1. Art and Diseño

Gulf Daily News
Thursday, 29th January 2015
Email: [email protected]
Alert as deadly
spiders return
By AHMED AL OMARI
HEALTH inspectors are back
out hunting for potentially deadly Black Widow spiders eight
months after the venomous arachnids were last spotted in Bahrain.
A concerned British mother-of-two,
who lives in a compound near Budaiya
Botanical Garden, told the GDN that
she had found as many as 15 of the
spiders in her garden.
The woman, who wished to remain
anonymous, claimed to have been
living with the pests for around six
months before contacting the Health
Ministry.
“Before there were only a couple
and they weren’t bothering anyone –
we really didn’t see them,” she said.
“But just the other day I came back
from work and they were everywhere.
“There were loads of them and they
were not tucked away anymore, they
were all over the walls.”
The woman became convinced that
the spiders were venomous Black
Widows as they had the distinctive
“spiky egg sacks”, she said.
Health Ministry environmental
health section chief Abdulaziz Alkhedri said this was the first report he had
received about Black Widows since a
nest was uncovered under a bench in
the Manama suq in August last year.
“These spiders are generally shy
and don’t come out in the open, but
maybe the cooler weather is bringing
them out,” he said.
“We will send down a team of our
experts to the site and take samples to
confirm that they are Black Widows –
most of the time they are Brown Wid-
ows which
is not generally
a
hazard.
“However, if we
confirm
the species
then
we
will spray
the compound with
special
spider pesticide and
sweep the
surrounding area.”
Reports
of Black
Widows in n One of the Black Widow specimens collected from a garden
in Duraz last year
Bahrain hit
the headlines last
in called latrotoxin, which can cause
year, when they were discovered in nausea, vomiting, headache, fatigue,
several Barbar residents’ gardens.
muscle spasms and localised paralysis.
It followed a previous scare in
In some cases the bite can prove fa2011, when six of the non-native tal – particularly among children, the
species were uncovered in the same elderly and the sick.
village.
The GDN earlier reported that BahOfficials at that time believed the rain does not have stocks of anti-venspider had been inadvertently brought om to treat Black Widow bites, so peoto Bahrain in the belongings of a Eu- ple are being
ropean family, who had recently im- warned to steer
migrated.
clear of the
Black and Brown Widow spiders creepy-crawlgenerally have a body of measuring ies.
about half an inch.
To
report
Common in North America, they s u s p e c t e d
are distinguishable by a shiny, black, sightings, call
globular abdomen with a distinctive 17279216.
red hourglass on the underside.
ahmed@gdn.
Their venom contains a neurotoxcom.bh
Gulf Air flights
to Baghdad
are suspended
GULF Air has suspended
all flights to Baghdad until further
notice, it announced yesterday.
The move follows an incident
on Tuesday, when a FlyDubai
aircraft carrying 154 passengers was shot at while landing at
Baghdad International Airport.
The GDN reported yesterday
that Gulf Air had cancelled a
flight bound for Baghdad in response to the shooting and the
airline has now confirmed that no
flight will leave for the Iraqi capital from Bahrain until at least
next week.
“We have suspended our
flights to Baghdad until further
notice, while we continue to evaluate the security situation,” an
airline spokeswoman told the
GDN yesterday.
Gulf Air usually operates three
weekly flights to the Iraqi capital
– on Tuesdays, Thursdays and
Saturdays.
Its daily flights to the Iraqi city
of Najaf, south of Baghdad, are
unaffected. Passengers already
booked on flights bound for
Baghdad are requested to contact Gulf Air so that alternative
arrangements can be made, the
spokeswoman added.
Man ‘held for
bomb threat’
n Two of the spiders found by the
mother-of-two in Budaiya
AN Arab man in his 40s has been
arrested for threatening to blow
up a plane travelling from Bahrain to Dubai, Khaleej Times reported yesterday.
It said he told two flight attendants he was armed with a gun
and explosives that he planned to
detonate.
During interrogation, he told
police that he did it because he
was drunk and denied possessing
weapons or endangering lives. The
incident is said to have happened
on January 21 on a plane operated
by a Dubai-based budget airline.
Presents
3rd International Mushaira 2015
In memory of late ‘IRFAN SIDDIQUI’
on 5th Feb 2015, Thursday at 8 PM (Sharp)
at Cultural Hall of National Museum Complex (Near Marina Club)
Kingdom of Bahrain
CHIEF GUEST
(H.E. Dr. Mohan Kumar : Ambassador of India, Kingdom of bahrain)
Sadre Mushaira: Syed Muhammad Ashraf
(Chief Income Tax Commissioner at Kolkata)
Nazim-e Mushaira : Mansoor Usmani
GUEST POETS
Janab Zubair Razvi
Janab Dr. Syed Naeem Hamid Ali Al Hamid
Mohtarma Dr. Tarannum Riaz
Mohtarma Shabeena Adeeb
Janab Aziz Nabeel
Note: Free Entry
n Around 800 young pupils and their parents attended Al Noor International School nurseryage exhibition at its multi-purpose hall in Sitra. The event, which was attended by Education
Ministry private and continuous education assistant under-secretary Dr Abdulghazi Saleh Al
Shuwaikh, school chairman Ali Hassan, principal Rashid Mandi, director Muhammad Mashood
and vice-principal Amin Mohammed Hulaiwah, featured drawing and painting competitions,
clay modelling, collage creations and fancy dress. Above, pupils at the event.
5
Contact for more inforamtion:
Tel: 17624212, Mob: 39116371,
33619114, 33619115, 33917346
Email: [email protected]
www.facebook.com/majlise.fakharebahrai
(India)
(K.S.A)
(India)
(India)
(Qatar)
Janab Murtaza Barlaas
Janab Mansoor Usmani
Janab Atul Ajnabi
Janab Sunil Kumar Tang
Janab Nadeem Siddiqui
(pakistan)
(India)
(India)
(India)
(India)
And Local Poets
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