Hostage alive, says Italian foreign minister

Italy’s foreign minister said today that an Italian hostage in Afghanistan is all right, and that contact had been initiated by her kidnappers.

“We know that she is well because the kidnappers have initiated a channel of contacts with the Afghan authorities,” Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini told reporters about efforts to win the freedom of humanitarian aid worker Clementina Cantoni, who was abducted in Kabul yesterday.