France A divided France voted in a referendum on the European Union's first-ever constitution, with opinion polls pointing towards a "no" that would send a shockwave across the continent. Iraq Thousands of Iraqi forces threw a security net over Baghdad in an attempt to seize the initiative from insurgents who quickly killed nine troops taking part in the operation in a bombing. US Al-Qaeda's top leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has probably been wounded but the US military does not know where he is or if his injuries are serious, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said. US America's top military officer, General Richard Myers, slammed as "absolutely irresponsible" a report by Amnesty International describing the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as a "gulag." Lebanon Lebanon began voting in its first election free of Syria's grip, with victory assured in Beirut for the son of Rafiq Hariri whose murder triggered a massive popular uprising against the pro-Damascus regime. Mideast The Israeli government approved the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners and declared itself ready to allow the United States to mediate a coordinated pullout from Gaza with the Palestinians. Iran Pakistan denied that President Pervez Musharraf had said Tehran was keen to obtain a nuclear bomb, a claim that infuriated Tehran's clerical regime which has repeatedly denied any such ambitions. Indonesia Security forces were deployed at churches on Indonesia's Sulawesi island after a bomb attack on a Christian town killed 20 people and threatened to reignite a violent conflict with Muslims. Vatican Pope Benedict XVI made a back-to-basics appeal to Roman Catholics, urging pilgrims at a giant open-air mass here to reject "runaway consumerism" and secularism, and calling for Sundays to be kept holy. Afghanistan A private television station in Afghanistan aired a brief video showing an Italian aid worker kidnapped 13 days ago in which two armed men with their faces covered point guns at her head.