News In Brief

Suicide bombs kill 8 in Pakistan    
Afp, Peshawar

A suicide bomber killed at least eight people and wounded 45 others when he rammed his motorcycle into a bus in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar yesterday, police said.
Two staff at the Afghan consulate were among those killed in the attack, which police said targeted a top civil servant who heads the city's administration.

Greece to cut 15,000 jobs
Afp, Athens

The Greek parliament has voted to adopt a law that provides for the dismissal of 15,000 civil servants as part of austerity measures imposed by the country's international creditors.
After heated debate, 168 deputies voted for the bill yesterday, with 123 voting against and one abstaining.
The new law will overturn what had been a guarantee for workers in Greece's notoriously bloated civil service of a job for life.

Car bombs kill 18 in Iraqi province
Reuters, Baghdad

Car bombs in busy Shia Muslim areas of southern Iraq killed at least 18 people on Monday, medics and police sources said, taking the week's death toll to nearly 200 as sectarian violence intensifies.
Militant attacks have increased as the civil war in neighboring Syria puts further strains on fragile Sunni-Shia relations, and tensions are at their highest since US troops left Iraq more than a year ago.
Security forces' raid on a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk last Tuesday triggered clashes that quickly spread to other Sunni areas in western and northern provinces.