World

Closing a railway station, confiscating a car, and searching residences , British police intensified their hunt for people who may have helped to carry out last week's train and bus bombings in London. There were no immediate reports of arrests, but the BBC said from Leeds that materials of interest to the investigation had been seized. The confiscated car may have been connected to the bombings, the police said.

Police and rescue services raced to a shopping mall in the Israeli seaside resort of Netanya Tuesday after a terrorist exploded a bomb at its entrance. Early reports said at least two people were killed and many others were injured, some of them critically.

Saying he'd "acted out of conviction," the defendant accused of murdering a Dutch filmmaker who was critical of Islamic fundamentalism confessed to the crime in court. Mohamad Bouyeri, a Moroccan, was arrrested for the stabbing and shooting of Theo Van Gogh on an Amsterdam street last Nov. 2. He told the court that, if freed, "I would do it again." Turning to the victim's mother, Anneke Van Gogh, he added: "I have no sympathy for you." Under Dutch law, the maximum sentence Bouyeri can receive is imprisonment for life.

The defense minister of Lebanon was hospitalized with noncritical injuries after a bomb exploded beside his motorcade in suburban Beirut. But two other people were killed in the attack and more than a dozen were hurt. Elias al-Murr, the target of the blast, is pro-Syrian but has been in conflict with Islamic militants for the past year. Since former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri died in a bombing in February, four other anti- Syrians have been targeted for assassination, but the attack on Murr was the first against a pro-Syrian.

A maximum alert was declared in the capital of the Philippines for a protest against embattled President Gloria Arroyo that organizers hope will swell to 1 million people by Sunday. Thousands of police and Army troops were being deployed in Manila to guard government installations and for crowd control, although recent anti-Arroyo demonstrations have attracted 8,000 protesters at most. Last weekend, she won the backing of the powerful Roman Catholic Church, but then lost that of ex-President Corazon Aquino, who joined calls for her to resign over allegations that she rigged last year's election.