Asia UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed for almost a billion dollars to tackle the immediate aftermath of the tsunami disaster, as the United States agreed to hand the world body total control of the relief effort. Asia The United States announced it was dissolving the "core group" of nations it formed to expedite aid for victims of the Asian tsunami disaster and would work under the United Nations. Asia The European Union pledged an extra 461 million dollars of aid to the victims of the tsunami disaster, bringing to roughly two billion dollars the bloc's total commitment to relief efforts. Asia Sri Lanka's tsunami disaster relief operation was hit by tensions between Tiger rebels and the government over aid distribution as the island's death toll from the tragedy passed 30,500. Asia Indonesia called for Southeast Asian nations to ensure their militaries can be instantly" deployed for relief missions as part of a major upgrade in regional emergency action plans. Mideast Palestinian election frontrunner Mahmud Abbas said that he believed there was an excellent opportunity to reach peace with Israel if he is elected president this weekend. US Faced with lengthy and grueling deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US army reserve is rapidly turning into "a broken force" and may not be able to meet its operational requirements in the future, its commander acknowledged in a memorandum made public late Wednesday. US Internal FBI documents took renewed aim at hard interrogation practices at a US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prompting the military to order an investigation into FBI allegations of prisoner abuse there. Iraq Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said pressing ahead with elections later this month would help quell the violence plaguing the country as three suicide bombings killed 17 people, most of them policemen. Iraq The bodies of 18 Iraqis lured by promises of lucrative work from a Baghdad Shiite neighbourhood to Mosul have been found in the northern city, an interior ministry source said.