Shotgun Weddings............
(From an article in the Globe & Mail, Jul 26, written by Bryan Johnson, in Pakistan:)
First [he] tells of a pilot who spotted tracer bullets as he approached a runway in Northern Pakistan. So the pilot swung around and approached the runway from the other end only to find bullets winging by there too. So he tried to land on a road and cracked up.
From whence came the bullets? Afghan rebels? Terrorists? No, just "one hell of a wedding party." In the Peshawar region, wedding guests can rent an AK-47 for a day for $2 or the use of a water buffalo. With tragic results. In one case, "jubilant" cousins accidentally "blasted away" the bridegroom's father. The wedding was postponed for 40 days of mourning, then again celebrated amid "ecstatic volleys of flying lead."
In another wedding in the region, shots from a wedding severed high tension electrical wires, the falling wires electrocuted 8 guests and set parts of the village on fire. As well there have been sevearl injuries to people not even attending the weddings who happen into the path of a stray bullet.
Although authorities have promised to crack down, little success is expected. In the words of a city councillor, "If I do not use my gun when invited to a wedding, I will be considered a mouse, not a man."
Rambo would be proud.
P.S. along a similar note, although Rambo III has not been pulling in the North American box office receipts the producers would have liked, they are reportedly not worried because Rambo movies pull 80% of their gross from foreign receipts.