Anders Behring Breivik has confessed to the July 22 shooting massacre at a youth camp conducted by the governing party, in which 69 people died, and the car bombing hours earlier in Oslo’s government quarter that killed eight.

Breivik, in a manifesto issued shortly before the attacks, denounced Norway’s left-leaning government and its tolerance of Muslim immigration. In the manifesto, he claimed contact with extremists elsewhere.

“We still think he was alone, but we cannot conclude about that. He holds back some information, and that worries us,” prosecutor Christian Hatlo told The Associated Press.

Hatlo also said Breivik has been questioned about his travels to 10 other countries and about equipment bought for the attacks. He declined to elaborate on either thread of inquiry.

The 32-year-old Breivik appears to have planned the attacks meticulously, but failed to anticipate one consequence — that he would be held in isolation after his arrest.

“He told us he had not thought of that, and he should have,” Hatlo said.

Earlier Thursday, former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who left the Utoya island youth camp just hours before the massacre, said the day will be remembered as one of the country’s darkest.

Speaking at the funeral of 16-year-old victim Marianne Sandvik in the southwestern city of Stavanger, a tearful Brundtland said “the loss of a young life can never give any meaning.”

Brundtland, who was prime minister for 10 years, led a left-leaning government with liberal immigration policies. In his manifesto, Breivik denounced Brundtland.

Hatlo also said that police have questioned a blogger whose anti-Muslim writings under the name of Fjordman were cited as an influence by Breivik in his manifesto.

Meanwhile, Oslo’s deputy mayor Baard Folke Fredriksen told The Associated Press that a request by authorities to close the street where Breivik’s explosive-laden car was parked had been approved last year. The necessary construction work to close it for vehicles was expected to be completed in September, he said.
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Dehydration is one of its tell-tale signs. In a camp in Cabaret, just east of Port-au-Prince, children lie on cots as life-sustaining fluids are pumped intravenously into their bodies.

The cholera outbreak in Haiti has now killed 583 people and another 9,123 people have been hospitalized, according to Gabriel Timothe, director general of Haiti’s Ministry of Health.

Medical personnel fear rising waters over the banks of Haiti’s Arbonite River, which they say is a source of contamination, have increased the risk of a wider rate of infections.

“We’re doing everything we can to mitigate [the] spread,” Dr. Jon K. Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization, said during a press conference on Tuesday.

Health officials had braced for problems after Tomas, fearing the hurricane that battered the Caribbean nation over the weekend could worsen the cholera outbreak.

On Monday, Dr. Toni Eyssallenne of Hospital Bernard Mevs confirmed the first case of cholera — in a 3-year-old boy — to originate and manifest entirely in Port-au-Prince.

Two more cases were confirmed Tuesday by Eyssallenne.

A 41-year-old woman who contracted the disease has not traveled in a year, the official said. A 33-year-old who lives in a tent city uses a communal water source. She, too, did not bring the infection into the city.

Previous cases had been centered in Haiti’s Artibonite and Central Plateau regions, including the city of St. Marc, north of the nation’s capital. Until Monday, health officials said that those being treated for cholera in Port-au-Prince all contracted the disease elsewhere.

The young Port-au-Prince boy lived in a tent city across the street from a place that sells macaroni, and he had not traveled in over a year, and he hadn’t had any contact with people from St. Marc or the Artibonite region, Eyssallenne said.

After suffering from nausea and diarrhea, the boy was treated and released from the hospital after his condition improved.

Hurricane Tomas’ trek past Haiti killed 20 people and injured another 36, a Communications Ministry official said Monday. Seven people were missing and 5,954 were homeless, the official said.

Health officials fear that the water dumped by the storm will worsen the outbreak. The concern is that overflow from latrines and septic tanks could contaminate the supply of fresh drinking water and contribute to the spread of the bacteria.

In the capital, the canals were not overflowing, said American Red Cross spokeswoman Andrea Koppel. But that was not the case in cities west of the capital, which bore the brunt of Hurricane Tomas, she said.

Still, even Port-au-Prince looks and smells like a dump — a caldron of water, garbage and human waste. “We get used to it,” said one resident.

Ten months after a magnitude-7 earthquake laid waste to much of the nation, people compete with animals scavenging through the ubiquitous dumps for scraps of food.

“The quick solution is management,” said Environment Minister Jean Marie Claude Germain. “Management meaning that you have a structure in place, but the structure was not conceived with the slums in mind.”

