Czech Republic

10/26/09 - Adam Ondra, the 16-year-old from the Czech Republic, has completed his hardest route yet, and it was a first ascent: Marina Superstar (9a+/...

— Switzerland and Slovakia earned Europe's final two automatic berths for next year's World Cup on Wednesday night, while Argentina tried to beat out Uruguay and Ecuador for South America's last certain spot in the 32-nation field.

Costa Rica played at the United States, which clinched its sixth straight berth last weekend, and the Ticos hoped to stay ahead of Honduras and gain the final automatic place from North and Central America and the Caribbean.

Portugal, Greece, Slovenia and Ukraine finished second in their groups and joined Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, Ireland and Russia in the European playoffs. They will be drawn into four pairs on Monday, and the winners of home-and-home, total-goals matches on Nov. 14 and 18 will qualify for next year's 32-nation field.

By the end of Wednesday, 23 of the 32 nations will have been determined for next year's tournament in South Africa.

In addition to the U.S., Mexico had ensured a berth in CONCACAF, while Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Serbia and Spain had clinched automatic berths in Europe. Brazil, Chile and Paraguay had earned berths from South America, and Australia, Japan, North Korea and South Korea won Asia's spots. Ghana and Ivory Coast joined host South Africa, which qualified automatically as host.

The Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, raised a new obstacle to ratifying the Lisbon Treaty yesterday, telling Sweden, which holds the EU presid...

WASHINGTON — Ever since President Ronald Reagan proposed building a ballistic missile shield in 1983 to prevent a doomsday scenario, the idea has been dogged by an unanswered question: Will it work?

The prime target during the Reagan era was Russian missiles. A scaled-down defensive system recently proposed by the Obama administration would aim to shoot down warheads from Iran, which has heightened concerns by building a clandestine uranium enrichment plant and test firing missiles this week with a range of up to 1,200 miles.

But even as the U.S. prepares to meet on Thursday with Iranian officials in Geneva over the regime's nuclear ambitions, the administration's reliance on missile defense to guard against the unthinkable still amounts to a gamble.

Components of the latest system have shone in controlled test environments, but the new plan relies heavily on radars and ship-based interceptors that haven't endured real battle conditions.

"We're not building all these missile defense systems because we're worried about Iran firing a rocket with TNT on it," said Philip Coyle, the Pentagon's chief of weapons testing from 1994 to 2001. "We're worried about nuclear weapons, and nobody knows whether missile defenses can work with nuclear weapons going off."

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev lauded on Wednesday the Obama administration's decision to scrap plans for an Eastern Europe-based missile shield, a major irritant in relations with Moscow.

"We view this decision as a constructive step in the right direction that deserve a positive response from the international community," Medvedev said, referring to Washington's decision last week to shelve a Bush-era plan for an Eastern European missile defense shield.

President Barack Obama attributed his decision to abandon the plan to deploy U.S. radars and strategic missile interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland, to a changed perception of the threat posed by Iran.

He said the U.S. government now considered that short- and medium-range missiles from Iran now pose a greater near-term threat than the intercontinental ballistic missiles the Bush plan addressed. A proposed new missile-defense plan would rely on a network of sensors and interceptor missiles based at sea, on land and in the air as a bulwark against any potential Iranian attack.

The original missile defense plan was one of the thorniest issues in U.S.-Russian relations. Obama has sought to improve ties with the Kremlin, declaring he wanted to "reset" relations with the former Cold War rival.

The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, the Wall Street Journal repo...

Vice President Joe Biden is visiting Georgia and Ukraine starting Monday, meeting leaders eager for further reassurance that Washington still supports their joining NATO and that its effort to warm relations with Russia won't come at their expense.

The Kremlin, having seen several former communist countries of Eastern Europe enter the Western alliance, strongly opposes more of its own former republics joining. And although the Obama administration has insisted nothing has changed regarding the Georgian and Ukrainian candidacies, there's a widespread perception in the former Soviet bloc that the U.S. has opted to move more slowly.

On Thursday, an open letter whose signatories included such icons of the battle against Soviet domination as Poland's Lech Walesa and the Czech Republic's Vaclav Havel urged the Obama administration not to sacrifice Russia's smaller neighbors for better relations with Moscow.

Ukraine and Georgia have drawn some comfort from Obama's explicit warning to Russia, during this month's Moscow summit, to respect its neighbors' borders. Biden's visit comes 11 months after Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war over two breakaway Georgian regions.

"This visit will be aimed at cooling the hotheads in Moscow and starting more active work on de-occupying Georgian territory," said Temuri Yakobashvili, the Georgian government minister in charge of efforts to recover South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia has recognized as independent despite international protest.