WORLD
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — From a posh hotel room, Haiti's former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier greeted old friends and allies while providing no public insight into why he suddenly returned to the country he fled amid a popular rebellion a generation ago.
The lack of information left Haitians to speculate on what the appearance of the exiled former president-for-life could mean for the country, its efforts to build out of poverty — and what other political surprises might be coming amid an increasingly problematic electoral crisis.
The immediate speculation was on whether the ex-dictator's return is a mere precursor to a potentially more epochal event: a return by the man who helped lead the movement to topple him, ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who has been in South African exile since 2004.
Haitian radio repeated rumors throughout the day that Aristide was headed for Panama or Cuba, en route to Port-au-Prince.
BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of police recruits today, killing at least 45 people and undercutting Iraqi security efforts as the nation struggles to show it can protect itself without foreign help.The death toll was still rising more than three hours after police said the bomber joined a crowd of more than 100 recruits and detonated his explosives-packed vest outside the police station in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, some 80 miles north of Baghdad.The attack starkly displayed the Iraqi forces' failure to plug even the most obvious holes in their security as the U.S. military prepares to withdraw from Iraq at the year's end.
