Chicago case alleges ties to North Korea

CHICAGO (AP) — A Taiwanese businessman long suspected of ties to North Korea and his Illinois-based son have been charged in Chicago with seeking to bypass a U.S. ban on the export of weapons machinery to the hard-line communist nation, federal prosecutors announced Monday.

Hsien Tai Tsai, 67, and his 36-year-old son, Yueh-Hsun Tsai, are charged with one count each of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. in its enforcement of laws prohibiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago said.

The statement suggests a wider investigation.

Federal agents have been investigating the two Tsais and a network of companies on suspicion of trying to export goods and machinery from the U.S. "that could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction," it said.

The father, who lives in Taiwan, was arrested on Wednesday in Tallinn, the capital of the Baltic Sea-coast nation of Estonia. The statement from prosecutors doesn't speculate about why Hsien Tsai was in Estonia, though it says U.S. authorities are seeking his extradition. The son, a legal U.S. resident, was arrested on the same day last week at his home in suburban Glenview, just outside Chicago, according to prosecutors.

The arrest comes as North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, has faced international criticism over its nuclear and weapons-development programs. The federal complaint released Monday doesn't offer details about which weapons systems the machinery could have benefited.

The elder Tsai, who also goes by Alex Tsai, fell under suspicion of U.S. authorities at least as far back as 2008, when he was convicted in Taiwan of forging shipping invoices and illegally shipping restricted materials to North Korea, the U.S. Department of Treasury said in press release at the time.

Treasury officials accused him of shipping items to North Korea that could be used to support its advanced weapons program, and the department in 2009 placed a wide-ranging prohibition on him doing any business in or with the United States. The ban applied to him and several Taiwanese-based companies he helped run, including Trans Merits Co. Ltd. and Trans Multi Mechanics Co. Ltd., the complaint says.

It was the alleged bid to skirt the 2009 prohibition, with the son's alleged help, that led to the charges in Chicago. Among the items they allegedly conspired to export was what prosecutors described as "a Bryant center hole grinder," which is used to drill precise, smooth holes through elongated metal, the compliant says. The machinery got to Taiwan, but the complaint doesn't indicate if it might have reached North Korea.

Yueh-Hsun Tsai, who also goes by Gary Tsai, appeared in a federal courtroom in Chicago on Monday. Magistrate Judge Susan Cox agreed to his release on $500,000 bond. He will be confined to his home and will be under electronic monitoring.

Speaking to reporters later on Monday, the younger Tsai's attorney insisted the machinery involved was "unsophisticated."

"And there is no allegation Mr. (Yueh-Hsun) Tsai knew it was destined for North Korea," the attorney, Ted Poulos, said. He added about the business deals involved, "It amounts to a rather benign business transaction."

In addition to the count of conspiracy to defraud U.S. proliferation laws, the father and son each face one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and one count of money laundering. The count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. carries a maximum five-year prison sentence, while violating the economic powers act and money laundering each carries a maximum 20-year term.

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North Korea's Kim arrives in Russia (Reuters)

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong-il arrived in Russia on Saturday for his first visit in nearly a decade as the isolated state sought economic aid after heavy flooding exacerbated its chronic food shortages.

Kim will meet President Dmitry Medvedev and will spend time in the Far East and Siberia, the Kremlin said in a statement. The meeting is expected to take place around mid-week.

Russia and North Korea were once politically close, but relations cooled and trade fell sharply after the collapse of the Communist Soviet Union in 1991.

Kim arrived in the town of Khasan, near the short border between North Korea and Russia, on a train and was greeted by the Primorye region governor and Medvedev's representative in the Russian Far East, a regional government source said.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency, citing a South Korean government source, said Kim was expected to stay in Russia for a week and would probably hold talks with Medvedev in Ulan-Ude, 2,050 km (1,275 miles) further west near Lake Baikal in Siberia.

The local edition of the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets in Ulan-Ude said Kim's train was likely to arrive there on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The brief Kremlin statement confirmed Kim was arriving on Saturday and said he would spend time in the Far East and Siberia. "The main event of the visit will be President Dmitry Medvedev's meeting with Kim Jong-il," it said.

It did not say when or where the meeting would take place.

Russia is a member of the long-stalled six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, though China now holds more influence with North Korea than Russia does.

North Korea has been desperate for economic aid after suffering from floods and economic sanctions led by the United States because of its nuclear program.

VISIT FOLLOWS NUCLEAR TALKS

Citing a "severe deficit" of food products in North Korea, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Friday that Russia would send 50,000 tonnes of grain to North Korea by the end of September. It said the first shipment was made on Friday.

The United States has offered North Korea up to $900,000 in emergency flood assistance but has made no decision yet on a broader request for humanitarian food aid for the isolated country, the State Department said on Thursday.

Kim made his last public visit to Russia in 2002, when he met then-President Vladimir Putin in the far eastern city of Vladivostok. He has visited China, Pyongyang's closest big-power ally, three times in just over a year.

The visit follows a series of top-level meetings between Pyongyang, Seoul, Washington and Beijing that has raised hopes of a resumption of long-stalled talks on disabling the secretive North's nuclear weapons program.

Russia and Japan are also parties to the talks.

Russia has expressed concern about North Korea missile tests and urged it to abide by commitments on its nuclear program, but has warned South Korea and the United States against acting too aggressively with the North.

Russian authorities in Vladivostok, 130 km (80 miles) from the North Korean border, had been making preparations for a possible visit by Kim in June, according to a local official.

He never arrived, and the newspaper Kommersant reported that he had canceled the visit because of worries about security following media reports that he was coming.

In 2001, Kim traveled over 7,000 km (4,500 miles) to Moscow by train for talks with Putin, who is now prime minister and is considering a return to the presidency in a vote next March.

Western reports suggest Kim was born at an army camp in the Soviet Union where his father was a key figure among Korean communist exiles receiving training. The North says Kim was born in a secret guerrilla camp at Mount Paektu, a peak considered sacred to Koreans.

(Additional reporting by Sung-won Shim in Seoul and Alexei Anishchuk and Denis Dyomkin in Moscow; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Yoko Nishikawa and Michael Roddy)

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North and south Sudan agree to 20 km buffer zone (AFP)

KHARTOUM (AFP) – North and south Sudan agreed Wednesday to set up a demilitarised buffer zone along their border days before the country splits, the African Union said, but no truce has yet been reached in South Kordofan.

Wednesday's accord, signed in Addis Ababa and overseen by the chief African Union mediator Thabo Mbeki, requires both sides to withdraw their forces 10 kilometres (six miles) on either side of the border before the formal independence of the south on July 9, an AU statement read.

"The agreement ... is another building block for ensuring stability and unhindered development along the common border between north and south Sudan," the statement said.

Unarmed observers from both sides will work with UN observers to make sure the agreement is observed, and scattered checkpoints will be manned by Ethiopian peacekeepers.

This follows a recent agreement for the north to pull its troops out of the contested Abyei region, and a deal signed on Tuesday in which the two sides pledged to resolve their differences in the northern state of South Kordofan, where government forces are battling pro-south militia.

But Nafie Ali Nafie, Sudan's top presidential adviser and a signatory to Tuesday's framework accord, told reporters in Khartoum on his return from negotiations in Ethiopia that no ceasefire has been agreed.

"We didn't agree on stopping the hostilities in South Kordofan. But we have created a joint military committee that is going to meet in Addis Ababa next week," he said.

The conflict in Sudan's central border region has dramatically escalated tensions between north and south in the run-up to southern independence.

Although reliable casualty figures are hard to obtain because of heavy restrictions on the movement of UN agencies and non-governmental organisations, diplomats say the numbers could run into the hundreds.

Nafie said that despite the agreement to establish a demilitarised buffer zone, the two parties have yet to finalise the demarcation of the border itself, which is more than 2,000 kilometres long and remains disputed in a number of places.

