ATHENS: Greek police fired tear gas Thursday at hundreds of Muslim immigrants in Athens protesting reports that an officer had torn up Holy Qura’n during an identity check the day before. Around 1,500 demonstrators marched through the working class district of Kypseli towards the Omonia Square in the city centre, where there were scuffles with officers and tear gas was fired, said police. Some demonstrators also threw dustbins and stones at the police station in Kypseli district, injuring one officer and damaging a car. Officers fired tear gas to break up the crowd.Demonstrators said that on Wednesday, as police officers stopped four Syrian immigrants to check their papers, one of the officers had torn up Holy Qura’n and stamped on it.But after word spread of the alleged incident, the local Muslim immigrant community, mainly from Afghanistan and Pakistan, organised Thursday's protest. Immigrants rights groups have called another protest for Friday. Police said they had opened an investigation into the affair.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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