World

The hunt for perpetrators of last weekend's terrorist bombings in Sharm el-Sheikh , Egypt, turned to five Pakistanis whom police said they've identified. Arab TV channels reported that as many as nine Pakistanis had stayed in hotels in the city before the blasts but then disappeared. Police were surrounding two nearby villages where some of the suspects were believed to be hiding, and witnesses said they heard exchanges of gunfire. But such reports drew protests from Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, which said it had not been contacted by Egyptian authorities in the matter.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair apologized for the wrongful shooting death of a Brazilian immigrant whom police mistook for a terrorist, but the victim's relatives hinted that a lawsuit will be filed because "they have to pay for that." Meanwhile, police made two more arrests in connection with the terrorist incidents and found a bomb in a London park that was similar to those used in the most recent attacks.

Sunni Muslims helping to draft Iraq's proposed new constitution ended their six-day boycott of the process and resumed work, easing worries that the document would speak to issues of interest only to Shiites and Kurds. The boycott began after terrorists murdered one of the Sunni members of the drafting committee, with his colleagues demanding improved security and an official probe of the assassination before they'd agree to return. The committee is confronting an Aug. 15 deadline to finish the charter.

US and North Korean delegates met behind closed doors for more than an hour "to get acquainted" before they join the fourth round of negotiations on the latter nation's nuclear weapons program. The talks open Tuesday in Beijing after a hiatus of more than a year. Japan's Nihon Keizai newspaper reported that the US, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and China hope to achieve a set of "final goals" - among them a binding agreement by the North to scrap its nuclear weapons and improve its human rights record in exchange for security guarantees.

Ignoring the efforts of political opponents to impeach her, Philippines President Gloria Arroyo delivered her state of the nation address, proposing a switch to a parliamentary form of government. She made only an oblique reference to the crisis that has dogged her administration for months, saying: "Ours is a country divided." The speech was boycotted by opposition lawmakers, who earlier in the day filed an impeachment complaint alleging that Arroyo "cheated and lied" to obtain and hold onto power.