But most of the residents of Port-au-Prince live in slums.

“We’re working on it,” Germain said. “We will work with the private sector.”

“We’re all very afraid of what’s coming,” said Julio, a car wash worker in the city of Matamoros, just across the border from Brownsville at the southern tip of Texas. “This was already a war zone and it is only going to get worse.”

The killing of Ezequiel “Tony Tormenta” Cardenas, head of the Gulf cartel, by Mexican marines last week was a brief victory in President Felipe Calderon’s fight against the gangs warring over smuggling routes into the United States.

Since the death of Cardenas, cartel roadblocks and gunfights have intensified across Matamoros and nearby Reynosa and Monterrey, Mexico’s richest city. The Zetas have strung up threatening banners on major roads in the cities.

Antonio Garza, police chief of northeastern Tamaulipas state that is home to Matamoros, warned of a “collective psychosis” since Friday’s killing of Cardenas, with many fearful residents staying home and schools being closed.

Hundreds of university students were evacuated on Tuesday in a series of bomb scares in Matamoros, after 10 high schools received similar warnings on Monday.

All turned out to be false and no one was injured but residents have good reason to be scared. Since December 2006, when Calderon launched his crackdown, more than 31,000 people have been killed across Mexico in drug-related violence.

Cardenas — the brother of former Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas, who was extradited to Texas in 2007 — was killed in a hail of grenades and gunfire after marines closed in on him in a house in downtown Matamoros.

No photos of his body have surfaced. Journalists and civil protection sources in Matamoros said he was buried on Monday in the port city but officials declined to comment.

“ALL-OUT ASSAULT”

Cardenas was the fourth drug baron to be killed or captured since last December.

But drug trade analysts see more violence as the Zetas, the Gulf cartel’s former armed wing, fight to win back power in Reynosa and Matamoros, both manufacturing cities where investment is being frozen because of the violence.

“Tony Tormenta’s death means the Zetas are likely to attempt to regain influence in these regions and perhaps even mount an all-out assault,” U.S. security consultancy Stratfor said in a report. “As a result, violence in the region is likely to spike in the short term.”

Headed by Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano, the Zetas split from the Gulf cartel earlier this year and are blamed for some of the worst atrocities in the drug war, including the murders of 72 migrants in August.

Founded in the late 1990s by about 40 soldiers who deserted army special forces units to work for the Gulf cartel, the Zetas may now number 10,000 across Mexico and Central America.

Mexico’s most wanted man, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, who leads the powerful Sinaloa cartel, could also wade in and try to take over the lucrative smuggling routes.

“It opens a valuable space to secure a new position and to launch a counter-offensive,” said Pedro de la Cruz, a security analyst at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.

Guzman could exploit the vacuum by allying himself with the Gulf cartel. There may also be a power struggle within the Gulf cartel, said security analyst Alberto Islas.

Cardenas ran the gang with Jorge Eduardo Costilla, known as “El Coss,” who is still at large.

“Obviously there’s going to be a settling of scores and if Tony Tormenta’s henchmen don’t get 100 percent in line behind El Coss … they are going to disappear,” Islas said.

(Additional reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez; Editing by John O’Callaghan)

“It is six minutes to midnight,” the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), which created the Doomsday clock in 1947 as a barometer of how close the world is to an apocalyptic end, said in a statement read out as the clock’s countdown to midnight was turned back by one minute.

“For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material,” the statement by the panel of international scientists, including 19 Nobel laureates, said.

“For the first time ever, industrialized and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable.”

A key player in the new, global era of cooperation was Obama, whose election in 2008 ushered in “a change in the US government’s orientation toward international affairs,” said Lawrence Krauss, co-chair of BAS’s board of sponsors, speaking at the ceremony to turn back the hands of the symbolic clock.

Obama brought with him to the White House “a more pragmatic, problem-solving approach” than his predecessor, George W. Bush, the scientists said.

“Not only has Obama initiated new arms reduction talks with Russia, he has started negotiations with Iran to close its nuclear enrichment program, and directed the US government to lead a global effort to secure loose fissile material in four years,” Krauss said, reading from the BAS statement.

Since it was created by scientists who helped to develop the world’s first atomic weapons, the Doomsday clock has come to be seen as a measure of what progress, if any, the world has made in moving away from the risk of nuclear, climate-caused or bio-warfare catastrophe.

