‘’(A sit-in) is a violent act, and today I will meet (Interior Minister Roberto Maroni) to give him instructions on how the police should intervene,’’ he said in a special press conference on the education reforms in the light of the protests.

‘‘The state must carry out its role of guaranteeing the right of students who want to study to be able to enter classrooms and lecture halls,’’ the premier added.

Ten people are in jail in Ontario awaiting trial, accused of belonging to a group alleged to have plotted terrorist attacks in the province, including a plan to detonate a huge fertilizer bomb in downtown Toronto. The case became known as the Toronto 18 after, in the summer of 2006, 18 Muslim-Canadian suspects were arrested in a series of dramatic police raids in and around Toronto.

Aabid Khan, a 22-year-old from Bradford, England, had information on his laptop computer that suggested he was attempting to form an international terrorist cell to stage attacks in Britain, the United States, Continental Europe and Canada that would rival the impact of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The nation’s Constitutional Court dismissed the men’s request for a traditional Islamic-style beheading and claims by their defense lawyers that being shot to death is less inhumane.

“There is no method of execution without pain,” said presiding Judge Mohammad Mahfud, outlining the decision.

The defendant’s suffering is a logical consequence of the death penalty under Indonesian law and “cannot be categorized as torturing the convict,” the nine judge panel concluded.

The October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings killed 202 people, 88 of them Australian tourists.

There is perhaps no more stereotypical image of India than that of a stray cow sauntering down the middle of a busy city street, seemingly oblivious to the traffic swerving around it.

Hindus consider cows sacred animals, and their slaughter is banned throughout most of India. Cows are frequently allowed to wander where they please, even in cities, where Indians tend to view them much the way Americans and Europeans regard pigeons - an unpleasant but intractable part of the urban landscape.

Police fired tear gas to disperse a group of stone-throwing demonstrators.

But there were no reports of injuries and for the most part rallies in the capital were proceeding peacefully.

Two unions representing some 2.5 million people called the strike in protest at privatisation, caps on pay and reforms to the pension system.

Riyadh has also released the first official death toll for the attacks: over the last five years, 90 civilians and 74 members of the security forces have been killed in Saudi Arabia.

Two men who were secretly filmed mixing the type of explosive used in the 2005 London transit bombing were convicted on Tuesday of preparing a terrorist attack.

Hammad Khuershid, a Danish citizen of Pakistani origin, and Abdoulghani Tokhi, an Afghan, were arrested in an anti-terror sweep last year after Danish agents filmed them conducting a small test blast with triacetone triperoxide, which was used by the suicide bombers who killed 52 British commuters.

During the trial, prosecutors said Khuershid had links to an al-Qaida operative. The prosecutors said it was not clear whether Khuershid and Tokhi were preparing an attack in Denmark or abroad. Denmark has repeatedly been threatened by Islamic extremists after the uproar triggered by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in Danish newspapers in 2005.

One of those accused foreign agents, wealthy Venezuelan businessman Franklin Durán, has stood trial for seven weeks in a courtroom packed with Spanish-language journalists.

But first, on Tuesday, the jury will hear the explosive testimony of Durán’s convicted business partner, Carlos Kauffmann, who already pleaded guilty to his role in the alleged conspiracy.

“All the eight terrorists are members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM),” said Wu Heping, a spokesman for the Public Security Bureau. “They all took part in plotting, organising and executing various terrorist activities targeting the Beijing Olympic Games,” he added.

ETIM is listed by China, the US and the United Nations as a terrorist organisation. However, China has often been accused of magnifying the supposed threat in order to justify a hardline security operation in Xinjiang.