France French President Jacques Chirac appointed close aide Dominique de Villepin to replace Jean-Pierre Raffarin as prime minister as heads began to roll after a humiliating defeat over the EU constitutional treaty. Netherlands The Dutch campaign on the EU constitution entered the last day with the "no" camp widening its lead and threatening what could be a fatal blow to the treaty three days after France's emphatic rejection of the text. Russia Yukos oil founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky was convicted of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison after a politically charged trial critics saw as a Kremlin-driven vendetta against Russia's once-richest man. His lawyer said he would appeal. Iran Iran announced it had successfully tested a new solid fuel missile motor for its arsenal of medium-range ballistic missiles, a technological breakthrough that sparked fresh alarm in Israel. Libya Libya's high court delayed a ruling until November on an appeal by six foreign medics - six Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor - sentenced to death for infecting hundreds of children with the AIDS virus in a case that has raised international concern. Iraq Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari unveiled his new government's programme, telling parliament his priorities were to end violence, cut the time foreign forces were needed in the country, and build a federal Iraq with human rights and public freedoms. Germany Israeli President Moshe Katsav warned in a speech to the German parliament that the Jewish state was concerned by the resurgence of neo-Nazis in Germany, saying it could prevent the two countries putting World War II behind them. EU The EU and US dispute over subsidies to their respective aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing will be decided by the World Trade Organisation after both sides lodged separate complaints. Pakistan Six workers of the US fast food chain KFC died when a restaurant was torched by a mob protesting the suicide bombing of a mosque in the Pakistani city of Karachi that killed five others, police said. Britain The widow of a British lung cancer victim failed in a legal bid to hold Imperial Tobacco responsible for his 1993 death in a landmark case that, by chance, was decided on World No Tobacco Day. China A senior journalist for Singapore's Straits Times newspaper detained since last month has confessed to being a spy for foreign intelligence organs, China said, in a charge that can carry the death sentence. Indonesia Fast food restaurants were transformed into makeshift clinics serving polio vaccines with burgers and fries as Indonesia began a frenetic campaign to immunise millions of children and contain its first outbreak of the disease in a decade.