Midnight on the clock signifies the apocalypse, and the minute hand symbolizes the countdown to disaster.

The last time the minute hand was moved was in 2007, when Bush was president. Then, the clock was bumped two minutes closer to midnight.

In resetting the clock this year, the scientists said they were encouraged by recent developments, but had chosen to put back the clock by only one minute to show they were “mindful that the clock is ticking,” said Krauss.

“By shifting the hand back from midnight by only one additional minute, we emphasize how much needs to be accomplished” while at the same time recognizing that global cooperation has moved forward, he said.

Putting back the clock by only one minute also meant that “there’s great potential for it to move again, in either direction,” said Krauss.

Which way the hands of the clock are moved next time was up to scientists, world leaders and ordinary people, said Krauss, urging them all to seize the “unique opportunity we have right now to begin to free ourselves from the terror of nuclear weapons and slow drastic changes to our shared global environment.”

“We are now poised at a unique time, with hope and opportunity. Let’s not blow it,” he said.

Thanks to this hidden fee, American banks and credit card companies are making huge profits — somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 million a year — off of people’s charitable donations, according to a Huffington Post analysis.

Those profits rise sharply after major disasters, when humanitarian relief organizations such as Oxfam and Operation USA take in more than 85 percent of their donations via credit card — and the credit card providers, with only a few exceptions, refuse to waive their fees.

Credit card companies have only been willing to waive their processing fee for charity once, Richard Walden, the CEO of Operation USA, tells the Huffington Post, and that was for the tsunami disaster of 2004.

“After the tsunami, we had thousands of donations, and American Express and I think one other company temporarily waived their fees. So if this thing ramps up, we’ll try to get in touch with these banks and see if they’ll waive the fee again for us.”

Bowing to enormous public pressure in the United Kingdom after the tsunami, British credit card companies have pledged to “waiv[e] interchange fees for all cross-charity and disaster or emergency appeals,” according to the UK Card Association website.

One notable exception to the rule in this country is Capital One bank. Through its “No Hassle Giving Site”, the bank waives transaction costs for holders of its Visa or MasterCard cards, so that 100 percent of people’s donations goes to their chosen charity.

“We are pleased to be able to donate these costs, and we believe this will generate customer loyalty and an enduring customer franchise,” said Pam Girardo, a spokesperson for Capital One.

Ben Woolsey, director of marketing and consumer research at Creditcards.com, says the hidden processing fees tacked onto all credit card donations cover far more than the transaction costs, allowing the issuing banks, as well as companies like Visa, MasterCard and American Express, to generate significant profits off of online charitable donations.

“They certainly profit off of these fees,” Woolsey said. “Charities are treated like any other merchant. The credit card company bleeds a few percentage points off each transaction; that’s central to their business model.”

Non-profits are reluctant to criticize the credit card companies that are providing them a crucial service because there is too much money at stake, and they have no lower-cost options because the four major credit card companies have a small monopoly on the industry.

Peter Larson, director of annual giving at the Washington Humane Society, said: “It’s unfortunate that a portion of our individual contributions are eaten up by processing fees, but that’s the nature of business. We have no choice but to use credit cards because without them, we would lose a great deal of money in donations.”

Some charities are able to negotiate a lower processing fee than regular merchants, whose rates can run as high as 5 percent. Habitat for Humanity reports that it pays about 2.15 percent of its donations to credit card processing companies, St. Jude’s pays about 2.5 percent, and all charitable organizations that qualify for American Express’s “Giving Express” program get a 2.25 percent processing rate. But even these fees are far greater than the marginal cost of the online transaction.

“I have no doubt that millions and millions of dollars are being made off of people’s donations, and it’s extremely inefficient and wasteful,” said Ken Berger, President and CEO of Charity Navigator, an independent charity evaluator. “It would be great if credit card companies could reduce their profit knowing its going to an organization with a mission to help people. They need to step up to the plate and take a lead role in voluntarily cutting their fees.”

Spokespersons for Visa and American Express declined to say whether they would consider waiving their fees for the Haiti disaster, or for all charitable donations. But Bill Strathmann, CEO of the online charity portal Network for Good, says they won’t: “The reason credit card companies don’t waive fees for charities is that they have so many corporate partners who drive high volume through their system. A company like Walmart could say, ‘Hey, you’re giving them a bettter rate? Last I looked I was passing billions of dollars through your company.’”

