Afghanistan Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned reports of abuse of detainees in US military custody in Afghanistan before leaving for Washington to meet with President George W. Bush. Afghanistan Afghan officials were working feverishly for the release of a kidnapped Italian aid worker, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said without detailing the negotiations, as the woman's suspected abductor confirmed she was still alive. Uzbekistan Tensions remained high in Karasuv on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border as Tashkent struggled to quell unrest in the wake of a deadly crackdown that has sparked unprecedented Western criticism of the authoritarian Uzbek regime. Britain Rubbing salt in the wounds caused by publishing prison photographs of a half-naked Saddam Hussein, a British tabloid released another shot of Iraq's ex-leader as the US military launched an investigation into how the pictures got out. Iraq Sunni imams closed mosques in a three-day shutdown to protest the murder of members of their minority community, as Iraqis reacted with shock to intimate photos of ousted leader Saddam Hussein in jail. Ethiopia Ethiopia's foreign donors appealed for calm as the first preliminary returns from last weekend's hotly-contested elections showed the opposition almost doubling its parliamentary seats. Chile Thirteen Chilean soldiers died and 28 more are missing and feared dead after the mostly young conscripts disappeared in a snow storm while on a training exercise, officials said. Canada An unprecedented effort is required between now and 2010 to stop further deterioration of the planet's fragile biodiversity, according to a UN report that compiled the work of 1,300 researchers.