Mideast Mahmud Abbas extended a hand to Israel after being triumphantly elected Palestinian leader, while the approval of an Israeli government favourable to a Gaza pullout further boosted peace hopes. Asia With thousands of bodies still being pulled from the rubble and the death toll topping 157,000, the emergency phase of the tsunami disaster is far from over, the Red Cross warned, as donor countries convened in Geneva for a UN conference. Iraq Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi insisted his security forces were winning the battle against extremists, as Baghdad's deputy police chief ranked among more than a dozen people killed in the latest rash of attacks ahead of the January 30 elections. Palestinian US President George W. Bush says he would invite Palestinian election winner Mahmud Abbas to Washington for talks and linked the success of the Palestinian vote to his hopes for Iraq later this month. Kuwait Kuwaiti security forces fatally wounded a wanted militant in a deadly shootout in which two policemen were killed amid a US security alert, the interior ministry said. China-Taiwan China and Taiwan took a step towards allowing the first direct flights between the rivals since 1949 as representatives held talks on permitting charter flights over the Chinese New Year holidays. AfricanUnion The African Union's (AU) Peace and Security Council wrapped up its inaugural meeting unexpectedly quickly with a series of resolutions on the continent's main flashpoints, including Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan's Darfur region. Philippines The death toll from a Muslim rebel attack on an army outpost rose to 23 but top officials said the new violence would not stop the peace process between the two sides. Cuba Cuba says it's renewing official contacts with all European Union countries, including those that took the hardest line against Havana after its crackdown on dissidents. Ukraine Ukrainian election officials declared Viktor Yushchenko the official winner of a rerun presidential vote, paving the way for the "orange revolution" hero to be inaugurated as the third president of an independent Ukraine.