Lithuania's coalition government faced collapse on Tuesday as the country holds sensitive talks with former Russian oil giant YUKOS and seeks to convince the European Union it is fit to adopt the euro, Reuters reported. The crisis was sparked after the parliament speaker, whose party is one of the four coalition partners, lost a vote of no confidence and was unseated. He then led his party out of the coalition, formed after a 2004 election. The decision leaves the three remaining parties without a clear majority in the 141-seat parliament. "This coalition must naturally fall," said Viktor Uspaskich, a Russian-born food company millionaire nicknamed the "Gherkin king", who leads the biggest party in the government, the Labour Party. Uspaskich told Lithuanian radio after the vote against speaker Arturas Paulauskas, whose party was the smallest in the coalition, that he was open for fresh government talks with Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas. --More 23 46 Local Time 20 46 GMT
