Repatriation

Ninety-six members of Australia's 226-member Parliament signed a letter to Congress appealing for help repatriating the lone Australian terrorism suspect being held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials said. The letter, faxed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), asks Congress to ensure that David Hicks is not tried by a military commission.

By foot, bus and bicycle, thousands of fervent followers of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto converged Wednesday, preparing to welcome her home today from eight years of self-imposed exile. Bhutto's expected return to this sprawling, chaotic port city that is her birthplace adds a complex new dimension to President Pervez Musharraf's months-long struggle to retain power.

What had been a joyous homecoming Thursday for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto turned to a scene of blood and chaos hours later as a pair of blasts ripped through the crowd surrounding her convoy, killing more than 125 people and injuring at least 250, according to police and hospital officials. Bhutto was unhurt, her party said.

With violence down in Iraq, the country's embassy in Damascus is starting to organize free trips home for Iraqis who fled the conflict and now want to return, an Iraqi diplomat said Wednesday. Free convoys and even airplane tickets are part of a new push by the Baghdad government to reach out to Iraqi refugees in Syria, said Adnan Shourifi, commercial secretary at the Iraqi Embassy.

A turning point in the Bush administration's counter-terrorism strategy of indefinite confinement at the U.S. detention center here came on a balmy day in February, when two Afghans and three Tajiks were ferried across the bay, shackled and blindfolded, for their flights home. The men's departure reduced the detainee population to 385 -- meaning that of the 777 men brought here over six years as suspected security threats, more prisoners had left than remained.

A short woman with a worried look on her face walks down a dirt road toward her home, ignoring the throng of U.S. soldiers and fancily dressed dignitaries clogging the road. They are here to trumpet the revival of this town northwest of Baghdad, which is witnessing the return of thousands of residents, among an estimated 4.2 million Iraqis who have fled sectarian violence in recent years. Ahlam Kareem is here to see what remains of her home, which she last saw 14 months ago.

Within sight of the Florida Keys, the Cubans' homemade boat had sprung a bad leak and was in danger of sinking. So its 15 passengers, who risked their lives crossing the Florida Straits, could make it no farther than an old and abandoned bridge. Had they reached the United States? The refugees, who clustered on the bridge's concrete pilings between Marathon and Little Duck Key early on the morning of Jan. 5, may have believed so.

A Cuban activist, Ramon Saul Sanchez, ended an 11-day hunger strike in Miami after White House officials agreed to listen to concerns about the repatriation of Cubans, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. Sanchez had been protesting the treatment of 15 Cubans who made it to an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys but were denied entry into the U.S.

The father and daughter get lost a lot. He can't remember the sleepy streets of this tiny island nation in the Persian Gulf, not after so many years. As for her, she never knew them. They sit side by side in the darkness of their little Honda, the brake lights of passing cars washing their faces in red. Their eyes quiver over gates and signposts. They are looking for a landmark. "Isn't it back the other way?" Hussain Ali asks his daughter. "I think ...

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that 15 Cubans who landed at the old Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys in January should have been allowed to remain in the United States. In a strongly worded order, District Judge Federico Moreno called the Bush administration's decision to repatriate the Cubans unreasonable and demanded that the Department of Homeland Security make its best efforts to bring the Cubans back to the United States for immigration proceedings. Mercedes Hernandez, a U.S.