Saluting stiffly, his coat jacket whipped by a blustery wind, the commander-in-chief watched as the coffin was borne past him by six army soldiers in combat fatigues. Or, to put it another way, an American President was spending a night without sleep, to experience the ultimate human cost of a war that, though he might not wish it, is now his responsibility.

As Wednesday became Thursday, Barack Obama went where, in the memory of historians, none of his recent predecessors had been: to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the place where American soldiers killed in foreign wars are brought on their final return home. That night there were 18, all from Afghanistan.

Michael Ashcroft, the Conservative peer who is funding a key part of David Cameron’s election campaign, is caught in the middle of a legal and political storm in the Central American haven of Belize, where many of his businesses are based.

In an interview with The Independent the country’s Prime Minister, Dean Barrow, has accused the billionaire Tory party deputy chairman of operating a monopoly and of trying to obscure his interests through a byzantine web of subsidiaries and trusts. Lord Ashcroft has rejected the claims, which he says are politically motivated. But Mr Barrow has vowed to pursue the peer and unpick a series of commercial deals that he claims he has used to “soak” the country in the manner of a colonial overlord.

Most people who contract a serious illness take to their beds and try to sleep it off – but not Silvio Berlusconi.

The Italian Prime Minister, suffering from a case of scarlet fever, was so incensed by a political talk show earlier this week that he shrugged off his condition to phone in and register his disgust.

The item that roused the premier’s ire was a discussion of his legal troubles on the Ballarò talk show on Tuesday night. Berlusconi, whose relations with the Italian media have long been bombastic, made the surprise call to let rip at the “communist judges” who had hours earlier upheld a conviction against British lawyer David Mills for accepting a $600,000 (£365,000) bribe to lie in court on his behalf.

Former French President Jacques Chirac has been ordered to stand trial in an alleged corruption scandal dating back to his tenure as Paris mayor, a judicial official said today.

A magistrate has ordered Chirac to stand trial on charges of “embezzlement” and “breach of trust,” the official said on condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

The investigating magistrate, Xaviere Simeoni, has been probing whether people in Chirac’s circle were given sham jobs as advisers and paid by Paris City Hall, even though they weren’t working for it.

Tony Blair’s prospects of becoming the first EU President were fading last night despite a last-minute plea from Gordon Brown to Europe’s leaders to “get real” and back his predecessor for the post.

A succession of countries cast doubt on Mr Blair’s chances of winning enough support to be nominated as the first President of the European Council as a two-day EU summit opened in Brussels.

Gordon Brown declared a “breakthrough” in climate change talks today as EU leaders named the price of tackling carbon emissions.

Subject to formal endorsement in summit conclusions being prepared in Brussels, Europe has agreed to make a conditional offer to the rest of the world at global environment negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

The move is a victory for the Prime Minister, who yesterday warned the summit that failure to include figures would risk the breakdown of the UN talks.