On Monday, the UN Security Council ordered a 4,200-strong Ethiopian peacekeeping force to Abyei to monitor the withdrawal of northern troops who occupied the disputed border region on May 21.

On the sensitive issue of citizenship after the country divides, Nafie said the two sides agreed to a nine-month transitional period to allow southerners living in the north and northerners in the south "to settle their situations."

"For the the southerners that want to work in the private sector in the north, they will have to get permission and residency permits," he added.

Millions of southerners fled to Khartoum during the devastating 22-year civil war between the northern government and ex-southern rebel army the SPLA that ended in 2005.

While many have returned to the south since last year, hundreds of thousands remain in the north, with its better job opportunities, but there have been growing concerns about their citizenship and employment rights.

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North Dakota flood fight far from over

Minot, North Dakota (CNN) -- Minot and other North Dakota cities dealing with record flooding will continue to be threatened by the Souris River for days to come, even though the water is no longer rising along parts of the river, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commander said Monday.

Although the river crested in Minot early Sunday morning, it has only dropped a fraction of an inch since -- leaving crews with the tense, around-the-clock job of constantly inspecting and shoring up emergency levees built to protect critical structures, said Lt. Col. Kendall Bergmann, deputy district engineer for the Corps' St. Paul District.

"We're 99% complete, but it's an ongoing fight," Bergmann said Monday.

The river had crested in Minot and appeared to be cresting in the downstream community of Velva, Bergmann said. The remaining communities along the U.S. portion of the river -- which begins in Canada and loops back into that country downstream of Minot -- do not appear threatened, he said.

Overnight, crews had to deal with floodwaters seeping through storm sewer drains and levees, but none of those issues posed major threats, he said.

Workers had to build another ring levee near the Broadway Bridge to protect that critical north-south route through Minot from being cut off, Bergmann said. National Guard helicopters also had to drop one-ton sandbags around a school to keep it from flooding.

The Souris River crested Sunday at Minot at nearly 13 feet over flood stage -- below earlier predictions, but still almost 4 feet above an 1881 record, according to the National Weather Service. The river had fallen about 6 inches as of Monday morning, according to the weather service, and is predicted to remain above the 1881 record into next week.

The state was scheduled to open three recovery centers in North Dakota on Monday -- two in Minot and one in Bismarck -- for residents in the throes of the record-setting floods.

Residents can visit the locations to find out about assistance programs and have their questions answered, Gov. Jack Dalrymple told reporters. But, he said, it is not necessary for residents to visit the centers to register for disaster assistance, which can be done by telephone or online.

Dalrymple said a tour of the area Sunday was "sobering, to say the least."

A boil-water order, issued as a precaution Saturday, remained in effect. Minot officials told residents that tap water should be boiled for at least a minute before consuming in order to kill any dangerous organisms.

Republican Rep. Rick Berg said he had been in touch with officials in Washington -- which has authorized FEMA to grant assistance -- and expressed optimism that the government will work well with residents to overcome the challenges.

"You're seeing people at the highest levels working together, putting politics behind them," said North Dakota's lone congressman.

Many residents of Minot who evacuated ahead of the rising water returned to the area Sunday against the recommendations of the city officials, hoping to catch a glimpse of their homes, said CNN's Jim Spellman.

Spellman said when he toured the hardest-hit area by boat, several residents gave him their addresses and asked him to check on their homes. Everyone was hoping his or her home might be the one that was spared, he said, but he had to bring back bad news.

"It's a somber feeling, sitting here," said resident Steve Knab. He recalled "listening to the sirens go off, and they evacuated us, and coming back the next day and seeing this ... it's disheartening."

But, he said, "We'll get there. We're healthy."

Evacuee Robin Taylor said residents have been helping one another. When her family had to evacuate in a hurry, neighbors on both sides pitched in, she said.

Jim Sarroll has lived in Minot his entire life. He has sandbagged his home, located just outside the evacuation zone, with the help of neighbors, and said Sunday it was dry so far.

He was, however, very concerned about the water. "I flushed my toilet this morning, and the water was red," he said.

Still, he said he was able to see the positives, when neighbors, relatives and friends bond to get through a disaster the best they can.

CNN's Ed Payne, Alexandra Steele, Mike Pearson, Holly Yan, Phil Gast and Sara Weisfeldt contributed to this report.

CNN

River begins to crest in Minot, North Dakota

3,000 to 4,000 homes have been affected by floodwater in MinotNWS: After fluctuating, water levels are expected to slowly fall there late SundayThe town of Sawyer, North Dakota, is evacuatedThe Souris River has already topped its record crest from 1881

Minot, North Dakota (CNN) -- The bloated Souris River was in the process of cresting Sunday in Minot, North Dakota, where record water levels have flooded thousands of homes.

"We're going to see minor fluctuations throughout the day today," but the water levels in Minot are expected to stay relatively close, said meteorologist Patrick Ayd of the National Weather Service in Bismarck, North Dakota.

He said the forecast shows a "very slow fall" starting Sunday evening.

The Souris River has already topped its record high of 1,558 feet above sea level, set in 1881.

A spontaneous burst of applause broke out at a Saturday press conference in Minot when the city's mayor said even though the Souris River should crest overnight -- about 12 feet higher than flood stage, it will be several inches short of what had been feared.

"This is great news," said Mayor Curt Zimbelman.

The Souris River flows through the center of Minot, a city of about 36,000. About a third of the city's population is under evacuation orders, while 3,000 to 4,000 homes have been affected by floodwater, the Minot Fire Department has said.

One resident, Stuart Dull, told CNN about how he, his wife and two children feverishly packed up their belongings ahead of the approaching waters.

"Words kind of escape me," Dull said after sneaking back toward his home and seeing it under water. "It's a sense of despair ... and it's maybe a check on some of the things that you hold dear."

Stuart Collum said he spotted the silver chimney and black roof of his house, where he has lived since 1968, on Saturday -- with the rest of the dwelling under water.

"I hate to say it, but I had tears in my eyes this morning. It's a sickening feeling because I knew when I come back it won't hardly be worth fixing. It's almost 100 years old," he said.

These personal struggles come as local, state and federal authorities rush to minimize the damage to property and maximize security and safety of residents.

Minot officials announced a "boil-water order" Saturday afternoon, telling residents to boil tap water for at least a minute before consuming in order to kill any dangerous organisms.

The focal point in Minot continues to be the Broadway Bridge, a critical north-south route through town. Officials have been working round-the-clock to prevent the river from inundating nearby routes, all part of larger efforts aimed at preventing Minot by effectively being split in half by the flooding.

"It's really important that (Broadway) bridge stays open," said Cecily Fong, spokeswoman for the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services.

Republican Rep. Rick Berg said he had been in touch with officials in Washington -- which has authorized FEMA to grant assistance -- and expressed optimism that the government will work well with residents to overcome the challenges.

"You're seeing people at the highest levels working together, putting politics behind them," said North Dakota's lone congressman.

Berg, though, cautioned that the "marathon" was far from over. For instance, water levels near the Broadway Bridge were still expected to remain around 1,561 feet through Tuesday -- well above the record of 1,558 feet -- with a slow drop over the coming week.

And the worst is yet to come for other North Dakota cities and towns.

In Sawyer, "we'll be approaching peak levels over next 24 hours," Ayd said early Sunday morning. Water levels in Velva are expected to peak Monday or Tuesday.

The situation prompted the evacuation Saturday of the Sawyer's 350 residents as water from the Souris River began to slosh up a main street through town, according to the U.S. Corps of Engineers.

Crews were engaged in a "touch and go" struggle to build a temporary levee to stop the flow of water through the now-vacant town, said Shannon Bauer, a public information officer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

"We have not given up," Bauer said.

Ken and Janelle Herslip's house -- less than a mile from the Souris -- was one of those flooded on Sunday.

Even though a crew of more than three dozen friends and family helped them evacuate on Monday -- scouring the house for everything that wasn't attached to the walls -- Ken Herslip said his wife is still devastated.

"We've had many homes over our life, and she finally got the house of her dreams," he said. "She is absolutely devastated, bawling all the time."

Herslip, who built the house, isn't so busted up. No one was hurt, and they can build again, he said.

Still, he said, "it will never be the same."

Dull voiced similar sentiments after the floodwaters forced him and his family out of their home -- leaving them safe, even as they're left largely helpless without flood insurance as the waters roll in. An overwhelming positive from this whole ordeal, he said, is how city residents have rallied to support one another.

"The community that we live in, they're absolutely great," said Dull. "All around, there are people helping people, strangers helping you move, everyone is so helpful.

"I just can't say enough about living in this town ... It's comforting to know that people care for you, even strangers."

CNN's Mike Pearson, Jim Spellman, Holly Yan, Phil Gast and Sara Weisfeldt contributed to this report.

CNN

North Dakota river to surpass record levels

Minot, North Dakota (CNN) -- The summer flooding in Minot, North Dakota, will enter record territory Friday morning as the Souris River surges toward a peak, days ahead of original forecasts by the National Weather Service.

The river, which stood 1,556 feet above sea level early Friday, is forecast to top the 1881 record of 1,558 feet by mid-morning and peak at 1564.5 feet late Saturday or early Sunday. That would put the Souris more than six feet higher than the old record.

The waters were rushing into the area faster and in greater amounts than expected, overflowing a lake near the city, officials said, exacerbating the region's flood concerns.

But Minot Mayor Curt Zimbelman said Thursday that no new evacuations had been ordered, even though "the flows coming into Lake Darling are reaching the lake quicker and at a greater volume than predicted."

"Due to this, Lake Darling has increased its outflow," the mayor added -- increasing flooding in the flood-plain, though not to a point that it yet changes the "inundation zone."

About 12,000 residents have evacuated their homes, according to Minot Fire Department Capt. Dean Lenertz. The mayor of Minot and the state's governor congratulated citizens on an organized and efficient evacuation, with Gov. Jack Dalrymple saying it had "gone extremely well."

Water has been overtopping the city's dikes since Wednesday, which are leaking in some places.

Dalrymple said that "all agencies are engaged" statewide in addressing the issue. He noted, for example, that workers with North Dakota's transportation department are moving 100,000 sandbags from Bismarck to the Minot area, and there are about 500 National Guard personnel on site.

The Souris River, which locals call "The Mouse" after the French translation of its name, flows through the center of town, and there are several homes and businesses along its low-lying banks.

Fearing the main levees would not hold back the water, emergency workers have been constructing local levees around a school and the Broadway Street Bridge, a main thoroughfare.

At least one of those had to be pushed back Thursday, said Zimbelman, eliminating Third street as a north-south access point through the city.

At the nearby Minot Air Force Base, about 1,000 members of the military and their families have been displaced by the rising waters in the city, according to Capt. Genieve David, a base spokeswoman. An emergency shelter has been set up on the base, with 50 people staying there overnight, the mayor said. An additional 221 people stayed at shelters run by the Red Cross.

Minot, in the north-central part of the state, is the fourth-largest city in North Dakota. The evacuation order covers a third of its population, Fong said.

The Souris River looks like a "U." It swoops in and out of North Dakota from Canada.

CNN's Jim Spellman, Ed Payne, Marlena Baldacci and Alta Spells contributed to this report.

CNN

9 North Koreans defect to the South

North Korean refugees prepare to release a balloon with leaflets condemning Kim Jong Il during a rally in Paju Wednesday.The group makes the border crossing over the weekend in the Yellow Sea They travel in a boat with no engine South Korean authorities are questioning them about their motives

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- Nine North Koreans defected to the South by boat over the weekend, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday.

The group made the border crossing Saturday in the Yellow Sea off the west of the Korean peninsula, according to the JCS.

The nine defectors made the journey in an engineless boat and are being questioned by South Korean authorities about their motives and their route, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

The development comes four months after a group of 31 North Koreans accidentally crossed over into South Korean waters on a fishing boat. Four members of that group decided to defect to the South, despite Pyongyang's demands that they all be repatriated to the North, the South Korean Red Cross said in March.

There are currently more than 20,000 North Korean defectors in South Korea, according to the South's Unification Ministry. The number of annual defectors has risen drastically since the turn of the century and continues to climb.

Defectors who are forcefully repatriated to the North after attempting to cross over into places such as China, Mongolia or Southeast Asia are commonly sent to prison camps as a punishment. Many defectors who live in South Korea fear for the lives of their family or relatives who remain in the North.

CNN's Paula Hancocks contributed to this report.

CNN

North, south Sudan clash before split: south army (Reuters)

KHARTOUM/JUBA (Reuters) – South Sudan's army said it clashed with northern troops in the disputed Abyei border region on Wednesday, in the latest sign of deteriorating relations in the build-up to the secession of the south in July.

Long-standing tensions between northern and southern-aligned groups along the shared border have come to a head less than a month before the independence of the oil-producing south.

Southerners overwhelmingly voted to declare independence from the north in a January referendum promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the north, fought over religion, ethnicity, oil and ideology.

A return to full north-south conflict could have a devastating impact on the region by sending refugees back across borders and creating a failed state in the south at birth.

The south's army said its troops clashed with northern soldiers in Abyei on Wednesday more than three weeks after the northern military seized the fertile, oil-producing area.

A spokesman for the northern army said he had no information about any clashes on Wednesday.

The northern army has also been fighting southern-aligned armed groups in Southern Kordofan -- a northern, oil-producing state that surrounds Abyei on the ill-defined north-south border -- since June 5.

OBAMA CALL

President Barack Obama urged Sudan's government to halt military operations in Southern Kordofan and called for a ceasefire.

"There is no military solution," Obama said, appealing directly to leaders on both sides in an audio message issued through the U.S. government-funded Voice of America network.

Analysts have said the north may be trying to assert its authority along the north-south border to stamp out any remnants of southern support ahead of the split.

The division of Africa's largest country is a highly sensitive subject for the Khartoum government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir which stands to lose around a third of its territory and up to three quarters of its oil reserves when the south leaves.

The United Nations on Wednesday said air strikes on Southern Kordofan may have killed as many as 64 people and caused tens of thousands to flee.

"There is a growing sense of panic among some of the displaced populations who find themselves trapped by the ongoing violence and the ethnic fault lines," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report.

In Geneva, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said the situation in Southern Kordofan was deteriorating and that a "humanitarian corridor" should be created for aid deliveries.

"The problem is that the fighting is spreading by the day," said Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba.

"POLITICAL RUMOURS"

Some civilians were being targeted at checkpoints, she said.

"We even have unconfirmed reports -- people are telling us about torture, harassment, sometimes summary executions at checkpoints ... It is difficult for us to confirm that, but that is what displaced are telling us," she added.

Northern official Rabie Abdelati on Tuesday dismissed allegations of arbitrary torture, arrest and killing in Southern Kordofan as "political rumors."

Both north and south still have to resolve a list of issues ahead of the split, including how they are doing to share the country's oil wealth, the position of their border and the status of Abyei.

Abyei was a key battleground in the civil war and a symbol for both the mostly Muslim north and the south, where most follow Christian and traditional beliefs.

"SPLA and SAF clashed in Abyei in the area of the Kiir bridge (on Wednesday)," southern army spokesman Philip Aguer said, referring to the north's Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).

The river, known as Kiir in the south and Bahr al-Arab in the north has become a frontline between northern and southern troops since Khartoum occupied the region.

Aguer said there had been casualties, but did not release any numbers.

The north says it moved into Abyei after southern soldiers attacked its troops in the area. The north has also accused southern-backed groups of trying to start a revolution in Southern Kordofan, the north's main oil state and home to some groups that sided with the south during the civil war.

After talks in neighboring Ethiopia over the weekend, both sides announced on Monday they had agreed "in principle" to pull their troops out of Abyei and deploy Ethiopian peacekeepers.

Southern minister Deng Alor told reporters in Addis Ababa the north was now holding up discussions over the withdrawal of northern troops with last minute conditions.

"Bashir has agreed to withdraw, but the problems are over his request to administer Abyei and over the status of the Ethiopian troops," Deng Alor, south Sudan's minister for regional cooperation, told reporters in Addis Ababa.

(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Geneva and Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; Writing by Andrew Heavens)

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South Sudan accuses north of air attack, clashes flare (Reuters)

JUBA/KHARTOUM (Reuters) – South Sudan's army accused the north on Friday of bombing a southern border village and said southern forces were getting ready to defend against a possible ground attack.

The south is preparing to secede on July 9 and fears of fresh fighting between the two long-standing rivals grew after the north seized the contested Abyei region on May 21.

The United Nations said fighting between northern forces and southern-aligned armed groups in the north-run oil state of Southern Kordofan had spread to the tip of the southern Unity state and that tens of thousands may have fled the clashes.

Philip Aguer, spokesman for the south's Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army, said the northern military was trying to occupy areas near the border -- whose exact position is yet to be decided -- in an attempt to control the country's oil fields.

"There has been an air bombardment by northern forces in Unity state, in the morning yesterday and again in the afternoon. Three people were killed in the morning," Aguer said. The three dead were civilians, he said.

"We are expecting not only air attacks but also ground forces. We know their forces are moving from Abyei toward Unity state. ... We are getting ready to defend ourselves. Our forces near the border are on maximum alert and are expecting an attack any time," he added.

A spokesman for the northern army was not immediately available to comment. In previous statements, it blamed southern or southern-aligned forces for provoking fighting in Abyei, Southern Kordofan and elsewhere.

The White House said on Friday night it was "deeply concerned" by the developments in southern Sudan.

"The United States condemns reported acts of violence in Southern Kordofan that target individuals based on their ethnicity and political affiliation," the Obama administration statement said. "We call on the UN to fully investigate these incidents, and we demand that the perpetrators immediately halt these actions and be held accountable for their crimes."

South Sudan voted to secede in a January referendum promised by a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of brutal civil war between the north and south.

That vote went more smoothly and peacefully than many analysts and humanitarian groups predicted, but a lack of agreement between the two sides on questions such as how to share debt and oil revenues has complicated the split.

The secession could see the north lose some 75 percent of Sudan's current 500,000 barrels a day of oil output, the lifeblood of both the northern and southern economies.

VOLATILE BORDER

Northern forces have been fighting armed groups in the volatile Southern Kordofan border state since a police station was attacked on Saturday.

Between 30,000 and 40,000 people may have fled fighting in the state capital, Kadugli, alone, the United Nations said on Friday. The town's normal population is estimated at 60,000.

"The fighting has spread to the disputed border area of the northernmost tip of Unity state in southern Sudan," Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, told reporters in Geneva.

Armed checkpoints were set up on the main roads inside and around Kadugli and there had been reports of "large-scale" looting as late as Thursday, she added.

Kouider Zerrouk, spokesman for UNMIS, the local U.N. Mission in Sudan, said separately that MiG and Antonov aircraft bombardments were reported in the state's Umm Dorain, Umm Serdiba, Heiban and Saraf el-Gamos on Thursday, and artillery fire could be heard near Kadugli on Friday.

"The security situation in Kadugli and its environs remains volatile," he said. "Military build-up is continuing in various locations."

Analysts have seen Southern Kordofan as a flashpoint because it is home to thousands of northerners who sided with the south against Khartoum during the last civil war. Northern officials have called last week's clashes an "armed rebellion."

The region also holds the most productive oil fields that will be left in the north after the split.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki met with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Thursday to discuss Southern Kordofan and Abyei and was scheduled to travel to Juba to meet officials there on Friday, state news agency SUNA said.

Abyei, long a centerpiece of the north-south divide, has been one of the most contentious issues before southern secession. It is used all year by the south-linked Dinka Ngok people and part of the year by northern Misseriya nomads.

Khartoum took control of the area with tanks and troops nearly three weeks ago, following an attack on a convoy of northern soldiers and U.N. peacekeepers that was blamed on southern forces. The move drew an international outcry.

Abyei was "calm but unpredictable" with sporadic shooting in the region's main town, OCHA said on Friday. Some 101,800 people may have fled the fighting there, it added, up from a previous estimate of 96,000.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz in Khartoum; Editing by Louise Ireland and Peter Cooney)

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North Carolina town challenged by explosive growth

Indian Trail, North Carolina (CNN) -- At every corner and every stoplight in this town some 15 miles southeast of Charlotte, the signs staked in the ground have one message: "Homes ready now."

Brandon Oaks, Taylor Glenn, Shiloh Trace -- each subdivision off Wesley Chapel Road has new homes or ready-to-build plans, priced from the $180,000s to the $300,000s.

Construction and for-sale signs are part of the scenery. Everybody here is new to North Carolina census tract 203.17, one of the fastest-growing places in the fastest-growing county in one of the fastest-growing states. The tract is a slender strip between Orr and Potter roads, bordered for four miles on the east by Wesley Chapel Road, and power lines to the west.

The Census Bureau estimates there were 499 people on this sliver of Union County in 2000. Ten years later, it counted 5,353, an increase of more than 970%.

North Carolina census tract 203.17 in Union County grew by more than 970% between 2000 and 2010.

Tracts are designed for U.S. Census Bureau counts and usually contain 2,500 to 8,000 residents; one tract might cover an entire county in a rural area or a few blocks in a packed city. Tract 203.17 is new, a narrow section carved from a space that was bigger and less populated 10 years earlier.

The new subdivisions in 203.17 are filled with people from Florida, New York, Michigan and nearby Charlotte. They cling to their favored traditions of home and ditch what's less convenient. Residents sip sweet tea while they wait for Brooklyn-style pizza. Few have lived here long enough to have allegiances in the Carolina versus Duke rivalry, but many pay for big TV packages that will broadcast the sports teams they grew up with.

They like what this place is selling: Granite countertops, two-car garages, fresh sod, wide sidewalks and ever-higher numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms. Better still, it's got easy access to the city, mild weather, good schools and low taxes, just 14.5 cents on every $100 for most residents in 203.17.

But there are questions they're all trying to answer. When do you stop being a Floridian, a New Yorker or a Michigander, and start being a North Carolinian?

If we're all new here, who are we at all?

U.S. Highway 74 East

North Carolina's population exploded in the last 10 years, especially around Charlotte's booming (then busting) financial industry.

"We're it," said James H. Johnson Jr., a professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan Flagler Business School and director of the Kenan Institute's Urban Investment Strategies Center. "We are the cat's demographic meow. We are a real migration magnet."

"Gargantuan homes," Johnson said, are the hallmark of western Union County in the last decade, when wheat, corn and soybean fields finally yielded to subdivisions and U.S. Highway 74 traffic.

Most of tract 203.17 lies within the city of Indian Trail. The town was incorporated in 1907 but was little more than a stopping point between Charlotte and the Union County seat, Monroe.

"In the late '60s, maybe early '70s, when I was kind of a kid, it was just a little pit stop," said Jeffrey Goodall, a Union County-raised resident of tract 203.17. "There was a little par three golf course. It had a little train depot 50 or 100 years ago. There was nothing much."

It still has a golf course, but the city has long outgrown "nothing much." Indian Trail's census count jumped from 1,942 in 1990 to 33,518 in 2010. Last year, for the first time, the city's population edged out county seat's by 721 residents.

Goodall, 56, returned to Union County in 2005 after retiring from a military career that moved him through 15 states. His parents had stayed in Union County, and taxes on Goodall's home in Broward County, Florida, were uncomfortably high.

Goodall and his wife settled in to the Brandon Oaks subdivision -- the heart of tract 203.17 -- and by 2007, he'd been elected to the Town Council.

As the rare Carolina native in town, people look to him for history, background and explanations of this place they've all chosen. Neighbors laugh about their accents, most of them different and almost none of them a Southern drawl. Families here attend churches, or synagogues, or mosques.

In the 2000 Census, 36 of the 499 people in 203.17 identified themselves as Latino, 10 as Asian and six as black. Among the 5,353 counted in 2010, there were 584 Latinos, 118 Asians and 803 blacks.

Goodall said he sometimes looks around and wonders what the people here can possibly share. Everybody comes from a different place, with different values, traditions and ideas about the best way to live.

But then, there's a reason everybody found this place.

"No matter how different I think I may be," Goodall said, "everybody's got something in common: They moved here."

Wesley Chapel Road

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, just inside a subdivision entrance off Wesley Chapel Road, the sidewalks are strewn with bikes and strollers. Cars are constantly pulling over to trade 50 cents for a plastic cup of lemonade. The neighbors laugh at the ice cream truck playing Christmas tunes.

Good schools have drawn a lot of families to Indian Trail, North Carolina. On weekends, kids rule the sidewalks.

Parents here all seem to remember childhoods when dozens of kids ruled tidy suburban streets. Moms and dad say these new sidewalks look more like their memories than the aged or empty ones they left behind.

Several said they've convinced their parents, brothers, sisters and friends to move down to Indian Trail, some of them close enough to be in the same census tract. It'll never be Long Island, but when your mom moves down the street and the bagel shop opens for business, you can start to convince yourself that this is home.

Trouble was, as neighborhoods sprung up, Indian Trail didn't keep up, Town Council members said. Residents referred to themselves not by their city or county, but by the name of their subdivision -- "I'm from Brandon Oaks," or "We live in Sheridan."

A couple of years ago, sensing that people didn't identify with the place as a whole, they paid a company to create a logo and motto for the city: "Crossing Paths."

Next, they tried to build places where people really could get together beyond school gyms and grocery store aisles.

"People are moving here now and they're saying 'Where are the restaurants? Where's the entertainment? Where's the parks, the services?'" said Indian Trail Town Manager Joe Fivas, who moved to Indian Trail from Michigan.

He's got the delicate task of deciding what this population of thousands should handle for itself, what it should contract out, and how to pay for it. That means they're inventing public works in the city, but still paying for outside police protection. Existing services are stretched to the limit -- but they'd happily make room to build a few clothing stores or a Chili's.

People were really longing for a sense of identity. It was a large town, but there wasn't anything that that said 'Indian Trail.'
--Gary D'Onofrio, Indian Trail Town Council member

In 2010, Union County residents voted to start allowing alcohol sales, and Indian Trail just opened its first package store. To nobody's surprise, but some people's disappointment, business is great. Several new residents said they like the new grocery stores and the new Bojangles, but a family-friendly, sit-down bar and restaurant would be a huge get.

Till then, the town has its new amphitheater and community space, Crossing Paths Park. They organized the first concert there, and swiftly experienced their first rainout. But people came back the next week for a bluegrass-themed evening. Kids ran around with temporary tattoos that read "I (heart) IT."

It felt like something big had happened.

"People were really longing for a sense of identity. It was a large town, but there wasn't anything that that said 'Indian Trail,' " said Gary D'Onofrio, a Town Council member who moved from Long Island to a subdivision inside tract 203.17. "You can't always identify exactly what it is, but you know it when you see it, 'This is home.' "

Potter Road

Farther down Wesley Chapel Road, the area stops looking like a community-wide open house. There are a few new houses, but more with peeling paint, crumbling foundations and tangled front-yard gardens.

I'm no longer a person. I'm just a number on the road.
--Susie McCoy, tract 203.17 resident

In the farthest reaches of tract 203.17, mostly outside the Indian Trail city limits, there are no official logos or branded street names.

Susie McCoy and her husband, Kenneth, first moved to their 5-acre lot on Potter Road more than 30 years ago. Since then, they've had their own kids, adopted more kids, added grandkids, a couple dozen goats, miniature horses, pet pigs and a three-legged toy dog.

She likes having a Chick-fil-A and entertainment a little closer to home. With more money flowing into the county, she believes the school system only gets better, and in a more diverse class, the kids are introduced to more points of view.

But there's much to miss about the old, less cluttered 203.17:

An even quicker commute to work in Charlotte, on roads empty of traffic and noise. The neighborly belief that a pig roast is a party, not a fire hazard. Kids that can toddle around without shirts or shoes. Horses and chickens grazing and pecking wherever they please, without fear of becoming a petting zoo. Skinny-dipping in the pond across the road. Green fields, green grass, green trees. First-name greetings at the store. Knowledge of who needs a prayer and who can offer one up.

While others were finding themselves here, she felt like she was losing herself.

"I'm no longer a person," McCoy said. "I'm just a number on the road."

But home is wherever her children are, all of 'em, the ones she birthed and the ones she took in when their first homes failed them. It's wherever her husband can Dr. Dolittle all the sick and broken animals that find their way to their yard.

"Inside's home," she said. "Outside's not."

She's already got another place picked out, miles away from 203.17. It's just across the South Carolina state line, on 15 undisturbed acres on a dead-end road.

Like all her new neighbors, she thinks maybe she can build a new home some place else.

Curt Merrill contributed to this report.

CNN

Syrian TV: Army has begun operations in north town (AP)

BEIRUT – Syrian state television says the army has begun operations in a restive northern town near the Turkish border.

The government says the operation aims to restore security in Jisr al-Shughour, where authorities say 120 officers and security personnel were killed by "armed groups" last week.

A Syrian reporter accompanying the troops Friday said troops backed by tanks were on the outer edges of the town, ready to enter.

Reports in the last days of an imminent military operation in Jisr al-Shughour have prompted an exodus of refugees to nearby Turkey.

The military operations are part of a crackdown on an uprising against President Bashar Assad that started in mid-March.

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After Tensions with North, South Korea Ponders Its 63-Year-Old Draft (Time.com)

If Private Jeon is celebrating inside, his disciplined military exterior doesn't show it. Dressed in khaki with black, wide-rimmed spectacles, the 22-year-old is due to finish his 21 months of military service next month, an obligation for almost all of South Korea's 25 million men. "It's good experience for my job," Jeon says during an educational tour of the Demilitarized Zone, the barb-wired no-man's land that has divided the Korean peninsula for 58 years and counting. "Frankly," he adds, "I don't like the military culture. But there's a lot of economic uncertainty."

A national duty and, in theory, an equalizer in a nation with a growing income gap, South Korea's mandatory military service has become an issue of much debate following last year's sinking of the Cheonan Navy vessel and shelling by the North that killed four people on Yeonpyeong Island close to the maritime border. In response, hawks called on the government to increase the period of service from 21 to 24 months, while other segments of society said Seoul should continue a long-standing policy under which compulsory military service is scheduled to be reduced. At 687,000 strong, South Korea's military is the sixth-largest in the world, requiring all healthy men to serve between the ages of 19 and 36. (See pictures of the shelling of Yeonpyeong.)

So far, President Lee Myung-bak has not increased or reduced service. Instead, in December, he froze the current term at 21 months while his government grappled with why last year's attacks happened and what the government and military should do about it. Seoul's military spending has risen nearly 6% this year to $27.7 billion and the government has passed a host of military reforms. But in the end, Seoul did nothing to retaliate - a decision that did not go down well with the average South Korean. A poll by daily newspaper Chosun Ilbo at the end of last year found a majority of people feel the government's response was inadequate.

Disputes over the nation's mandatory military service - a policy that has been in place for the full 63 years of the country's existence - have been brewing for years. Civic and human rights' groups, students, the political opposition, women's organizations, men who have been deemed healthy enough to serve and critics of some privileged few who have not have all asked who should serve, the extent to which objectors should be tolerated and whether those that do their time deserve bonuses upon re-entering the job market. The policy of compensating soldiers returning to work, abolished in 1999 on sexual equality grounds, is now gaining popularity again: A Gallup Korea poll at the end of May found nearly 80% of South Koreans are in favor of reinstating the payment.

Meanwhile, dodging the draft has become something of an art. Conscientious objectors and the rich and famous have gone to extraordinary lengths to escape the draft, an act which carries a minimum 18 months in prison. Some have opted for last-minute full-body tattoos that disqualify them for service; others have lost extreme amounts of weight to fail the medical exam, faked personal records or even changed their nationality. At present, 850 South Koreans are in jail for dodging the draft, including many Jehovah's Witnesses who say it is contrary to the 'love thy neighbor' doctrine, according to Amnesty International.

A number of celebrities and family members of the rich and powerful have in the past tried to elude military service by the use of doctored medical records and even bribes, among other means. South Korea's biggest pop sensation Rain is due to serve in September, and it's not yet clear whether he'll swap his trademark sunglasses and snappy suits for combat boots and khakis. His entourage recently started to bar journalists' questions on the issue.

The backdrop to these shenanigans, however, is more serious. South Korea has in the past year has conducted a greater number of military exercises with the U.S. in and around the DMZ, leading to a series of verbal threats by the North. Popular support for military action against its northern neighbor has risen dramatically in recent months. After the sinking of the Cheonan in March 2010, less than 30% of South Koreans backed a military response. That figure rose significantly after the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island to nearly 70%, according to a December poll by Chosun Ilbo. (See rare photos from inside North Korea.)

At Hongik University in Seoul, the verdict on military service is almost unanimous among male students. "I hated it," says 25-year old math major Lee Sung-hwan. But despite the usual complaints that all cadets have to wear the same clothes and short hair cuts and can't see their girlfriends, Lee believes military service in South Korea is more necessary than ever. Why? "Because of North Korea," he says.

Not surprisingly, it's at the DMZ - both a macabre tourist destination and a very real frontline - where the thousands of young men who comprise South Korea's military might are most visibly on display. The DMZ serves as a temporary home to servicemen enlisted as glorified tour guides in and around sites that attract about five million tourists per year. These draftees are the face of the South Korean military to the world and the enemy - and are, unsurprisingly, tall and easy on the eye. "Is he handsome?" asks a Chinese tour guide in Mandarin as a young, gangly soldier walks onto a tour bus to check passports and ID cards before crossing into the DMZ. A handful of (mostly female) tourists on the bus have a look. "Handsome," they reply.

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Residents fear army attack on north Syrian city (AP)

BEIRUT – Syrian activists say there are fears of a major military attack in a northern region where authorities said weekend clashes between armed men and government troops left 120 security forces dead.

The government has vowed to respond "decisively" to the violence in Jisr al-Shughour, triggering fears of an even more brutal crackdown by a regime known for ruthlessly crushing dissent.

One activist said on Tuesday there were reports from local residents that Syrian troops were preparing for an onslaught on the town of about 50,000 people near the border with Turkey. The activist spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Syria is determined to crush an uprising against President Bashar Assad. Rights group say more than 1,300 have been killed since the revolt began in mid-March.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BEIRUT (AP) — Armed men killed 120 Syrian security forces and torched government buildings Monday in a northern region where troops have unleashed deadly assaults on protesters for days, Syria said. The government vowed to respond "decisively," hinting at an even more brutal crackdown by a regime known for ruthlessly crushing dissent.

If confirmed, the attack in the north would be a turning point in what so far has largely been a peaceful uprising threatening the 40-year rule of President Bashar Assad and his family.

Opposition activists were skeptical of the official casualty toll, saying the authorities were setting the stage for a new onslaught. But even they acknowledged there was fighting, although it was not clear who was involved. The government described the attackers as "armed gangs," a phrase it often uses to describe the protesters.

Communications were cut to the area around Jisr al-Shughour on Monday and the details of the attack were impossible to verify, but there have been unconfirmed reports by activists and residents in the past of Syrians and even mutinous troops fighting back against security forces.

Adnan Mahmoud, the chief government spokesman, acknowledged that Syrian forces had lost control of some areas for "intermittent periods of time" and said residents had appealed to the army to do what was necessary to restore security.

"We will deal strongly and decisively, and according to the law, and we will not be silent about any armed attack that targets the security of the state and its citizens," said Interior Minister Ibrahim Shaar.

The surprisingly high death toll among pro-regime troops would suggest some sort of major lashback against the crackdown against the uprising — though by whom was unknown because of the seal over the area. Regardless of who carried out Monday's attack, it shows new cracks in a rule that has held out through weekly protests of thousands of people.

Human rights activist Mustafa Osso said there were unconfirmed reports of a few soldiers who switched sides and were defending themselves against attacking security forces, but he said the reports suggest the mutiny is limited and "does not pose a threat to the unity of the army yet."

"The protesters have so far been peaceful and unarmed," said Osso.

A Syrian activist speaking on condition of anonymity said there were unconfirmed reports of infighting between security forces. "The situation is very foggy, it is unclear who is doing the shooting, but the situation is very serious and appears to be getting out of control," he said on condition of anonymity.

He said there were fears the army was preparing a major attack.

Before Monday's killings, the government and some human rights groups have said more than 160 soldiers and security forces had died in the uprising. The latest deaths marked by far the deadliest single strike against them.

The government's unusual admission of the death toll and loss of control appeared to set the stage for an even stronger action to crush a popular uprising that began in mid-March and poses a potent threat to the Assad regime.

State television added the armed groups carried out a "real massacre," mutilating some bodies and throwing others in the Orontes River.

Jisr al-Shughour, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the Turkish border, has been the latest focus of Syria's military, whose nationwide crackdown on the revolt has left more than 1,200 Syrians dead, activists say. The town was a stronghold of the country's banned Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s. Human rights groups said at least 42 civilians have been killed there since Saturday.

Syria's government has a history of violent retaliation against dissent, including a three-week bombing campaign against the city of Hama that crushed an uprising there in 1982. Jisr al-Shughour itself came under government shelling in 1980, with a reported 70 people killed.

Assad's decision to allow pro-Palestinian protesters to storm the Israeli border twice in recent weeks indicates he may be trying to deflect focus from a serious crisis at home, and possibly divert international attention from a new crackdown. State television broadly carried Sunday's protest at the Golan Heights to the south frontier, which left as many as 23 people dead in fighting with Israeli forces, but it has not carried any footage of the protest, crackdown or ambush at the northern edge of Syria.

Monday's state television report said the officers were ambushed as they responded to calls from residents for protection from the armed groups. It said 20 policemen were initially killed, and then the groups blew up a post office and attacked a security post, killing other forces.

The report said the armed groups were hiding in homes and firing at security forces and civilians alike, using residents as human shields.

The TV reports could not be independently confirmed. The Syrian government has severely restricted the media and expelled foreign reporters, making it nearly impossible to independently verify events.

Details of the operations in Jisr al-Shughour and nearby Khan Sheikhoun have been sketchy and attempts to reach residents of the town were unsuccessful.

Ahead of Monday's report, another activist said gunmen had successfully kept security forces out of the area, but he had no details. Fearing retaliation, the activist requested anonymity.

A prominent activist in touch with a resident of Jisr al-Shughour said: "There are dozens of people killed and they are a mix of civilians, police and security forces in the past 24 hours.

"There are reports that security forces took a beating and there is armed resistance keeping them on the edges of the town," he said.

Amnesty International criticized Syria's "brutal treatment of protesters" and called on the UN Security Council to condemn the killings and refer Syria to the International Criminal Court.

"Those responsible for the brutal crackdown of pro-reform protesters must no longer be allowed to get away with murder," Philip Luther, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement Monday.

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'Miracle on the Hudson' plane bound for North Carolina

(CNN) -- The aircraft that Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger heroically landed in New York's Hudson River began its long ride Saturday to an aviation museum in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Airbus A320, sans its wings and tail section, left a warehouse in Harrison, New Jersey, for the journey south, according to Shawn Dorsch, president of the Carolinas Aviation Museum.

"It's very hard to miss," Dorsch said of the fuselage. "It's not covered."

The museum has invited the 155 crew members and passengers from the "Miracle on the Hudson" incident for a June 11 arrival reception, at which Sullenberger is the scheduled keynote speaker, Dorsch told CNN.

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 left LaGuardia Airport and ran into a flock of geese that damaged both engines, forcing the crew to make an emergency landing in the frigid Hudson.

Rescuers quickly reached the aircraft and found passengers standing on its wings. Everyone was rescued.

Sullenbeger, who retired in March 2010, and other crew members became instant celebrities.

J. Supor & Son Trucking and Rigging Co. in New Jersey has donated the considerable cost of transporting the aircraft, Dorsch said. About 40 vehicles are in the entourage, which reached Rutgers University later Saturday.

Because the rig's height won't allow the plane to go under older interstate bridges, some of the move will be on other highways, where wires and some stoplights will have to be temporarily moved, Dorsch said.

The plane will be shown off at the Charlotte museum's main hangar.

"It will be on display almost as soon as it arrives," Dorsch said.

US Airways and Airbus mechanics will reassemble the aircraft, including its wings and tail section. Much of that work will be completed by the fall.

Sullenberger's uniform, passenger belongings and other artifacts will be part of the display, he said.

The cabin will look much as it did during the flight, Dorsch added.

Between 30,000 and 35,000 visitors visit the museum annually. Dorsch expects that number will triple within 18 months of the exhibit's opening. Most of the flight's passengers still live in the Charlotte area, he added.

The incident represents the height of technical achievements in safety and human heroism, the museum president said.

Dorsch recalled taking the next flight after Flight 1549 and seeing the plane in the Hudson River.

"I was thinking, 'That could have been me,'" he said.

CNN

North Korea: One of the Happiest Places on Earth? (Time.com)

According to a global happiness index released in North Korea, the country and its allies are the most cheerful countries in the world. Naturally, the "American Empire" strikes Pyongyang as just plain sad.

Shanghaiist reports that North Korea's Chosun Central Television recently came out with a happiness index compiled by local researchers. Their findings? China is the happiest place on the planet, earning 100 points (a perfect score!). At number two is none other than North Korea itself. Cuba, Iran and Venezuela (in that order) round out the top five.

(VIDEO: How one man caught secret video inside North Korea.)

The United States places dead last, coming in 203rd. South Korea is nearly just as depressed a nation; it ranks 152nd on the list. Some spots, North Korea's research indicates, are just nowhere near as smiley as the Axis of Evil.

The Chinese net is ablaze with the results, screen grabs of which have been posted to popular sites. Implored one commenter on the Chinese online forum Mop: "Please send me to the U.S. so I can suffer, too." (via Shanghaiist)

(PHOTOS: Rare pictures inside North Korea.)

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North Sudan Abyei seizure 'illegal,' says south (AFP)

JUBA, Sudan (AFP) – Northern troops seized control of most of Abyei district on Sudan's north-south border Sunday, Khartoum said as the south accused it of an "illegal invasion" that threatens the lives of thousands.

The seizure, coming in the run-up to international recognition of the south's independence in July, was condemned by the world powers as a threat to peace between Sudan's north and south.

Abyei was granted a special status under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended 22 years of devastating civil war between north and south and requires both sides to keep their troops out until a vote to determine its future.

"We are in control of Abyei and all the (Bahr al-Arab) area north of the bank of the river," Khartoum's minister of state for the presidency, Amin Hassan Omer, told a news conference in Khartoum.

"This is because there is still elements from SPLA (the south?s Sudan People?s Liberation Army) trying to enforce its presence in Abyei, and this is not acceptable according to Abyei protocol and the CPA."

South Sudan's government warned the north's "illegal occupation" of Abyei risked tipping the country back to a conflict that would threaten the lives of thousands of civilians.

"This is an illegal invasion and breaks all the peace agreements, endangering the lives of thousands of civilians," said south Sudan's information minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin.

"They (the north) are in a fighting mood but we can not accept that they drag the people of Sudan down the drain."

Both sides said they were committed to the CPA.

Omer said "the next step is that we are ready for engagement and negotiations to stop the problem.

"We are a responsible government, we'll not leave any part of Sudan in a security vacuum," he said.

The south's Benjamin said: "We are committed to the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement."

SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer said earlier that "the fighting has been very, very bad" and that "indiscriminate" bombing forced people to flee.

"People have fled the area, because the bombardment was indiscriminate -- bombs from the air and from tanks on the ground," he added.

Troops loyal to the SPLA had all retreated into the south from the disputed district on the border with the north, he added.

Britain on Sunday joined the growing chorus of international condemnation of the north's move into the contested district.

"I condemn recent military actions in and around Abyei, including the attack on Abyei town by the Sudanese armed forces on 21 May and the attack on a joint Sudanese armed forces and UN convoy on 19 May," said Foreign Secretary William Hague in a statement.

The United Nations had called Saturday for an "immediate cessation of hostilities," after the United States and France called on Khartoum to withdraw its forces.

A UN base in Abyei came under attack, with a mortar round landing inside the compound, but there were no casualties, a UN spokesman said.

Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres, which runs health clinics in Abyei town and 40 kilometres (25 miles) to the south in Agok, said in a statement the "entire population of Abyei town fled the city."

Its clinic in Agok had received 42 wounded people by Saturday evening.

Fighting in Abyei has pitted the former civil war enemies against each other since January when the district was due to vote on its future alongside a referendum on independence for the south which delivered a landslide for secession.

But the plebiscite was postponed indefinitely as the north and south disagreed on who should be eligible to vote in an area where conflicted loyalties and land disputes keep tensions high.

A UN Security Council delegation met Sunday with representatives of the Sudanese government in Khartoum but neither Foreign Minister Ali Karti, who was expected to lead discussions, nor Vice President Ali Osman Taha were present.

"The issue of Abyei was of course at the heart of discussions and the Sudanese party expressed its will to cooperate" with the international community, a participant told AFP on condition of anonymity.

State news agency Suna, meanwhile, said Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir ordered mixed local administrative units be replaced, a move violating the 2005 peace treaty.

The district's future is the most sensitive of a raft of issues the two sides had been struggling to reach agreement on before July.

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Mystery North Korean visitor in China veiled by security (Reuters)

CHANGCHUN, China (Reuters) – A train from North Korea headed through China on Saturday on secretive journey that may be a mission by leader Kim Jong-il's to shore up ties with Pyongyang's sole major supporter.

Neither Beijing nor Pyongyang has said whether Kim, and maybe his son and heir apparent Kim Jong-un, is visiting China on the distinctive North Korean train. Both sides are habitually secretive about such trips.

But the tight security and unscheduled route of the train echoed past visits by the elder Kim, who visited China twice last year to woo his powerful neighbor.

On Saturday, the delegation rolled into Changchun, capital of Jilin province. A convoy of cars that included a black Mercedes Benz with darkened windows took mystery guests into a heavily guarded hotel.

Later the motorcade left for the train station, and the visitors continued their rail journey, passed through Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province, and in the evening headed in the direction of the national capital, Beijing, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

There was no certainty, however, that the train would stop in Beijing. Kim's movements are always cloaked in secrecy, and in the past, China and North Korea have acknowledged his visits only near or after their end.

Japan's Kyodo news agency issued a photograph that appeared to show the 69-year-old Kim Jong-il, with his distinctive frizz of hair and olive-green clothing, leaving a hotel in Mudanjiang, where he apparently stopped on Friday before going to Changchun.

China's Premier Wen Jiabao is currently visiting Japan for a summit with the leaders of Japan and South Korea, both foes of Pyongyang.