According to Strathmann, whose company partners with Capital One to encourage cost-free donating, legislators may have to take the issue into their own hands.

“I’ve always wanted to take this to Capitol Hill,” said Strathmann. “There was legislation that made charitable donations tax-deductible, and there’s going to have to be similar legislation that either subsidizes those credit card fees for non-profits or bars the fees altogether. There’s got to be a better model for encouraging donations.”

Right now, the government’s only role is to actually subsidize the credit-card skim; charitable donations are 100 percent tax deductible, even when only, say, 97 percent of the donation goes to charity.

Without a legislative solution, the only option for charities is to petition banks to voluntarily waive their fees.

“We don’t want a corporate contribution from the other side of American Express, we want them to say to legitimate NGOs that they’re waiving the bank fee,” said Walden. “It’s probably a good week to ask, because they’re about to give out their bonuses.”

Lloyd Skinner was pulled under the surf and dragged out to sea by the shark, believed to be a great white, off Fish Hoek beach in Cape Town. His diving goggles and a dark patch of blood were all that remained in the water.

“Holy shit. We just saw a gigantic shark eat what looked like a person in front of our house,” witness Gregg Coppen posted on Twitter. “That shark was huge. Like dinosaur huge.”

The shocking attack yesterday afternoon came after an increase in recent shark sightings and led to calls for an electronic warning system to alert swimmers.

Skinner, 37, a Zimbabwean who lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was standing chest-deep 100 metres from the shore and adjusting his goggles when the shark struck. It was seen approaching him twice before he disappeared in a flurry of thrashing. Cape Town’s disaster management services had issued a warning hours earlier that sharks had been spotted in the water, but the shark flag was not flying.

Witnesses described the terrifying scene. The shark was “longer than a minibus”, Coppen told the Cape Times newspaper.

He said: “It was this giant shadow heading to something colourful. Then it sort of came out the water and took this colourful lump and went off with it. You could see its whole jaw wrap around the thing which turned out to be a person.”

British visitor Phyllis McCartain told the same paper: “We saw the shark come back twice. It had the man’s body in its mouth, and his arm was in the air. Then the sea was full of blood.”

Kyle Johnston said: “We were swimming only about 15 metres away from the guy. We were at about chest depth and he was a little deeper. We looked at the walkway and saw people waving towels at us, then we looked further out to sea and saw what looked like blood, and a man’s leg come up.”

His friend Dane Leo added: “I was floating and I thought the people waving at us were joking, but then I looked back and saw a fin and blood.”

Kathy Geldenhuys was sitting on a nearby bench. She recalled: “My husband had just pointed out how far the man was swimming from the other people. He asked what would happen if he was attacked by a shark, because he was so far away. The words were hardly cold when the shark attacked that man. The shark attacked twice; it turned and attacked the man again; I just saw the blood on the water.”

Geldenhuys added: “Only when it was attacking did I see the fin, but then I could see the whole body under the water. It was a very big shark … It came from below and grabbed the man. Part of his body was gone.”

Skinner was reportedly on holiday in Cape Town for the month to attend the wedding of his partner’s daughter. His partner was at the beach with him.

Four rescue boats and a helicopter searched in vain for Skinner yesterday and resumed the hunt today. Ian Klopper, a spokesman for the National Sea Rescue Institute, said: “You can rule out any chance of finding him alive. Whether we find body parts, it’s very unlikely. We think the shark took everything.”

Shark scientist Alison Kock said it was probably a great white, the most commonly spotted shark in the area. “More than 70% of recorded great white attacks on humans result in just the shark biting and then leaving,” she said. “There is that 30% where the shark behaves like it did in this case, where it came back and killed the person.” Kock added there had been an increase in shark sightings in recent weeks.

After a deadly attack at Fish Hoek six years ago, shark spotters were posted on mountain slopes to look for sharks close to popular swimming spots. The spotters use radios to order that a loud alarm be sounded so people can move to safety.

This attack has reportedly prompted discussions about introducing an electronic detection system. Klopper said he was unaware of details, but past speculation has included sonar buoys able to identify sharks and transmit a warning signal. Critics say this would be impractical.

Beaches along Cape Town’s False Bay coastline were closed today, but several bathers ignored the warning flags and ventured into shallow waters. Lifeguards asked them to get out and the shark alarm sounded several times.

