The Israeli and Palestinian leaderships were in upheaval on Wednesday night as Ariel Sharon’s government faced collapse after the prime minister broke with his main coalition partner, and a popular Palestinian military commander launched a strong challenge from his jail cell to succeed Yasser Arafat in next month’s election.

Precisely 120 027 card-carrying Socialists on Wednesday night dictated the fate not just of their own party but quite possibly of the European Union as they voted on the new European Union Constitution. The official results of the finely balanced internal referendum, which follows a bitter three-month debate that has split France’s main opposition party, will not be announced until Friday.

The Pentagon ordered airborne reinforcements into Iraq on Wednesday to bolster its forces during the general election due in January, marking the end of Washington’s hope that other countries would supply the extra soldiers. Defence officials said two battalions of the 82nd Airborne would be flown from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Iraq in the next few weeks.

The first execution of a black woman in Texas since the American civil war was delayed at the 11th hour on Wednesday when the state governor granted a reprieve pending new tests on evidence. Frances Newton (39) was to have been killed by lethal injection on Wednesday night for the murder of her husband and two children in 1987.

Nothing is too small or mundane when you attach the name Kennedy to it. Among the items listed in the latest Sotheby’s auction of the contents of the Kennedy family homes are a fibreglass kitchen tray, some old suitcases, chipped china and a few tumblers.

The trial of mercenaries in the Equatorial Guinea coup plot — allegedly involving Mark Thatcher — was ”grossly unfair” with ”serious procedural flaws,” according to Amnesty International. Amnesty sent observers to the case in the capital Malabo, where 11 mercenaries and nine Equatorial Guinea nationals were last week sentenced to long prison terms.

Robert Mugabe has purged seven senior officials of his party, Zanu-PF, and humiliated a Cabinet ally in an effort to quell debate on who will succeed him as president of Zimbabwe. He slapped down young challengers and relied on the old guard to bolster his authority in a ”night of the long knives”.