On Saturday morning, the 76-year-old woman boarded a bus convoy organized by an American Jewish agency evacuating about 300 people from the city's brutal 22-month siege.

After two days waiting in the chilly weather for a bus convoy that never departed, nearly 1,000 embittered Serbs tramped home with their bags after dusk.

Bill, Al, Tipper and I spent hours talking, eating, waving out the window and stopping the bus convoy to conduct impromptu rallies.

Washington wants the bus convoys, with passengers screened at each end by Israeli officials, to roll five days a week by July 1.

Rumors circulated through Grozny that the Russian government was organizing a bus convoy to take civilians out of the city, but the buses never appeared.

But the deadline for the bus convoy has come and gone.

The agreement also called for bus convoys to shuttle Palestinians between Gaza and the West Bank beginning Dec. 15.

Most finance ministers, traveling in police-escorted bus convoys, had little trouble winding their way through barricades to the fund's headquarters.

Local churches arranged bus convoys from all over the country, but most riders had to pay.

The bus convoy moved slowly past the crowd and down the six-lane highway that leads to Baghdad.