US-Iraq US troops are winning the battle against the stubborn insurgency in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insists, rejecting calls that the Pentagon create a timetable for scaling back US forces there. US-Iraq Bush administration big guns Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld scorn claims America is losing the war in Iraq, shrugging off rising public angst at home and raging violence in Baghdad. EU Prime Minister Tony Blair called for an end to Europe's bitter wrangling over its future as he outlined his vision for Britain's upcoming EU presidency and appealed for far-reaching reforms. Afghanistan-US Afghan and US forces have killed 132 Taliban militants and surrounded four of the ousted regime's top commanders after a three-day battle in the south of the country, officials said. US Elderly former Ku Klux Klansman Edgar Ray Killen was jailed for a maximum 60 years for the killings of three activists in 1964 that became a turning point in the US civil rights campaign. Mideast The "quartet" of diplomatic powers seeking Middle East peace stressed the "urgent need" for Israel and the Palestinians to coordinate the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip. Iran Moderate Iranian cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani faces the hardline Tehran mayor Friday in a presidential election that could hand the anti-Western right unchallenged power but whose outcome looks too close to call.