Iraq At least 22 people were killed in car bombings in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul targeting the fledgling Iraqi army, Westerners and the US military, as two Indonesian hostages were freed. US US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said US and Iraqi forces may launch more offensives to clear safe havens of insurgents like the one just completed in the city of Samarra, while casting doubt on whether Saddam Hussein had any links with Osama bin Laden. Mideast Twelve Palestinians and an Israeli were killed in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as Israel's army warned its massive offensive in Gaza could last for weeks. US US President George W. Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry battled over science, taxes and Iraq, as the spotlight of their newly tight race shifted to their running mates' only televised debate. Nobel Two US researchers were awarded the Nobel Medicine Prize for pioneering work on our most enigmatic sense, that of smell, which helps us survive and enjoy some of life's subtlest pleasures. Turkey The European Commission fine-tuned a crunch report on Turkey's bid to join the EU but warn that the predominantly Muslim country might have to wait more than a decade to fulfil its long-held dream. Indonesia Retired general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was confirmed as Indonesia's next leader as final counting from the country's first direct presidential polls gave him a landslide victory over his predecessor. Tunisia Twenty-two would-be immigrants drowned and 42 were missing after a boat that was to have carried them across the Mediterranean broke up and sank off the Tunisian coast at the weekend, according to official figures. US Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury astronauts who pioneered the US role in outer space, has died his home in Ventura, California, NASA announced. He was 77. US The world's first private rocketship blasted into space for the second time in five days, snatching a 10-million-dollar prize and ushering in a new era of space tourism.