TIRANA (AP) - A security group yesterday urged Albania to ensure that a rerun of local elections in parts of the capital are conducted in a fair manner. Any problems arising in the December 28 election in 118 of Tirana’s 346 polling stations would negatively affect the country’s efforts to eventually join the European Union and NATO, said Robert Barry, an official with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The repeat poll was called after an election commission found irregularities in the initial election, which was held on October 12. “The chapter of the October elections should be brought to an end,” Barry said at a news conference.

THE HAGUE (AFP) - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic remains stubborn and petulant in the face of charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, former NATO commander Wesley Clark said after testifying to a UN court yesterday. “I saw no change in his demeanor, no change in his stubborness, no change in his petulance... it was very familiar,” said Clark, who spent many hours negotiating with Milosevic in 1999 before the Western alliance launched a massive bombing campaign to force the Yugoslav army out of Kosovo.

The OSCE urged Croatia’s incoming nationalist government yesterday to step up efforts to encourage the return of ethnic Serbs who fled during the war. “We are encouraged by comments that have been made by prime minister-designate (Ivo Sanader) on refugee return and we hope that his statement will be followed by action,” Peter Semneby, the head of the pan-European security body’s mission to Croatia, told journalists. (AFP)

A lawyer from western Turkey has applied to the Iraqi Embassy here to be allowed to defend former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein when he goes to trial, the Anatolia news agency reported. In his petition, Atinc Gultekin, from the Aegean port city of Izmir, accused the United States of aiming to turn Saddam’s trial into a “show of power.” “The leading actor, Saddam Hussein, should be turned over to Iraqi courts immediately and be tried in Iraq,” said Gultekin. (AFP)