US While billing the upcoming Iraqi elections as a democratic milestone, US officials are steadily lowering the bar on what would constitute a successful vote amid escalating violence and intimidation. Asia Rebels in Indonesia's tsunami-hit Aceh called for ceasefire talks to help the relief aid effort as new restrictions on foreign relief workers in the province prompted Washington to demand clarification from Jakarta. Asia The United Nations appealed to Indonesia not to impose a deadline on foreign troops providing relief assistance in strife-torn Aceh province after the tsunami disaster. Iraq An aide to Iraq's top Shiite cleric was murdered barely a fortnight before elections that Shiites are tipped to win, as a deadly car bomb attack and kidnapping strike claimed over a dozen lives. Iran UN nuclear inspectors visited the previously off-limits Iranian military site of Parchin, which the United States claims may be involved in covert nuclear weapons work, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokesman said. Britain Britain's gaffe-prone Prince Harry was embroiled in controversy again after being photographed in a Nazi military outfit, drawing calls at home and abroad for a public apology from the third in line to the throne. South Africa Mark Thatcher, the son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, pleaded guilty in a Cape Town court to charges linked to an alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea and immediately left South Africa. Georgia A local businessman was elected leader of Georgia's separatist region of Abkhazia, officials said, in a vote that raised ethnic tensions and highlighted behind-the-scenes jostling for influence between Russia and the US-backed government of Georgia. US Human Rights Watch urged the US government to name a special prosecutor to investigate the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, which it called one of the most flagrant examples of human rights violations in 2004. Health Eight African states have agreed to a massive series of anti-polio vaccination campaigns aimed at halting transmission of the virus by the end of 2005, the World Health Organisation said.