Pat Dollard | Young Americans

What a guy!

Just a word of advice to the shoe-thrower … She MAY be “faking it” during those long boring nights with you in the dusty hut (see below):

(Iraqi TV journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi)

CAIRO – An Egyptian man said on Wednesday he was offering his 20-year-old daughter in marriage to Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush in Baghdad on Sunday,

The daughter, Amal Saad Gumaa, said she agreed with the idea. “This is something that would honor me. I would like to live in Iraq, especially if I were attached to this hero,” she told Reuters by telephone.

Her father, Saad Gumaa, said he had called Dergham, Zaidi’s brother, to tell him of the offer. “I find nothing more valuable than my daughter to offer to him, and I am prepared to provide her with everything needed for marriage,” he added.

Zaidi’s gesture has struck a chord across the Arab world, where President Bush is widely despised for invading Iraq in 2003 and for his support for Israel.

Amal is a student in the media faculty at Minya University in central Egypt.

Zaidi’s response to the proposal was not immediately clear.

(Reuters)

ANSAmed:

EGYPT: 97% OF MARRIED WOMEN UNDERGO GENITAL MUTILATION

CAIRO, JUNE 27 - A total 97% of the married Egyptian women has suffered genital mutilation, and the area where this practice is most frequent (99%) is in the governorship of Qena, in the south of the country. In Matrouh, on the Mediterranean coast towards Libya, the lowest percentage (25%) is registered. According to the study ‘National Project Against Female Circumcision’, held by the Minister of Health in cooperation with the United Nations DAG Programme, the percentage is lower in the urban centres (94.6%), higher in the country (98.8%), while in the Sinai it decreases to 37%, Egyptian independent daily ‘Al Masri el Yom’ reports. Among uneducated women, 99.1% have suffered the circumcision; among educated women (secondary school or university), the percentage gets down to 94%. The percentage of women in favour of the circumcision is 85% in Upper Egypt compared to 50% in the North; 50% of the educated women and 87.5% of the uneducated women are also in favour. Two days ago the Chief Mufti of Egypt said that the “harmful tradition of the female circumcision is prohibited by Islam”, after the death of an 11-year old girl following an excessive dose of anesthetic given during the operation. The wife of the Egiptian president, Suzanne Mubarak, who is in charge of the government’s consulting commission for Maternity and Childhood, launched today a “national campaign against female circumcision”.