NKorea The United States reassured North Korea it viewed the country as a sovereign nation which it would not attack, as a new round of talks began to address Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs. Britain British police were scouring a reported 'bomb factory' in an apartment block for clues to help hunt down four suspected London bombers, even as fears grew of a mystery fifth attacker. Britain Prime Minister Tony Blair met leaders of Britain's main opposition parties for a summit on potential changes to the country's anti-terrorism laws following the London bombings. Netherlands A Dutch court handed down a life sentence against Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Islamic radical who was convicted of killing Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and ruled the murder was a terrorist act. Egypt Egypt has told Pakistan that no Pakistani was involved in the weekend's deadly Red Sea resort bombings, Cairo's embassy in Islamabad said. ASEAN Southeast Asian foreign ministers announced that Myanmar's internationally condemned military rulers will not take the 2006 chairmanship of the ASEAN group, ending a months-long row. Kyrgyzstan A US airbase in Kyrgyzstan can remain as long as needed for operations in neighboring Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz defence minister told US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld here. Afghanistan At least 40 militants and two Afghan soldiers were killed overnight in a raid by US and Afghan troops on a Taliban hideout in south-central Afghanistan, a provincial official said. Lebanon Christian former warlord Samir Geagea, the only leader from the 1975-90 civil war ever jailed for his alleged crimes, walked free from a military prison under an amnesty and headed straight for a flight out to Europe. Iraq Sunni Arabs ended their boycott of a parliamentary committee charged with drafting a new constitution for Iraq, one of their representatives, Salim Abdullah, told AFP. US NASA readied Discovery for its Tuesday liftoff and was increasingly confident the weather would cooperate with the launch of the first space shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster.