ATHENS, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Greece has rejected asylum requests from three of a group of eight Turkish soldiers who fled there after the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July, police sources said on Wednesday.

JERUSALEM, Sept 21 (Reuters) - On the first Friday evening that Jerusalem restaurant Azza 40 opened without a kosher license, allowing it to serve customers on the Jewish sabbath, crowds of ultra-Orthodox Jews protested outside, threatening to smash windows and burn the place down.

BOLOGNA (Reuters) - Italian prosecutors have dropped a money laundering case against the son of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, their office said on Wednesday.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Gunmen abducted an American teacher on Tuesday from an English language school in Sanaa, capital of wartorn Yemen, witnesses said, in the latest of a series of kidnappings of foreigners.

JERUSALEM, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Israel's defense industry faces layoffs, closures and a scramble to set up shop in the United States following the signing of a new U.S. military aid package that phases out Israel's ability to spend a quarter of the funds on its own businesses.

ANKARA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A man was shot and wounded by Turkish police outside the Israeli Embassy in Ankara after he shouted slogans and wielded a knife on Wednesday, but initial inquiries indicated he had no links to an organized group, officials said.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Xenophobia is rising in the ex-communist east of Germany and risks tarnishing its reputation as a place to do business, the government said on Wednesday as it published its annual report on the state of German unification.

ATHENS, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Greece has rejected asylum requests from three of a group of eight Turkish soldiers who fled there after the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July, police sources said on Wednesday.

BEIRUT, Sept 21 (Reuters) - A Syrian warplane crashed north of Damascus on Wednesday, but it was unclear if it had been shot down or came down because of a technical fault, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.