Barack Obama and his wife departed for the UK earlier this week, and, while the president is tending to serious business– the G20 economic summit in London and, from there, a week of meetings in five different countries–Michelle Obama is along for more jovial pursuits. She’s playing high-style dress up, sitting for tea, giving official gifts, and even meeting the Queen (see image, left).

So, what is she wearing? Thus far, no big surprises: She’s sticking to favorite designers Jason Wu, Thakoon, and J.Crew; her usual cool color palette; kitten heels; pearls and brooches, and as for beauty, minimal makeup and soft hair. She looks feminine, stylish, and appropriate, but also totally safe. The only outfit I found rather dull and matronly is the Isabel Toledo ensemble she chose to meet the Queen. There was something almost waitress-like about its dull black and white, the skirt is an awkward length, and although Mrs.O did cover her arms with an Azzedine Alaïa cardigan and the look is fitting for the event, I think she can do better. (See our slideshow below for more details on the first lady’s European wardrobe.)

In other Michelle Obama news, recent polls show her U.S. favorability ratings are through the roof (76 percent of us like her, up 28 points since last summer). And, during this, her maiden voyage overseas, the world has continued its obsession with every facet of how she looks. On the trip so far, large crowds have gawked and chanted her name wherever she goes, reporters have asked exhaustive questions about her beauty regimen, and the press have compared her ceaselessly to Jackie Kennedy.

Let’s face it, that’s a lot to live up to.

More tidbits: She’s getting better at giving. According to Time, the Obamas gave the Queen an iPod as a gift; it contained footage of her visit to the United States in 2007 (much better than the unusable DVD’s they presented Gordon Brown last month). The Queen, meanwhile, gifted the Obamas “a silver framed photo of herself and her husband, as she does all visiting dignitaries,” according to the same source.

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The British press in particular has followed Michelle Obama’s every move breathlessly, from her dresses to the “kitchen garden” behind the White House. One London paper tracked down her high-school prom date. Another asked plaintively, “Why Doesn’t the UK Have a Michelle Obama?”

So while the president has to juggle the politics, Michelle Obama’s job is in some ways more subtle and just as complicated. France’s first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was judged recently on her curtsy before the Queen, and back in the day, Jackie O.’s outfits and her command of the French language were closely scrutinized.
“Her every ensemble will be front page news and endlessly interpreted and decoded,” said Patricia McDonald, a London-based editor for the Michelle Obama fashion blog, www.mrs-o.org. “Will she break out a new wardrobe, or in deference to the economy, recycle her greatest hits?”

Michelle Obama’s official schedule says she will accompany the president to many of his events – they both will have tea with Queen Elizabeth II, for instance – but she’ll have some solo outings as well. She’ll visit an all-girls school in London where the population is mostly minority and the second language is English — an echo of her work in Washington, DC.

Sarah Brown, Britain’s first lady, will give Michelle Obama a tour of a health facility in London Wednesday and will take her and other spouses on a tour in London Thursday during the G-20 economic summit.
In France, Obama will join NATO spouses in visiting a hospital and a cathedral. And at all of these events, she’ll stand next to some of the world’s most high-profile political spouses— including Bruni-Sarkozy, the Italian-born ex-supermodel who is an admirer of the self-described girl from the Chicago’s South Side.
“She looks like she’s a great, strong, intelligent woman,” Bruni-Sarkozy said in one recent interview. “I must say that she doesn’t look like she [needs] advice … I think it would probably be better for me to be getting advice from her.”
Aides say Michelle Obama is aware of the moment and she has been reading up on her fellow members of the first ladies’ club ahead of the trip.

But her first stride across the global stage is about more than merely sightseeing with other first ladies. The first spouses also will have a chance to talk to each other about their various projects and how they see their roles in their respective countries — Bruni-Sarkozy, for instance, has an interest in shedding light on HIV/AIDS.
And for all the attention that will be paid to the arrival of America’s first black president, there is also a deep fascination with his wife – her humble roots, her Ivy League education, her groundbreaking role and her ability to juggle being first lady and raising two daughters out of the spotlight.

