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Australia Offers to Pay Afghan Detainees to Go Home VOA News 31 Jan 2002 16:08 UTC 
Australia's government is offering to pay detained Afghan asylum-seekers if they will go home.
Prime Minister John Howard says he made the offer Wednesday at a meeting in New York with Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai. Mr. Howard says the interim Afghan leader promised to send a delegation to Australia in the next couple of weeks to talk about the issue.
The Australian prime minister says about 1,100 Afghans held in Australia or nearby Pacific nations would be eligible for the resettlement aid. He did not say how much it would be.
Earlier Wednesday, Afghan detainees at a remote camp in southern Australia ended their two-week hunger strike, after getting a commitment from the government that their asylum claims will be processed. More than 240 asylum-seekers at the Woomera camp had been refusing food to protest conditions and long delays in processing their asylum applications.
Meanwhile, protests continue against Australia's policy of detaining illegal immigrants. In the country's largest city, Sydney, up to 400 people gathered outside the town hall Thursday to urge that the government shut down the Woomera camp and others like it.
Some information for this report provided by AP and Reuters.
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