Thirty-one Nobel Peace Prize winners urged world leaders Thursday to devote more attention to an estimated 37 million children who live in conflict-affected countries and cannot go to school.

ATHENS, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Several thousand Greeks marched in Athens Saturday to commemorate the 1973 student uprising against the country's US-backed former military regime that claimed at least 44 lives.

Bearing banners against NATO and the US and chanting anti-American slogans, over 5,000 people including university students, labour unionists and left-wing youth members participated in the annual demonstration towards the US embassy.

'Long live the Iraqi resistance, and may the (American) conquerors see coffins every day,' one block of demonstrators chanted.

ATHENS, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Thousands of police were deployed around central Athens on Saturday ahead of a march commemorating the 1973 student uprising against the country's former military regime, police said.

Over 8,000 officers have been mobilised to guard against violence that routinely erupts during the annual demonstration, which crosses the city centre and culminates at the US embassy.

Over 4,000 police have been assigned to guard embassies, foreign companies and banks that are often targeted with firebombs and paint during the march.

WASHINGTON, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Saudi Arabia wants a couple of years to complete a review of its school textbooks criticized for religious intolerance, the US State Department said Friday.

Saudi Arabia has been on the State Department's religious freedom blacklist for the last three years but Washington granted the Middle East ally a reprieve last year and discussed steps to promote religious freedom and tolerance.

BEDDAWI, Lebanon, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Patience is wearing very thin among Lebanese whose children are unable to attend schools now being used to accommodate Palestinians after deadly clashes in a refugee camp in the north.

Hundreds of Palestinians from Nahr al-Bared camp were relocated to schools in the nearby town of Beddawi and another refugee camp there in May after fierce battles erupted between al-Al Qaeda-inspired militants and the army.

AMMAN, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi appealed for Jordanian assistance on Thursday to help rebuild schools and universities ravaged by insurgent attacks and sectarian violence.

'Iraq faces a major problem in rebuilding educational institutions and needs Jordanian assistance,' Jordan's official Petra news agency quoted Hashemi as telling Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit on a visit to Amman.

SOFIA, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Thousands of Bulgarian teachers took to the streets again Thursday to demand higher pay as schools around the country remained effectively closed for a fourth week.

Police estimated the number of protestors gathered in front of the government building at between 20,000 and 25,000, while organisers put the crowds at around 50,000.

Blowing whistles and beating drums, the marchers called for the government to resign.

BANGKOK, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - A Thai school has apologised after students dressed up as Nazi stormtroopers and marched under a giant swastika as part of a sports day costume parade, its director said Thursday.

Kanya Khemanan told AFP the school sent an apology to the Simon Wiesenthal Center which had complained about the stunt.

She said the high school students hold a costume parade with a secret theme every year and school authorities had had no idea what they were planning.

LONDON, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - Pupils in English schools have no clear idea of their own national identity, the top education inspector said Wednesday.

Most schools did not have a coherent approach to developing a sense of Britishness, said Christine Gilbert, the head of the Ofsted watchdog, in her annual report.

She said history, religious and citizenship lessons failed to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain and give them a clear understanding of 'what it means to be British'.

BRUSSELS, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - The European Commission said Wednesday it would freeze legal action against Austria for its illegal quotas on foreign university students, removing a sticking point that threatened to bog down an EU summit this week.

While unprepared to block the approval of a new EU treaty of reforms at the Lisbon summit, Vienna had said that it aimed to raise the quota issue unless a solution was found.