Some Europeans even seem puzzled by the complex mix of expectations placed on Michelle Obama in America. While her sleeveless-in-winter look caused a bit of a stir here—seen as immodest by some and fashion forward by others—across the pond, many observers just didn’t understand the fuss.
“In the U.S., Michelle is the locus for a nation’s attitudes about femininity, motherhood, feminism and sexuality,” McDonald said. “In Europe, she carries less symbolic significance. Her willingness to experiment are all traits European fashionistas admire — and if the occasional misstep is the result of taking a few risks, c’est la vie.”
Michelle Obama’s aides also insist that she is there in a support role to her husband. Yet if history is any guide, first ladies can overshadow their spouses, and the comparisons to Jacqueline Kennedy’s 1961 trip to Paris seem sure to abound, much like some are fond of comparing Michelle O. to Jackie O.

Kennedy had a few built-in advantages, of course – she charmed Charles de Gaulle with her style and impeccable French, and her French maiden name and schooling at the Sorbonne didn’t hurt—but her turn in Paris proved that little things matter.
Notably, Bruni-Sarkozy, who had been fodder for British tabs for her racy, rock-and-roll past, was able to sway public opinion in her simple visit with the Queen.
“She was so elegant in her Chanel and the way she did her curtsy in front of the Queen, she was elegant,” Renaud Girard, a foreign editor with Le Figaro said. “She was so modest. The British public
loved it. They became mad with her and she became instantly a new Jackie.”
The comparisons are inevitable, as are the questions – will Obama stick with American designs, or go international? What does one wear to have tea with the Queen? And what will she wear to stand next to Bruni-Sarkozy, dubbed the “Chanel gazelle?”
Brown, Britain’s first lady, was quite candid after her meeting with Bruni-Sarkozy that it’s all a bit intimidating.
“Well, I didn’t stand a chance, did I?” Brown confessed in one interview. “I mean, I was standing next to a supermodel. I thought that whatever I wore didn’t matter. With all due respect to myself, I knew that day I couldn’t win.”
But at least some in France think their First Family could take a few lessons from Michelle Obama.
“She has shown that she has a good sense of communication and PR, like being photographed at a charity place,” said Marie Colmant, a French television commentator. “When she was doing that, our French first lady and the president were in Mexico at a luxury villa. She has a good perception of the temperature of the American people. She gets it.”

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Topolanek’s coalition, comprising his right-wing Civic Democrats (ODS), the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and the Greens, narrowly lost a no-confidence vote in parliament late Tuesday. Four rebel MPs voted with the opposition Social Democrats and Communists. Topolanek will officially resign to President Vaclav Klaus, his political rival, after a cabinet meeting on Thursday, the prime minister’s spokesman said. But it was not known whether immediate elections would be called in a bid to end uncertainty which leaves fallout across Europe and adds to instability in the region after Hungary’s prime minister announced last Saturday that he would resign.

“We have a case where the Social Democrats are obstructing the Czech Republic. It’s a problem seen many times in the course of this presidency. But don’t be concerned, the situation will have no impact on the (EU) presidency,” Topolanek told the European parliament in Strasbourg. He immediately left for Prague, leaving behind Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra, who admitted in a speech that the crisis “complicates” ratification of the EU’s reforming Lisbon Treaty. European governments fear that snap elections may only harden Czech attitudes against to the treaty.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he was “worried” by the collapse of the Topolanek government which he said had “damaged” the EU presidency. “What has happened in Czech Republic again hurts any certainty that we will get the Lisbon treaty,” Kouchner added in Paris. Ireland and the Czech Republic are the final two countries still to ratify the Lisbon Treaty which aims to reform EU institutions. The Czech lower house has ratified the treaty, but there is uncertainty over a Senate vote due next month. “It is not going to be easy,” said Vondra.

Ireland’s voters rejected the treaty in a referendum but will be asked to vote again this year. The Czech newspaper Lidovne Noviny said “the failure of the Libson Treaty is very likely” after the government collapse. The Czech constitution is vague on the political options and observers are divided on whether Topolanek can remain in power until the end of the EU presidency on June 30. All agree however that the real winner is the eurosceptic president, Klaus, who will have the final say on who forms the next government.

“He can do what he wants, the constitution does not tie his hands,” said poltical analyst Bohumil Dolezal of Charles University. “We all know his positions on Europe,” Kouchner said of Klaus. Klaus himself played down the event. “The fall of the government is not something unknown or catastrophic in a constitutional system that works,” he said.  The shock collapse also cast doubt over the anti-missile shield accord with the United States.  Faced with growing public hostility, the Czech-US accord was recently withdrawn from a parliamentary vote over government fears of a defeat.

The US administration’s fresh policy of dialogue with Russia and Iran has also fuelled doubts over the future of the antimissile programme.