Iraq Iraqi and US troops pressed with an all-out offensive to wrest control of a town from Sunni Arab insurgents, with the Iraqis reporting nearly 150 rebels killed and with the mayor resigning in protest. US Floodwaters will likely be pumped out of New Orleans sooner than expected, officials said, but the US administration is reeling from Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, as it prepares to commemorate another disaster, the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko assured Washington that Ukraine remained on a pro-Western course despite this week's government sacking which has left him facing a tough new political rival ahead of a key election. Japan Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made his final campaigning stops ahead of a snap election in which he is widely expected to win a new mandate for controversial economic reforms. Egypt A defiant Egyptian opposition ratcheted up the pressure on President Hosni Mubarak, after he was reelected with the votes of only one-fifth of the electorate. Afghanistan US and Afghan troops killed some 30 suspected Taliban militants in southern Afghanistan as the defence minister survived an assassination attempt in the latest violence a week ahead of parliamentary elections, officials said. Mideast Egyptian forces took up positions around the Gaza Strip border as Israeli troops were ready to turn their backs on the Palestinian territory after a 38-year occupation. Ivory Coast The leader of Ivory Coast's former rebel movement said that President Laurent Gbagbo must stand down at the end of next month despite the impossibility of organising an election to replace him. Netherlands The Amsterdam court, which sentenced the father of Pakistan's nuclear program Abdul Qadeer Khan to four years in prison in 1983, has lost Khan's legal files and the court's vice-president suspects the CIA had a hand in the documents' disappearance. Bosnia The United States would like to see the 10th anniversary in November of the peace deal that ended Bosnia's 1992-95 war marked with the arrests of two key war crimes suspects, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, an official said.