Egyptian liberal MPs withdrew on Saturday from a crucial parliament vote for a panel to draft a new constitution amid a rift with Islamists over the constituent assembly's make up, liberals said.

The liberals accused the majority Islamists of trying to monopolize the 100-member panel, whose constitution will replace the one annulled by the ruling military after an uprising toppled President Hosni Mubarak last year.

Two Turkish journalists who have been missing in Syria for about two weeks are safe, according to an Islamic charity which said Saturday it was in negotiations to secure their return home.

"We are certain that they are alive and in good health," Bulent Yildirim, head of the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, told the Anatolia news agency.

Several Syrian opposition groups will gather in Turkey on Monday to hammer out common objectives in the face of the regime's deadly crackdown on dissent, the main umbrella grouping said.

The Istanbul meeting comes ahead of the second "Friends of Syria" conference in the same city on April 1, the Syrian National Council said in a statement on Saturday.

French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet held talks Saturday with his Saudi counterpart in Riyadh on bolstering ties between their ministries, SPA state news agency reported.

The meeting focused on "strengthening bilateral relations and existing partnerships between the defense ministries" of the two countries, SPA quoted defense minister Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz as saying.

A man and a woman died of asphyxiation caused by tear gas grenades fired by Bahrain's security forces to disperse protests in Shiite villages, the country's main opposition group said on Saturday.

Ahmed Abdul Nabi, 31, died after a tear gas grenade landed in his family's house in the village of Shahrakan, said a statement by al-Wefaq, citing family members.

Syria's army resumed heavy shelling of the rebel hubs of Homs and Hama on Saturday, monitors reported, as international envoy Kofi Annan arrived in Russia in a new push for peace.

As the violence continued unabated across Syria the opposition announced new steps to pile the pressure on the regime of President Bashar Assad, with army deserters closing ranks and creating a unified military council.

Iraq detained 22 policemen on Saturday after 19 inmates, including two men on death row, escaped from a prison in the northern city of Kirkuk a day earlier, the local police chief said.

"We are investigating 22 policemen who have been detained, to find out about the escape of the terrorists," Kirkuk provincial police chief Jamal Taher Bakr told AFP, adding that local police were hunting for those on the run.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's visit to China to discuss the crisis in Syria, initially scheduled for this weekend, will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Annan's spokesman had said on Friday he would visit Beijing and Moscow at the weekend for talks in two countries criticized for resisting global efforts to condemn Syrian President Bashar Assad.

A young Palestinian was shot and wounded on Saturday in a clash with Jewish settlers in the West Bank, Palestinian security sources said.

The trouble erupted when a group of around 40 Israeli settlers entered the Burqin area in the north of the occupied territory and clashed with residents, they said.

Human Rights Watch on Friday called for Iraq to launch a criminal investigation into allegations that a bodyguard of the country's fugitive Sunni vice president who died in custody was tortured.

Amir Sarbut Zaidan al-Batawi died earlier this month in prison, and Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi released photographs which his office said showed the 33-year-old was tortured, though security forces and judicial authorities insist he died of kidney failure.