| Elections in Afghanistan will be held later
Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced yesterday that the first general elections since the fall of the Taliban regime will be postponed to September. According to the agreement signed in Bonn in 2001, they were supposed to take place in June of this year. The new Afghan constitution specifically states that "every effort must be made to conduct voting for the presidential and parliamentary elections simultaneously." Lately, Karzai has been hinting that it would be better to hold presidential elections first. But, judging by the bloody clashes on March 21 between supporters of Herat Governor Ismail Khan and government fighters, not only Karzai, but also other former leaders of the victorious Northern Alliance may take advantage of separate presidential elections. Therefore, on the eve of the third UN International Conference on Afghanistan, which will be held in Berlin on March 31 - April 1, the President considered it best to once again confirm the simultaneity of the elections. This is a guarantee of receiving about $27 billion that Afghanistan needs in the next seven years to restore its war-ravaged economy. "TIME FOR NEWS"
Lawyer Verges undertook to defend Saddam
French lawyer Jacques Vergès yesterday demanded a meeting with his new client, ex-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. According to the lawyer, Hussein has been treated “like a bear at a fair” since his arrest. Vergès noted that his client cannot be accused of “possessing weapons of mass destruction without mentioning that they were sold to him by the Americans,” an apparent reference to current Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, who visited Baghdad in 1984 as an emissary of President Ronald Reagan. hired by Hussein's nephew Ali Barzan Tikriti, is already defending former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Previously, the lawyer defended Algerian separatists, the famous terrorist Carlos "The Jackal", Nazi criminal Klaus Barbier and ex-President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic, according to the 79-year-old. Verges, he will worthily end his more than 50-year career with the work of Saddam Hussein. "TIME OF NEWS"
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