Karzai agrees to Nov. 7 runoff in Afghanistan

Under heavy international pressure, President Hamid Karzai conceded Tuesday that he fell short of a first-round victory in the nation's disputed presidential election, and agreed to hold a runoff election with his top challenger on Nov. 7. Flanked at a news conference in Kabul by Senator John Kerry, the head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Kai Eide, the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Karzai said he would accept the findings of an international audit that stripped him of nearly one third of his votes in the first round, leaving him below the 50 percent threshold that would have allowed him to avoid a runoff and declare victory over his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah.