They will cast ballots on whether to declare independence at polling stations sprinkled across the vast, flat plains of Southern Sudan, an East African landscape long riven by chaos.

War and famine have ravaged generations in the south for as long as anyone can remember. Fighting forced more people from their homes than in any other nation on earth. Hope remained elusive.

Yet the vote has given many southerners the rare sense of exhilaration that is borne of new beginnings.

From January 9 to January 15, the black Christians and animists in the autonomous region of Southern Sudan will vote on whether to declare independence from a northern government dominated by Arab Muslims. The two sides fought a war that killed 2 million people from 1983 to 2005, when a peace treaty set the stage for the upcoming vote.

Nearly 4 million have registered to cast ballots. Few doubt the outcome.

“I have not encountered a single Southern Sudanese who is interested in voting for unity. I would say at least 98 percent of them will vote for separation,” says Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, a former foot soldier in the southern rebel force who now leads the Southern Sudan’s mission in the United States. “This is what we have been fighting for for more than 50 years.”

Jeremiah Awin says he spent more than 10 years fighting with southern rebels. He has no desire to pick up a gun again.

“Now is the time for peace,” he says in the bustling southern capital, Juba. “I will vote safely for separation.”

Daniel Akot, another southerner in Juba, agrees. “I need separation to be peaceful because I have grown up in the war, and I don’t want my children to grow up in the war,” he says.

Voters will receive a ballot with two pictures: One hand signifies independence; two hands, a unified Sudan.

Most everyone agrees that the majority of southerners will choose independence, but there is less certainty about what will happen after the votes are tallied.

The new nation would face daunting obstacles, from a desperate need for development to the lack of a robust educated class to control the new levers of power.

A flood of refugees, eagerly returning to an independent homeland, could complicate matters in a place that already lacks enough schools and clinics and has few paved roads.

Long-standing grievances among rival southern groups could erupt in violence — several hundred southerners already have been killed in such fighting in the last year or two. Or the north could decline to accept the results or stir tensions by trying to pit one southern faction against another.

The concerns run so deep that last February Dennis Blair, then the director of national intelligence, warned the U.S. Congress of possible genocide.

“A number of countries in Africa and Asia are at significant risk for a new outbreak of mass killing” in the next five years, he said. “Among these countries, a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in Southern Sudan.”

Looming over concerns about the future is a suspicion that many in the south harbor of Sudan’s rulers in the north.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, wanted for war crimes after mass killings and rape in the country’s western Darfur region, says that a southern vote for independence would be like “cutting off a part of the nation’s body but not the end of the world.”

“We are a civilized people,” he said this week in a rare visit to Juba. “Regardless of how painful the results are, we will greet the result with forgiveness, and patience, and acceptance, and an open heart, God willing.”

Al-Bashir also has said that his government will not hesitate to accept the results “because peace is our ultimate goal in our relationship with our southern brothers, even if they choose a path other than unity.”

Yet many worry that the northern-based government will interfere with the referendum, decline to recognize its outcome or stoke tensions between rival southern factions.

The possibilities concern Abdullahi An-Na’im, a native of northern Sudan who teaches law at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He is a former executive director of Human Rights Watch for Africa and an expert on Islamic law, or sharia. Authorities in Sudan imprisoned him in the 1980s for opposing the imposition of Islamic law in all of Sudan.

He looks to the past for clues to the future.

“The history of Sudan is such that I cannot expect the northern government to have the grace and humanity to let the south go peacefully,” he says.

Kyron Horman's stepmother said she last saw him walking in the hallway of his elementary school on June 4.

The parents of a missing Oregon boy have urged the public to continue helping authorities find their son.

“Please search your properties, your cars, your outbuildings, your sheds,” the immediate family of Kyron Horman said in a statement Wednesday that was read by Captain Mike Shults of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. “Also check with your neighbors and friends who may be on vacation or may need assistance to search their property.

“There are a lot of resources out there to help. Please don’t stop.

“Kyron’s family would like to thank everyone for their support and interest in finding their son,” the statement added. “The outpouring of support and continued effort strengthens their hope.”

The 7-year-old Portland child was reported missing by his stepmother last Friday after he did not return home from school, authorities said.

According to investigators, Kyron’s stepmother said she last saw him Friday morning walking down a hallway towards his second-grade classroom at Skyline Elementary School.

Police have described the incident as an “isolated case” and have no evidence suggesting a crime was committed. “We’re not prepared to call it a criminal investigation at this point,” Captain Jason Gates of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office told reporters Tuesday, “But we are certainly prepared to call it a missing endangered child investigation.”

Shults, who has been serving as a liaison with Kyron’s parents said the family’s “objective is to keep the focus on Kyron and not about anything else.”

A statement by Kristina Porter, Kyron’s teacher, was read at Wednesday’s briefing by Ben Keefer, the principal of Skyline Elementary School.

“The students in Kyron’s class miss him terribly, and we are all wishing for his safe return,” said Porter. “It has been gratifying to see how caring and supportive the children have been with each other throughout this ordeal.”

At Wednesday’s briefing, Gates said a statewide search and rescue plan has been activated in connection with the case. Several hundred search and rescue members and teams from across the state will help in the efforts to locate the child.

Authorities continue to pursue hundreds of tips, most of them from Oregon and Washington.

“We don’t have enough information to satisfy the criteria to complete an Amber Alert or issue an Amber Alert,” Gates explained. “Amber Alerts are designed to find children very quickly when we have specific information.”

Anyone with information on Kyron Horman’s whereabouts is asked to call the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office at 503-261-2847

For those of you who fall into this category and fear being caught short during a water-cooler moment at the office, CNN has put together a bluffer’s guide to the round-ball game and the World Cup.

Phrases to impress your boss

“The referee’s blind!”
An excellent phrase to insert when those around you lament a goal that “never was,” a clear handball or a murderous foul not spotted by the official.

“There’s a case for video technology”
Following your previous observation about the referee’s eyesight, join the calls for video replays to help him make the right decision.

“He’s got two left feet”
As frustration grows with one hapless player in particular, make sure you aren’t left out.

“He missed a sitter!”
When a player misses an easy chance to score.

“It was a blatant dive!”
When a player tumbles to the ground rolling around in apparent agony even though there was no contact from an opposing player.

“Germany are always so efficient”
No fuss, no frills but a victory nevertheless — only to be used if Germany wins a match.

“Can England repeat 1966?”
Use if your boss is an England fan. It’s the only time England ever won the World Cup and the fans there never let you forget it.

Important rules to know

1. Offside
The rule most likely to infuriate players, managers and fans alike. A player is deemed to be in an offside position when he is in his opponents’ half of the pitch and further forward than the last opposition player at the moment a teammate attempts to play a pass to him. Sounds simple, right? When this happens, the opposition wins possession of the ball. All straightforward until your team is denied what looks to be goal by a poor decision by the assistant referee on the touchline. Stand by for plenty of offside flash points and some colorful language.

2. Free-kicks
When a player is penalized for committing a foul, handball or offside, a “free and unchallenged” kick of the ball is awarded to the opposition. Try not to foul a player near your goal because a sharp-shooter like Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo will send the ball crashing into the top corner of the net with deadly precision.

3. Penalties
Another type of free-kick awarded when a player is fouled inside the 18-yard area around an opponent’s goal. The fouled player, or teammate of that player, is then allowed to take a shot from a white spot 12 yards (around 11 meters) from the goal. Prepare yourself for contrasting views from football fans, often less than complimentary about the referee, when a penalty is awarded. This is also the way to decided drawn matches in the later stages of the tournament when you can also liberally use the phrase “nail biting”.

3. Red and yellow cards
Yellow cards are shown to a player by the referee after a particularly nasty foul or if they question his decision in a less than polite manner. A second offense by that player usually leads to a second yellow card, which automatically becomes red and means an “early bath”. Straight red cards mean a player has been particularly naughty and can expect a day off when the next match comes around.

Football terms to memorize

1. Square ball
Refers not to another controversial ball design, but rather a simple pass of the ball sideways to a teammate.

2. Through-ball
When a player passes the ball forward past two or more defenders to a teammate, usually a striker, who is in position to run through on goal to score.

3. Cross
Nothing religious, it refers to the delivery of the ball, either in the air, or along the ground, from either side of the pitch towards the opponent’s goal for a teammate.

4. Dribble
Funnily enough this is a skilful technique where a player runs past opponents with the ball apparently glued to his feet. Watch Argentina star Lionel Messi for a master class.

5. Header
As you would expect. For the best players, the head is as good as their feet. The hardest part of the skull is the forehead so use that for maximum power.

6. Volley
Kicking the ball when it’s reached you in the air, like in tennis. This is a technique which can lead to spectacular goals or derisive cheers from fans if the ball ends up in “row Z” of the stand.

7. Tackle
Taking the ball off an opponent, robbing him of the ball and often leaving him on his backside.

8. Foul
A tackle where you usually hack away at the opponent’s feet first before running off the with ball. Not allowed.

9. Professional foul
A pre-meditated foul, usually a last-ditch desperate act to stop an almost certain goal. The methods have become sophisticated though so it often takes a sharp-eyed referee to make the right call. A professional foul will often lead to a red card (see above).

10. Man-marking
Nothing like as serious as it sounds. Man-marking is when a player shadows an opponent to crowd him out and give him no space to run with the ball or pass it. Some players will hold or grab any part of their opponent’s anatomy to hinder their progress.

TV commentator’s jargon

1. Group of death
With each of the 32 teams split into eight mini-leagues, the competition to qualify for the knockout stages is fierce. Some groups are so tough that a fancied team is bound to fail. For example, five-time winners Brazil, the elegant Portuguese and a talented Ivory Coast side are all in one group.

2. Brazilian flair
Football may have started in England, but it was made sexy by Brazil. Since the days of the great Pele, Brazil’s yellow-shirted national team has thrilled fans the world over with the swagger and individual brilliance of players that often grew up playing on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro.

3. Total football
A football philosophy developed by the Dutch in the 1970s in which every outfield player is able to play in the position of any of his teammates. According to football aficionados, this makes the team structure completely fluid, adaptable and ultimately difficult to play against. It nearly worked for the Netherlands, but not quite.

4. Route one
The antithesis of Brazilian flair. It usually involves a more “industrial” method of kicking long aerial passes from defense to big, physical players in attack. Not pretty but it can be very effective.

5. Playmaker
The creative player in the team that makes it tick. Italians refer to this key attacking position as “il Fantasista.”

6. Hand of God
England and Diego Armando Maradona may face each other again more than two decades since the Argentine superstar famously scored with his hand against the English at Mexico in 1986. After the game, Maradona said the goal was scored “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God.”

World Cup moments not to miss

1. Brazil
Obviously! The mighty Brazilians could probably field two teams, such is the depth of talent available to them. Unfortunately the slightly rotund but prodigiously-talented Ronaldinho has been left out of the squad. However, the team still boasts a mouth-watering array of talented players such as attacking midfielder Kaka, striker Robinho, and the super-fit defender Dani Alves of Barcelona.

2. Diego Maradona
The cigar-smoking footballer turned coach is a god in his native Argentina. He lifted the trophy as a player in 1986, was banned from the competition for doping in 1994, and suffered with drug and alcohol problems after he retired. A troubled figure, Maradona is compulsive viewing nonetheless.

As manager of Argentina’s national team he has arguably the strongest squad in the competition, though critics point to a turbulent qualifying campaign as proof that he cannot mould them into a winning team. Expect interesting press conferences.

3. Lionel Messi
Considered the world’s greatest player, the diminutive Argentine is viewed by many as the next Maradona. However he has yet to reproduce his extraordinary club form with Barcelona for his national team. Capable of beating entire teams on his own, he could easily disappoint if the rest of team play as poorly as they did trying to qualify for South Africa.

4. Wayne Rooney
England’s World Cup hopes rest on the stocky Manchester United striker whose temper has been his biggest enemy in the past. Rooney’s last World Cup ended with one of those red cards after his boot made firm contact with the groin of a Portuguese player. Since then he has become a father and family life is said to have mellowed him.

5. South Africa
Though their form has improved dramatically in the last six months, they could face the ignominy of becoming the first host country to fail to qualify from the group stage. The tournament needs “Bafana Bafana” to make progress from a group that includes Mexico, Uruguay and France to keep this football-mad nation at fever pitch.

However, this is by no means the first such volcanic eruption in Iceland to affect human activities. Long before the advent of air travel, the eruption of Iceland’s Laki volcano in 1783-84 had profound effects on climate, not just in Iceland but around the globe.

Volcanologists Thorvaldur Thordarson and Stephen Self estimated that a comparable event in the modern era would release enough ash and other eruptive materials into the atmosphere that the resulting ash cloud and sulfuric haze would probably disrupt air travel over much of the Northern Hemisphere for about five months. But there were impacts well afield of Iceland and Europe at the time of Laki.

Besides releasing clouds of ash into the atmosphere that can disrupt visibility and damage airplane engines, eruptions can cool the climate with the reflection of incoming solar radiation from the troposphere by volcanic sulfur-rich ash, which can decrease temperatures significantly for months or years in some cases.

Just such an aerosol effect is believed to have disrupted the Earth’s thermal balance during the Laki event, cooling some Northern Hemisphere regions by as much as 1 or more degrees Celsius below the long-term average.

Highly unusual conditions were described in the summer of 1783 after Laki, including poisonous volcanic fumes that killed perhaps 25 percent of the population of Iceland, persistent haze and oppressive heat in Europe, and blood-red sunrises over North America, Europe and other locations. The Laki eruption was believed to have caused thousands of deaths because of unusual conditions in Europe that summer, along with the severe cold of the following winter.

Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to suggest that the extreme cold of 1783-84 over much of the Northern Hemisphere was connected to the Laki event. In North America, Laki has been blamed for the starvation of Inuit populations from severe cold in northwestern Alaska, based on Inuit oral history as well as tree-ring density data investigated by Gordon Jacoby and others, who estimated that conditions were about 4 degrees Celsius colder than the mean.

The density record of temperature-sensitive white spruce for this region showed extremely low values in the summer of 1783, known in Inuit lore as “the summer that did not come”.

This observation was used to infer that this was the coldest summer in at least the past 400 years.

Such tree-ring records, along with other so-called proxy archives, can provide a wealth of information about volcanic events and their varying impacts around the globe because of resulting shifts in atmospheric circulation and other climate changes, dating for centuries prior to the period of instrumental record.

The effects of major volcanic eruptions such as Laki can also be felt elsewhere on the globe, often far from their actual location. For example, significant cooling and strong dynamical effects after the Laki event and other high-latitude eruptions are believed to have caused decreased flow of the Nile River in Egypt and weakened African and Asian monsoons based on climate model simulations, with potentially very significant impacts on food and water supplies.

Tree-ring, coral and ice core records also indicate the effect of major volcanic events in the tropics of monsoon Asia for low-latitude eruptions such as that of Tambora, Indonesia, in 1815 and other such events of the past several centuries, although this climate signal is also complicated by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.

Although the current eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull in Iceland appears not to be comparable in intensity to those of Laki and Tambora, it will have some effects, such as those on air travel, that were never realized back in those simpler times.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Rosanne D’Arrigo.

By the end of the day on Sunday, a total of 63,000 flights had been canceled in the four days since ash from a volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland closed the airspace of a large swath of Europe, according to air traffic authority Eurocontrol. The air travel and freight disruptions are costing airlines at least $200 million a day and perhaps billions more to the affected economies, one industry group warned.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso ordered formation of a group to study the impact of the volcanic ash cloud on the European economy. “The volcanic ash cloud has created an unprecedented situation,” Barroso said in a statement Sunday. “I have asked Vice President Kallas to coordinate the Commission’s response and fully assess the impact of the situation created by volcanic ash cloud on the economy, and the air travel industry in particular.”

The Eurozone — the 16 European nations united under the euro currency — is in the midst of a shaky recovery. After shrinking 4 percent last year, the Eurozone is expected to grow only 1 percent this year, according to a forecast by Ernst & Young released last Friday.

“The key is how long this eruption and the disruption last,” said Frederic Neumann, an HSBC economist in Hong Kong. “If it’s just a couple weeks, from a macroeconomic standpoint it’s just a blip on the radar … if it lasts for months and months, then it’s a different story.”

Right now, how long it will last is anyone’s guess.

“Each day we’ve gone to check out Virgin (Atlantic Airlines) and each day they just tell us to keep checking on the Internet,” said Andy Loftus, who is stranded in New York. “But when we check the Internet, the Internet doesn’t tell you anything. So you have to keep going back to the airport.”

The last time the volcano under Eyjafjallajokull glacier blew was 1821 and continued for two years. The amount of ash and its concentration over European flight paths is constantly changing due to geological and meteorological forces.

EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas said Sunday if the ash cloud continues “moving as it moves, then tomorrow almost 50 percent of European [Union] space will be risk free.” That would allow more flights to resume, he said. “But we’ll see [Monday] what the picture shows.”

The ash cloud is delaying key talks on the issue most troubling the Eurozone — Greece’s mounting debt woes. The Greek Finance Ministry issued a statement that talks with European officials and the International Monetary Fund over details of a $40 billion bailout for Greece is delayed at least until Wednesday, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

Meanwhile, the air industry in Europe — already battered by the financial crisis and labor disputes such as strikes at Lufthansa and British Airways this year — is putting on pressure to reopen the skies.

“This crisis is costing airlines at least $200 million a day in lost revenues and the European economy is suffering billions of dollars in lost business,” said Giovanni Bisignani, director general and CEO of the International Air Transport Association. He told CNN on Monday that if flight restrictions continue, some small and medium-sized airlines could be put in jeopardy.

IATA criticized European governments “for their lack of leadership in handling airspace restrictions” and “urged a re-think of the decision-making process” for closing European skies.

Even airlines based far from the ash face a financial knock-on effect: Thai Airways, based in Bangkok, estimates the cloud is costing the airline $3 million a day and has stranded 6,000 of its passengers.

The HMS Ark Royal and HMS Ocean were making their way back to British waters, while the Defense Ministry worked to pinpoint locations that most need help.

Transport across Europe has been crippled since the eruption beneath southern Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull glacier worsened last week, prompting local evacuations and shutting European airspace.

With planes languishing at airports, stranded travelers have crammed onto boats and trains and hired cars in a bid to reach their destination.

“I believe this is one of the most serious transport disruptions we have faced,” Brown said. “It’s got financial consequences as well as human consequences and we will do everything in our power to make sure all the arrangements are in place to help people where possible to get back home.”

Brown said that he had spoken to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero about using airports in Spain — which have been less affected by the air travel chaos — as a hub through which to bring people back to Britain, the agency reported. Further information would be released later today, Brown added.

Brown added that a third Royal Navy vessel, HMS Albion, en route to pick up troops in Spain, may also be able to assist.

UK travel has been badly hit by the ash cloud, with airspace largely shut since last Thursday morning and not expected to open until 0000 GMT Tuesday at the earliest. Heathrow, to the west of London, is one of the world’s major international airports and has seen no activity the past five days.

Some European airports reopened Sunday, including several in France and Germany, and all 16 that had been closed in Spain. But officials in each country emphasized that decisions were being made around the clock and could change at any time.

A few dozen test flights Sunday offered hope that the skies over much of Europe may be safe for air travel, but officials made no promises that the massive disruptions due to volcanic ash are about to go away.

“The results coming from these flights is… there’s no impact in the area,” European Union Secretary of State Diego Lopez Garrido said.

Two key air travel groups issued a joint statement Sunday pushing authorities to ease flying restrictions. Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, which represents airports, and the Association of European Airlines (AEA) said they question “the proportionality of the flight restrictions currently imposed.”

But an expert who has flown into the skies to check conditions said he believes it will be “a few days yet” before it’s safe to fly.

European transport ministers plan to discuss the results of flight tests at a technical meeting Monday.

British Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis said Sunday that officials were working around the clock to establish whether safe flight paths could be identified.

“Urgent discussions are taking place with European and international regulatory agencies. We want to be able to resume flights as soon as possible, but safety remains my paramount concern,” Adonis said.

Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe, said airports have lost close to €136 million ($184 million) so far. More than 6.8 million passengers have been affected, he said in a statement, adding that the effect is worse than after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

“While safety remains a non-negotiable priority, it is not incompatible with our legitimate request to reconsider the present restrictions,” he said.

“While Europe’s airlines and airports consider safety to be an absolute priority, they are questioning the proportionality of the flight restrictions currently imposed,” ACI Europe and the AEA said in their joint statement. “The eruption of the Icelandic volcano is not an unprecedented event and the procedures applied in other parts of the world for volcanic eruptions do not appear to require the kind of restrictions that are presently being imposed in Europe.”

Airlines have been losing at least $200 million a day, according to the International Air Transport Association, the trade group representing airlines.

But an expert who has flown over Europe to check the air said he saw “dangerous” conditions.

Guy Gratton, head of the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements at Britain’s Cranfield University, flew into the skies Thursday and saw “a really strange and complex set of layers of ash,” with a layer of perfectly clear air suddenly giving way to a layer of ash, he told CNN. If particles of ash enter a jet engine, when they come out they can solidify on turbine blades, he said.

A group of his colleagues took to the skies Sunday, and in some places saw “quite high concentrations of ash,” he said.

“I suspect it’s going to be a few days yet” before it’s safe to fly, Gratton added.

Some European airports reopened Sunday, including several in France and Germany, and all 16 that had been closed in Spain. But officials in each country emphasized that decisions were being made around the clock and could change at any time.

Another body was found Tuesday evening in hardest-hit Douglas County. Richard Butler, 29, was swept from his car and died, like the other five victims from the county, as a result of flash-flooding, said Wes Tallon, the spokesman for the county’s emergency management agency.

Flooded homes in a neighborhood in Mableton, Ga., on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the waters in the area began to recede.

In the county, about 23 miles west of the city, people were lining up for bottled water while the authorities checked abandoned cars for bodies and swept debris to clear streets.

The county was hit by 21 inches of rain in a 24-hour period from Sunday to Monday, knocking out the drinking water supply to most residents, and forcing others to boil their water. On Wednesday, two churches provided bottles for people. “It’s going as fast as we’re giving it away,” Mr. Tallon said.

The main interstate — I-20 — leading to Atlanta reopened after 11 a.m. on Thursday, while only two bridges spanning the flooded Chattahoochee River remained closed, helping the county slowly return to its operations..

Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia declared a state of emergency in 17 counties and pleaded for federal aid, offering his appeal directly to President Obama on Tuesday night. The state insurance commissioner estimated that $250 million worth of damage had been done, mostly to homeowners without insurance.

As much as 15 to 20 inches of rain pounded counties around Atlanta for more than 72 hours, and while the rain subsided on Tuesday morning, the authorities were still dealing with dangerous repercussions.

A sewage treatment plant northwest of Atlanta flooded late Monday and into Tuesday, spewing sewage into the Chattahoochee River, which had already swollen to at least 12 feet over its minimum flood stage level. City officials said the damage to the plant would amount to tens of millions of dollars.

Several of the deaths occurred on roadways that had suddenly become impassable because of rushing waters. On Tuesday morning, the body of 14-year-old Nicholas Osley was recovered from a cornfield flooded by the nearby Chattooga River in Trion, Ga., said a spokeswoman for the Chattooga County Emergency Management Agency. On Monday, the teenager and a friend had rushed to an abandoned car to rescue the occupant, not knowing the occupant had already escaped. Nicholas was swept away by the current, while his friend was rescued, the spokeswoman said. Later on Tuesday afternoon, the body of a woman was found in Douglas County after a flash flood from the Anneewakee Creek (usually two feet deep) overwhelmed the roadway, sweeping the car downstream.

In Carroll County, about 50 miles west of Atlanta, Tim Padgett, the emergency management director, said that a 2-year-old boy died when his family’s mobile home was swept away by the fast-moving Snake Creek — about 18 feet higher than its normal level — and the father could no longer hold on to his son in the rush of the water.

Dená Brummer, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, warned people not to return prematurely into flooded areas, and to avoid driving through any water.

The waters flooded both rural and urban areas, even ravaging Buckhead, a wealthy neighborhood north of downtown Atlanta. When the neighborhood’s normally serene Nancy Creek rose to near-record levels, it burst into the basement and the first floor of the large red-brick white-columned house belonging to Dr. O. Scott Swayze and his family. It reached up to three feet on the first floor.

“The basement was an aquarium,” Dr. Swayze said. “This house was built in ’68, and the previous owners never had anything this high. This is the proverbial 100-year flood.”

The flood turned streets into their own estuaries and gave a new meaning to the name of the popular restaurant Canoe. Residents on Paces Ferry Drive were rowing in and out of their houses, using boats they would normally use for catching bass and trout in the Chattahoochee River.

State emergency officials said about 30,000 homes were without electricity. Trisha Palmer, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Ga., said that the flooding was far worse than the hurricane-level damage from 2005. “In this office, nobody remembers anything like this,” she said. “This is worse and much more widespread.”

Although the storms themselves have not been severe, Ms. Palmer said that the rains had been relentless for the better part of a week, resulting from Gulf and Atlantic moisture moving over the Southeast. She said there was a chance for afternoon showers for the remainder of the week.

The area has a history of sectarian tension. A little-known militant group calling itself Lahskar-e-Jhangvi al Almi says it carried out the attack. They say the attack was in revenge for the death of a prominent religious leader. Maulana M Amin was killed in Hangu in June 2009. Correspondents say the group is likely to be linked to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni extremist group which has links to the Taliban. Astarzai village, where the blast took place, has a substantial Shia population and is close to the Orakzai tribal region, a stronghold of the Taliban’s present chief.

Hakimullah Mehsud took over as chief of the Pakistani Taliban – a Sunni group – after his predecessor, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by a US missile strike.

‘People trapped’

The car bomb was detonated close to a hotel owned by a Shia Muslim businessman.

Police officials said that many people had been injured by the explosion.

Witnesses told the BBC the blast was so powerful it nearly demolished several buildings in the area.

“Dozens of shops were destroyed. Their roofs caved in and many people were trapped under the debris,” a local police official told the AFP news agency.

Television footage from the local hospital showed bloodied and bandaged patients being treated by medical staff.

“I was standing in front of my shop when all of a sudden, a car blew up outside a restaurant,” Sohail Ahmed told AFP from his hospital bed.

At the time of the explosion, the area was reported to be thronged with shoppers buying supplies for the weekend and for iftar, the break of fast during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Astarzai lies 18km (11 miles) west of the town of Kohat, where a bomb was detonated on Thursday wounding at least six people.

The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that Sunni Taliban militants in the area have carried out frequent attacks on minority Shias.

Sunni Muslims account for around 80% of Pakistan’s population and are the dominant group in the tribal areas, although Orakzai has significant Shia numbers.

Pakistan’s army has been bombing Taliban hideouts in Orakzai for the past month, correspondents say.

There were reports of more aerial bombings in the area on Friday morning, shortly before the bomb attack.

The last month has seen a series of major attacks on targets across the NWFP.

On 30 August a suspected suicide bomb attack in Pakistan’s north-western Swat valley killed at least 14 police recruits and injured others.

And in February, at least 25 people were killed when a bomb exploded at the funeral procession of a prominent Shia Muslim cleric.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a proper effort to counter the Taliban insurgency correctly would “probably means more forces.”

Mullen spoke during a hearing on his nomination for a second term as the president’s senior military adviser.

Pfc. Joshua De Jonge of Smithfield, Va., keeps watch during a patrol mission on Tuesday, Sept. 13, in Zerok District, East Paktika province in Afghanistan.

The influential chairman of the panel, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., used the session to underscore his opposition to additional forces, at least until the United States takes bolder action to expand Afghanistan’s own armed forces.
“Providing the resources needed for the Afghan Army and Afghan police to become self-sufficient would demonstrate our commitment to the success of a mission that is in our national security interest, while avoiding the risks associated with a further increase in U.S. ground combat troops,” Levin said.
Levin is one of several leading Democrats who have expressed skepticism in recent days about adding more American troops. Levin first wants to make sure larger numbers of Afghan security forces are trained and deployed on the battlefield and in Afghan communities.
Mullen told the senators that “it’s very clear to me that we will need more resources,” to carry out the revamped counterinsurgency strategy Obama laid out earlier this year.
Mullen said he did not know how many more troops would likely be requested by the commanding general in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. A debate over the right mix of forces and other resources will be held in the coming weeks, Mullen told the panel.
Levin’s Republican counterpart, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said committing too few forces to the war would invite a rerun of mistakes the U.S. made in Iraq. “I’ve seen that movie before,” McCain said.
Wrong message feared
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., said Afghans will get the wrong message if the U.S. is only willing to commit additional training specialists instead of combat troops.
“They’re essentially going to decide we’re on our way out,” Lieberman said.
Mullen agreed that Afghans and Pakistanis are “waiting on the sidelines to see how committed we are.”
However, “it’s not as simple as trainers. It’s not as simple as combat troops,” Mullen said.
War enters ninth year
Mullen said he has made no recommendations to the White House about how many more forces might be needed. He said McChrystal will submit his request very soon.
Mullen has been sounding increasingly glum about the prospects for the war, which will enter its ninth year this fall. On Tuesday he said the war would continue to deteriorate without a renewed U.S. commitment, and he said Gen. McChrystal found conditions worse than he had expected when he took the job this summer.

The United States has about 65,000 troops in Afghanistan now, with a few thousand additional trainers due by the end of this year.

Mrs Clinton said the issue “cannot be ignored” and was the key reason why the US agreed to take part in the talks.

Tehran last week offered “comprehensive” talks, but did not mention its nuclear programme.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes

The West fears that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons – a claim denied by Tehran.

Iran insists its programme is for civilian purposes only.

‘Fulfilment’

“We have made clear to the Iranians that any talks we participate in must address the nuclear issue head on,” Mrs Clinton said in Washington.

“Iran says it has a number of issues it wishes to discuss with us but what we are concerned about is discussing with them the questions surrounding their nuclear programme and ambitions.

“We will wait to see how Iran responds in that face-to-face venue,” America’s top diplomat said.

She added the talks marked a “fulfilment” of US President Barack Obama’s pledge to engage with Iran.

The meeting between Iran and the so-called P5+1 Group – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the UK, China, France, Russia and the US – plus Germany – are due to start at an as yet undecided venue.

The P5+1 Group has a longstanding offer on the table of diplomatic incentives in return for the suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment.

Iran has always defended its right to continue its nuclear programme.

Last week, Tehran offered to “embark on comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive negotiations”, but ignored the nuclear issue.

The suspect, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, is wanted over 2002 attacks on a hotel and an Israeli airliner in the Kenyan port of Mombassa.

He has been on the FBI’s list of top suspects years.

The claim followed earlier reports that foreign troops had attacked Islamist militants in southern Somalia.

Earlier reports said the troops wore uniforms with French insignia, and had attacked a vehicle carrying Islamists from the al-Shabab group.

A French military spokesman denied his country’s forces were involved.

The reason for the confusion over the identity of the troops was not immediately clear.

Witnesses said the soldiers took away two men, and two bodies were left in the road after the attack in the southern coastal town of Barawe.

Spanish news agency Efe and Reuters also reported witnesses and al-Shabab sources as saying the Kenyan-born Nabhan had been killed.

Nabhan is suspected of bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya and attempting to shoot down an airliner in 2002, as well as two attacks on US embassies in the region in 1998.

Somalia has not had a functioning central government since 1991.

Rival Islamist factions are battling forces loyal to the weak UN-backed government, which controls only small parts of the capital Mogadishu.

In a speech to mark one year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank, he will also mount a vigorous defence of his administration’s economic policies.

The US president will focus on “the need to take the next series of steps” in regulatory reform, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Mr Obama has spent billions of dollars to stimulate economic growth

Mr Obama’s team have argued that they staved off a second Great Depression.

Mr Obama will give his speech at 1210 local time (1610 GMT) in New York, at Federal Hall on Wall Street, where George Washington was inaugurated as the first US president.

‘Verge of collapse’

It comes a week before the US hosts a summit of the Group of 20 richest nations in Pittsburgh.

The White House has said its massive $787bn (£472bn) stimulus package, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed earlier this year, has created up to 1.1m jobs and boosted economic activity.

“When I walked in, the banking system, the financial system was under the verge of collapse,” Mr Obama said on Sunday in an interview on the 60 Minutes television show.

“The reason we did so was that every credible Democratic and Republican economist at the time when we came in said if we don’t have a stimulus of some sort, then this is potentially going to get a lot worse,” he said.

The White House has said it boosted US GDP by 2-3% between April and June.

Mixed verdict

But some opinion polls have showed that most Americans believe the stimulus plan is having no impact.

Mr Obama’s speech comes as a BBC World Service poll showed that 67% of people in 20 countries wanted more regulation and running of national economies.

US citizens were evenly split between those who were happy and unhappy with their government’s response, the survey showed.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blamed “rich countries” and international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for the crisis because of a lack of regulation in an interview with the BBC.

Mr Lula is popular in Brazil, with 59% saying they were happy with Brazil’s handling of the crisis in the World Service poll.

Brazil recently became the latest country to emerge from a relatively shallow recession.

Overall, the survey suggested that people in developed countries were less satisfied with all of these groups than those in developing countries.

Positive signs

Recent data has suggested that the US is starting to recover, just as other countries such as Japan ad Germany have left recession.

Many economists believe that the US will return to positive economic growth in the June-September quarter.

“When the president was elected and in transition, the issue… was whether recession would become depression,” said Lawrence Summers, head of the Obama administration’s National Economic Council.

“Today, the question is when the recession phase will end? That is not, in our judgement, an accident.”

“We are making a clear transition from rescue as the priority of public policy to sustained recovery,” he added.

The collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers, soon after troubled rival Bear Sterns was sold with Federal Reserve intervention, marked the start of a near-total collapse of the financial system that required unprecedented global intervention to keep it solvent.

The number of people arrested for suspected roles in the three-day riots could go up because investigations are still under way, said Kale Kayihura, the nation’s police chief.

Trials for the suspects will start Monday on charges including taking part in violent acts and unlawful assemblies, Kayihura said.

At least 82 were injured, according to the police chief.

Ugandan police ride past a burning barricade in the Natete suburb of Kampala on Friday.

Tensions between President Yoweri Museveni and the Buganda kingdom — headed by King Ronald Mutebi II, the ruler of the Baganda tribe — have intensified in recent years.

The violence flared Thursday when the government said it would not allow the king to travel to an area inhabited by a renegade rival group.

After the travel ban, young Bagandans took to the streets, stealing ammunition from a police station and confronting officers, accusing them of harassment.

“The government is wrong to undermine cultural institutions which are the backbone of Uganda’s heritage,” said Mzamiru Balidha, a resident of Kampala. “Cultural leaders must be left alone since they are not interfering in politics.”

Rioters burned tires and cars, set buildings on fire and looted stores. Streets in the capital were strewn with debris over the weekend, including torched cars and burned tires.

Police and the army patrolled deserted but calm streets Sunday as residents tried to return to normalcy after the protests.

“I’m happy to see that there is peace now,” said Harry Sagara of Kampala. “Now people can return to work.”

Government officials and the Buganda kingdom have been at odds for years, sparring over land, sovereignty and political power.

A government official said Sunday that the two leaders have pledged to meet and address their differences.

“Both the central government and the king are still working out details of the meeting,” said Daudi Migereko, the minister of parliamentary affairs.

Bagandans are the dominant ethnic group and one of four ancient kingdoms in the nation. Kings in the east African nation are limited to a ceremonial role overseeing traditional and cultural affairs.

Osama bin Laden is seen in an image taken from a videotape that aired on Al-Jazeera in September 2003.

The tape emerged on radical Islamist Web sites, just two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“To the American people, this is my message to you: a reminder of the reasons behind 9/11 and the wars and the repercussions that followed and the way to resolve it,” the message said.

“From the beginning, we have stated many times … that the cause of our disagreement with you is your support of your allies, the Israelis, who are occupying our land in Palestine. Your stance along with some other grievances are what led us to carry out the events of 9/11.”

The video plays the audio over a undated photograph of bin Laden. The video also shows a banner with the American flag as the backdrop and an image of the New York City skyline with the twin towers of the World Trade Center — destroyed in the 9/11 attack — still standing, said terrorism analyst Laura Mansfield.

Obama was “a vulnerable man who will not be able to stop the war, as he promised, but instead he will drag it to the maximum possible extent,” the message said.

Though U.S. troops no longer patrol Iraq’s major cities and a large number have left, tens of thousands remain in the country and are expected to stay for years to come.

The message claims that the Obama administration is under the influence of the Republican White House it replaced, pointing out that the president kept Robert Gates as defense secretary — a holdover from the Bush administration.

“Prolong the wars as much as you like. By God, we will never compromise on it (Palestine), ever,” the message continued.

Mansfield noted that the video brings no new images of the elusive bin Laden, who was last seen in footage two years ago on the sixth anniversary of the terror attacks.

Bin Laden has released audio messages since then, most recently on June 9.

With Force, Mexican Drug Cartels Get Their Way

It was drug traffickers who decided that Chief Roberto Orduña Cruz, a retired army major who had been on the job since May, should go. To make clear their insistence, they vowed to kill a police officer every 48 hours until he resigned.

They first killed Mr. Orduña’s deputy, Operations Director Sacramento Pérez Serrano, together with three of his men. Then another police officer and a prison guard turned up dead. As the body count grew, Mr. Orduña eventually did as the traffickers had demanded, resigning his post on Feb. 20 and fleeing the city.

Replacing Mr. Orduña will also fall outside the mayor’s purview, although this time the criminals will not have a say. With Ciudad Juárez and the surrounding state of Chihuahua under siege by heavily armed drug lords, the federal government last week ordered the deployment of 5,000 soldiers to take over the Juárez Police Department. With the embattled mayor’s full support, the country’s defense secretary will pick the next chief.

Chihuahua, which already has about 2,500 soldiers and federal police on patrol, had almost half the 6,000 drug-related killings in all of Mexico in 2008 and is on pace for an even bloodier 2009. Juárez’s strategic location at the busy El Paso border crossing and its large population of local drug users have prompted a fierce battle among rival cartels for control of the city.

“Day after day, there are so many horrible things taking place there,” said Howard Campbell, an anthropologist at the University of Texas at El Paso who studies Mexico’s drug war. “The cartels are trying to control everything.”

Nothing is surprising in Chihuahua anymore. Gunmen recently shot at one of three cars in Gov. José Reyes Baeza’s motorcade, killing a bodyguard and wounding two agents. The drug cartels routinely collect taxes from business owners, shooting those who refuse to pay up. As for the Juárez mayor, who has made cleaning up the notoriously corrupt police department his focal point, the cartel recently threatened to decapitate him and his family unless he backed off.

The handwritten threat that it issued went further than that. Like many people in Juárez, Mayor Reyes has homes on both sides of the border, splitting his time between El Paso and Juárez. The note threatening him made it clear that the assassins going after him would have no qualms about crossing into the United States to finish off the mayor and his family.

“We took the threat seriously,” said Chris Mears, a spokesman for the El Paso Police Department. “I’m not going to tell you what actions were taken, but we’ve taken actions.”

In an interview in his wood-paneled office overlooking the United States, Mr. Reyes, 46, whose father was mayor in the early 1980s, said he was not going to allow criminals to run the city, despite the inroads they are making. He said he initially opposed his police chief’s decision to resign because he did not want the outlaws to feel empowered. He acceded only as a life-saving gesture, he said.

“I’m not going to give in,” he vowed in an interview, welcoming the arrival of soldiers so that the traffickers will feel the heat even more.

Right now, the Juárez police are no match for the outlaws. Last year, the senior uniformed officer was killed, one of 45 local police officers killed since January 2007, and a former police chief pleaded guilty to charges of smuggling a ton of marijuana from Juárez to El Paso. Mr. Orduña, who lived at the police station to avoid being killed, had replaced another chief who fled to El Paso after receiving threats last year. If the army had not come in, the mayor would no doubt have had a difficult time finding somebody to head the department.

Introducing a nationwide police recruitment campaign, the mayor has raised salaries and benefits enough that he is attracting new recruits to replace the many officers being fired for their links to organized crime.

“I know the dangers and I accept them,” said José Martín Jáuregui López, one of the 289 cadets now being trained at Juárez’s police academy. “There are a lot of people afraid for me: my mom, my relatives. But this is what I want to do.”

As a sign to the traffickers that he was not running from them, Mr. Reyes appeared Friday to be like any other mayor, giving a speech at the opening of a shopping center, signing a memorandum of understanding with a developer, reassuring residents that he would keep loiterers from gathering in front of their homes.

But the bodyguards holding assault rifles who clung close to him made it clear that Juárez remained a city under siege.

“There’s no square inch of the city that has been untouched by the violence,” said Lucinda Vargas, an economist who works by day to remake the city as executive director of Juárez Strategic Plan, but retreats to El Paso at night. “There’s a lot of evidence that Juárez, in a micro sense, is becoming a failed state. But I still think we haven’t failed yet and that we could still rescue ourselves.”