness drives, the authorities said. continue reading…