News in Brief
Syrian soldiers killed in Israeli airstrikes
AP — Israeli airstrikes hit areas around Damascus early Monday, killing at least four Syrian soldiers, Syrian state media reported.
Syrian state television, citing a military source, said four other soldiers were also wounded while the strikes caused “some material damage.”
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges them.
Thousands protest Bangladesh Qur’an burning
AFP – Thousands of people mounted furious protests after dozens of copies of Muslims’ holy book, Qur’an, were burned in Bangladesh, leaving several officers injured, police said Monday.
Police said they fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse a crowd of “at least 10,000 people” overnight from Sunday to Monday as they tried to attack the two men accused of destroying the holy books, police officer Ajbahar Ali Shaikh said.
The two men were arrested in the northeastern city of Sylhet and claimed they had burned the books as they were “very old and some had printing mistakes”.
14 dead in China floods
REUTERS – Fourteen people were reported to have died over the weekend in the Chinese city of Shulan due to flooding caused by Typhoon Doksuri.
Northeastern China, Beijing and Hebei Province have seen heavy rainfall and floods since the typhoon made landfall in southern Fujian Province two weeks ago.
The deaths in Shulan, in northeastern Jilin Province, add to the more than 20 who died last week in Beijing and Hebei. Authorities have yet to provide an overall death toll for the entire country.