Iraq

The cry went up loud and clear from the tens of thousands of people crammed together at the campaign rally. "Change! Change!" the crowd chanted. "With our hearts we vote for change!" Indeed, change has in many ways already come to Iraq's normally placid semiautonomous region of Kurdistan, the latest scene of a grass-roots movement demanding new leadership and political reforms.

The signs -- mostly hand-drawn, all heartfelt -- told a story of stress and joy as 300 Marines and sailors returned Sunday to their base at Camp Pendleton after a year in Iraq. "Welcome Home From Iraq, Half Of My Heart Has Returned." "Welcome home Daddy! Can I have a puppy?" "Kayla Loves Riley." "Babe, 386 Days of Deployment Over!" Along with the signs came stories of how families coped with having a loved one in a war zone.

Britain's first soldier to plead guilty to a war crime under international law was sentenced to a year in prison and dismissed from the army in connection with an Iraqi's death. Cpl. Donald Payne pleaded guilty to inhumanely treating Iraqi civilians in the southern city of Basra in 2003. He had been cleared of manslaughter charges and perverting justice. Baha Musa was among nine Iraqis taken into custody as alleged insurgents. A pathologist said he died from asphyxia caused by a stress position.

Anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr called Wednesday for "revenge operations" against American forces to protest Israel's Gaza Strip offensive. The statement issued by the Shiite Muslim cleric's office in Najaf also urged that Palestinian flags be raised on mosques, churches and other buildings in Iraq and that all countries shut down Israel's embassies. U.S.

Provincial council candidate Fareeq Khazaali moves through the crowds of shoppers on Mutanabi Street with the confidence and ease of a veteran politician, shaking hands and smiling, as his children, wearing homemade campaign T-shirts, distribute leaflets. When he's not pressing the flesh, he's sending frequent text messages ("Greetings. Please elect your candidate Fareeq Khazaali."

The president of Iraq's Kurdish region charged Saturday that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki was drifting toward authoritarian rule, in the latest sign of the dangerous rift that has emerged between the Iraqi leader and his partners in the country's ruling coalition. "One gets lost in absolute authority," said Massoud Barzani, the leader of the semi- autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north. "You become too authoritarian, you lose yourself."

Vice President-elect Joe Biden conferred with Iraqi leaders here Monday as police reported four bombings that killed 10 people. Biden, a frequent visitor to Iraq as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met with President Jalal Talabani, Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi and Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih. Abdul Mehdi said they discussed implementation of a security agreement that took effect Jan. 1. The accord sets a three-year time frame for full withdrawal of American forces.

In the darkened living room of a house surrounded by concrete barriers, Safaa Mamouri wipes his eyes and reproaches himself for how little he resembles his dead brother, a man even his enemies admired. "Qais was fearless. I'm not like him," he says. "From the first threat, I quit." Maj. Gen. Qais Hamza Mamouri presided over security here in Babil province at a dangerous time, when the country's sectarian war raged.