Asia The death toll in Asia's tsunami disaster ticked relentlessly upward to top 125,000 as clocks ticked down to a desolate new year in countries struggling to get food and water to millions facing starvation and disease. Starvation, injury and disease are pushing massive numbers of refugees in tsunami-devastated Aceh closer to death "every minute", the United Nations warned as the number of Indonesians confirmed killed in the disaster climbed towards 100,000. Indonesia, the country worst hit by the Asian-wide tsunami disaster, said it would host a major international summit to discuss strategies for overcoming the catastrophe and raising more aid. In a dramatic and politically significant gesture, China added 60.5 million dollars to the half billion dollars pledged by the world's rich nations in aid to tsunami-hit countries bordering the Indian Ocean. US Secretary of State Colin Powell meets UN Secretary General Kofi Annan here to discuss the massive global relief effort after the Asian tsunami disaster. Survivors, relatives and emergency experts in the Nordic countries have blasted their governments in recent days for failing to respond immediately to the needs of their nationals caught in the tidal waves that struck Indian Ocean coastlines at the weekend. The year 2005 dawned under the shadows of the deadly Asian tsunami disaster, with thousands attending candle-lit vigils, more still struggling to stay alive, and others celebrating in traditional fashion but marking the scale of the disaster. Iraq Radical Islamist groups in Iraq warned they would strike against the country's landmark elections next month as US soldiers detained 49 suspects in a pre-dawn raid on an insurgent stronghold. Russia Russia said it had ordered the construction of an oil pipeline from its huge Siberian oilfields to the Pacific Ocean opposite Japan, in a move to boost export opportunities throughout East Asia and to the United States. Argentina Police launched an investigation into the source of a Buenos Aires nightclub inferno that killed at least 175 people and injured 619 others as some 2,000 teenagers crammed into a crowded downtown discotheque. Sudan The Khartoum government and the main southern Sudan rebel group signed accords on two outstanding issues, paving the way for the signing of a comprehensive peace deal to end Africa's longest-running conflict, an AFP journalist reported. Mideast Two Palestinian militants were killed in an Israeli helicopter strike in the Gaza Strip, a bastion of Islamic hardliners where PLO chief Mahmud Abbas was due to address an election campaign rally.