8 family members killed in house fire

A blaze that erupted at a house in Saudi Arabia at dawn killed eight members of a family while the rest were hospitalised, press reports said on Saturday.

The fire flared on Thursday around 3.00 am when the 13 members of the family in the eastern province of Ihsa were asleep.

Police said eight died in the accident because of suffocation by smoke while the rest were saved by the civil defence and taken to hospital.

Saudi newspapers quoted a police official as saying a short electric circuit might have triggered the blaze.

Drunk man asks police to take him to restaurant

A drunk man who was seized by Kuwaiti police after a chase told them to take him to a restaurant first because he was hungry.

The man, a bedoun (without identity), was chased by police man when they noticed that his car was swaying on the road.

“They suspected that he could be drunk so they asked him to stop…but he sped away,” the Arabic language daily Alanba said.

“After a 10-minute chase, they caught him….he then asked them to take him to a restaurant first because he was hungry…but he ended up in the back seat of the police car which headed for the police station.”

3-year-old falls to death in washing machine

A three-year-old Egyptian girl died after accidentally falling into a washing machine while in operation at her house in Jordan, the local press reported.

Civil defence units called to the house in the Jordanian capital Amman plucked out the girl after she was caught inside and rushed her to hospital on Tuesday.

“She was taken to hospital suffering from breathing difficulty and severe exhaustion…doctors tried to save her life but she died,” they said, quoting civil defence spokesman Fareed Al Shara.

"This is not Bashar…this is an animal”

A Syrian woman waited for the preacher to finish his outdoor Friday sermon in Saudi Arabia, took the microphone and cursed her president Bashar Al Assad.

“This is not Bashar…this is an animal,” the unnamed woman screamed into the loudspeaker as hundreds of other woman shouted their approval.

“May God the Almighty perish this animal who is killing our men and women,” she said before starting to weep, according to Saudi newspapers.

They said the woman was encouraged by preacher Sheikh Yassir al Dousari who had attacked the Syrian President in his Friday sermon at a Riyadh mosque.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries have voiced support for the Syrian people in their one-year-old drive to topple Al Assad. At least 7,000 people have been killed in the campaign, according to Syrian opposition.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.