Iraq An aide to Iraq's top Shiite cleric was murdered barely a fortnight before elections the Shiites are tipped to win, while gunmen seized a Turkish businessman and killed seven Iraqis outside a Baghdad hotel. Asia Prospects for peace in Indonesia's war-torn and tsunami-hit Aceh province were lifted by an offer of talks from separatist rebels, but tensions continued to overshadow efforts to aid disaster victims. Asia Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said he was confident that thousands of victims of the tsunami could be identified within a month, but warned that some of those who died may never be found. South Africa Mark Thatcher, the son of Britain's former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, pleaded guilty in a South African court to charges linked to an alleged coup plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. Britain Britain's young Prince Harry faced stinging criticism after being photographed wearing a Nazi soldier's uniform at a party, just a fortnight before the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Russia Russia said that it may take a long time to negotiate an official peace agreement with Japan ending hostilities dating back to World War II and stuck firmly to its position on the disputed Kuril Islands. Georgia A local businessman was elected leader of Georgia's separatist region of Abkhazia in a vote that raised ethnic tensions and highlighted behind-the-scenes jostling for influence between Russia and the US-backed government of Georgia. Australia Firefighters battling Australia's worst bushfires in more than 20 years, which left nine dead, brought the blaze under control as the region began a massive cleanup operation and was granted millions of dollars in aid. France The Paris prosecutor's office announced a preliminary enquiry to determine if the veteran far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen broke the law when he described the Nazi occupation of France in World War II as "not especially inhumane." Colombia Twenty soldiers died when their helicopter, working with the drug eradication program Plan Colombia, crashed in the south of the country, according to a military source. Kosovo A foreign police officer working with the UN mission in Kosovo was killed when his car exploded in the southern town of Prizren. Asia The United Nations children's fund said it suspected that Tamil Tiger rebels may have recruited a 15-year-old tsunami survivor as a child soldier in eastern Sri Lanka.