Translated material
Libyan barter
Yesterday, French First Lady Cecilia Sarkozy, together with EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, negotiated in Tripoli for the release of Bulgarian doctors, whom a Libyan court accused of deliberately infecting children with HIV in a hospital in Benghazi. In 2004, Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were sentenced to death, but last week, after more than $500 million in compensation was paid to the families of the injured children, the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Cecilia Sarkozy arrived in Libya as a private citizen acting as a mediator out of sympathy for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who have been behind bars for eight years. Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to modernize the hospital in Benghazi for agreeing to release doctors to Bulgaria. Victor VOLODIN
Saakashvili is pulling the military's tongue
The average salary of officers in the 27,000-strong Georgian armed forces from 2008 will be 1,000 lari (about $600), and the number of reservists will increase from 100 to 200 thousand. President Mikheil Saakashvili announced this yesterday at the Ministry of Defense, calling the priority the task of building “effective army." “Martial arts are in the blood of Georgians,” he said, noting military leaders of Georgian origin who served in the armies of Persia, the Ottoman Empire, Poland, Tsarist Russia, the Georgian Democratic Republic (1918-1921), the USSR and the United States. At the meeting with the military, the president appeared without a jacket and tie, and his vest was visible from under his shirt. Mikheil Saakashvili recalled how he himself served in the Soviet border troops. The president said that the Georgian army must reach a qualitatively new level, and promised the military to purchase modern equipment and encourage manifestations of “freedom of personality and thought.” This includes knowledge of foreign languages - each officer who speaks it will receive an additional 100 to 150 lari. Georgia is preparing its armed forces to join NATO, expecting to receive an invitation from the alliance in two years. Mikhail VIGNANSKY, Tbilisi
Taliban vow to execute South Koreans
Last night, the Afghan Taliban extended the ultimatum against the 23 South Korean hostages they had captured by a day. They were kidnapped on Thursday in Ghazni province, 100 km south of Kabul. The hostages were South Korean evangelical Christians (among them 18 women), who arrived on a humanitarian mission. Yesterday, Seoul banned its citizens from traveling to Afghanistan. Now the South Korean delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Cho Jun-pyo is engaged in the release of hostages in Afghanistan.
The Taliban are threatening to execute the hostages, demanding the withdrawal of 200 South Korean troops from the country and the release of a group of their comrades from prison. On Saturday, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun announced that the military would be withdrawn by the end of the year. But the Taliban are still unhappy - Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Afghanistan Abdul Khalid said yesterday that the exchange of arrested Taliban "contradicts the cause of ensuring national security and the interests of the country." However, in March, President Hamid Karzai set a precedent by exchanging five Taliban prisoners for an Italian hostage. Katerina LABETSKAYA