North Korea rattled the region last year with its increasingly belligerent stance toward the far richer South, and has drawn closer to neighbor Beijing for economic and diplomatic support.

STRATEGIC BULWARK

China has sought to steady ties with Seoul and Tokyo, but also sees North Korea as a strategic bulwark against the United States and its regional allies. In recent years, China has sought to shore up relations with the North with increased aid and trade and frequent visits there by leaders.

The arrival in China on Friday of a train from North Korea prompted South Korean officials and media to conclude it was carrying Kim Jong-un, anointed last year as heir apparent to his father, but speculation then shifted to it being the father.

A South Korean newspaper, the Chosun Ilbo, reported that Kim Jong-un, in his late 20s, was not among the North Korean visitors, citing government sources.

Kim Jong-il travels by train due to his fear of flying, and visited China last May and August. Northeast China could play an important part in North Korea's economy, and Kim Jong-il has traveled there before, including last year when Chinese President Hu prodded him to open up the North's economy.

During that trip, Kim told Hu that Pyongyang remained committed to dismantling nuclear facilities in line with previous international agreements.

In November, however, the North showed a U.S. nuclear physicist what it said was a uranium enrichment facility, which could ultimately open a second route to make a nuclear bomb along with its plutonium programme.

Kim Jong-il is widely believed by South Korean officials and experts to have suffered a stroke in 2008. But his health appears to have improved since the visits to China last year, prompting diplomats and analysts to re-evaluate their assessment of the pace of succession.

(Additional reporting by Maxim Duncan in CHANGCHUN, China; Hyunjoo Jin in SEOUL; Additional reporting and writing by Chris Buckley in BEIJING; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Mexico sending troops to north amid attacks

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico sent hundreds of soldiers and federal police to a drug-violence plagued northern region Friday, the same day cartel gunmen fired on a military convoy with a grenade launcher and hit a bus carrying employees of a U.S.-owned assembly plant.

Demonstrators march along the Mexico-Cuernavaca 95D highway to protest against violence Friday near Cuajomulmo, Mexico.

The attack on the army convoy underscored the growing boldness of Mexico's drug cartels.

The army said attackers believed to be working for the Zetas cartel opened fire on the army vehicles with guns and a grenade launcher from a highway overpass on the outskirts of the northern city of Monterrey. One soldier and five people in passing vehicles were wounded, and one attacker was killed, the Defense Department said.

The statement said the bus hit in the attack was transporting employees of the Montoi company, a branch of U.S.-based toy maker Mattel Inc. It was not clear if company employees were among the injured.

As the attackers fled in several vehicles, soldiers pursued and killed one suspect and captured two others, one of them a woman who was wounded in the gunfight, the military said.

The army said it found grenades, guns and hats with the letter "Z" — the Zetas symbol — at the scene as well as people who had apparently been kidnapped by the gang.

In a response to stepped-up cartel violence in northern Mexico, the government sent additional forces to the Comarca Lagunera region that straddles Coahuila and Durango states, to the west of Monterrey, the Interior Department said.

The announcement came three days after Interior Secretary Francisco Blake met with the governors of the two states. He discussed the possibility of sending federal forces to the region but also urged the governors to step up efforts to root out corruption in state and municipal police forces.

The troops and federal police are being deployed because of "weak local governments and a rise in crime including kidnapping, extortion and homicide," the statement said.

Amid relentless cartel violence, President Felipe Calderon's government has increasingly criticized state governments for failing to clean up own police forces. State government officials routinely insist organized crime is a federal offense and say state and municipal police forces are ill-equipped to confront the cartels' heavily armed gunmen.

The statement did not say how many soldiers and police are being deployed, but an Interior Department official said it will be hundreds. The official insisted on speaking anonymously because he revealed the information before the official announcement was made.

Local businessmen demanded stepped up security in the region after a prominent rancher with ties to the Lala dairy company was killed.

The region is a stronghold of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which is fighting the Zetas cartel there.

Farther south in Durango state's capital, also called Durango, authorities said Friday they had recovered 11 more bodies at a series of mass grave pits, bringing the total number of bodies found in a monthlong search of the pits to at least 157.

The pits are believed to hold the remains of drug cartel victims, possibly including executed rivals.

Calderon has deployed more than 45,000 federal troops and police to drug trafficking hotspots across Mexico since taking office in December 2006.

Although an unprecedented number of cartel bosses have been captured or killed, violence has soared, claiming more than 34,600 lives the last four years.

The deployment of thousands of federal personnel — first troops, then police — failed to curb violence in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, where more than 3,000 people were slain last year.

The government said it stepped up security in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas after 72 Central American and South American migrants were slaughtered there last August, apparently by Zetas gunmen who tried to recruit them.

Despite the claim of increased security, the same cartel was accused of an even larger slaughter this year: 183 bodies were pulled from clandestine graves last month in the same area where the migrants were massacred. Many of the victims had apparently been pulled off passenger buses by Zetas gunmen trying to recruit them.

The government, however, says federal forces have also rescued dozens of kidnapped migrants in Tamaulipas in recent weeks.

On Friday, the federal Attorney General's Office announced the arrest of four municipal police for allegedly participating in the kidnapping of 68 migrants who were rescued by federal police last month from a house in Reynosa, a city across the border from McAllen, Texas.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read more.

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Mexico sending troops to north amid attacks

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico sent hundreds of soldiers and federal police to a drug-violence plagued northern region Friday, the same day cartel gunmen fired on a military convoy with a grenade launcher and hit a bus carrying employees of a U.S.-owned assembly plant.

Demonstrators march along the Mexico-Cuernavaca 95D highway to protest against violence Friday near Cuajomulmo, Mexico.

The attack on the army convoy underscored the growing boldness of Mexico's drug cartels.

The army said attackers believed to be working for the Zetas cartel opened fire on the army vehicles with guns and a grenade launcher from a highway overpass on the outskirts of the northern city of Monterrey. One soldier and five people in passing vehicles were wounded, and one attacker was killed, the Defense Department said.

The statement said the bus hit in the attack was transporting employees of the Montoi company, a branch of U.S.-based toy maker Mattel Inc. It was not clear if company employees were among the injured.

As the attackers fled in several vehicles, soldiers pursued and killed one suspect and captured two others, one of them a woman who was wounded in the gunfight, the military said.

The army said it found grenades, guns and hats with the letter "Z" — the Zetas symbol — at the scene as well as people who had apparently been kidnapped by the gang.

In a response to stepped-up cartel violence in northern Mexico, the government sent additional forces to the Comarca Lagunera region that straddles Coahuila and Durango states, to the west of Monterrey, the Interior Department said.

The announcement came three days after Interior Secretary Francisco Blake met with the governors of the two states. He discussed the possibility of sending federal forces to the region but also urged the governors to step up efforts to root out corruption in state and municipal police forces.

The troops and federal police are being deployed because of "weak local governments and a rise in crime including kidnapping, extortion and homicide," the statement said.

Amid relentless cartel violence, President Felipe Calderon's government has increasingly criticized state governments for failing to clean up own police forces. State government officials routinely insist organized crime is a federal offense and say state and municipal police forces are ill-equipped to confront the cartels' heavily armed gunmen.

The statement did not say how many soldiers and police are being deployed, but an Interior Department official said it will be hundreds. The official insisted on speaking anonymously because he revealed the information before the official announcement was made.

Local businessmen demanded stepped up security in the region after a prominent rancher with ties to the Lala dairy company was killed.

The region is a stronghold of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which is fighting the Zetas cartel there.

Farther south in Durango state's capital, also called Durango, authorities said Friday they had recovered 11 more bodies at a series of mass grave pits, bringing the total number of bodies found in a monthlong search of the pits to at least 157.

The pits are believed to hold the remains of drug cartel victims, possibly including executed rivals.

Calderon has deployed more than 45,000 federal troops and police to drug trafficking hotspots across Mexico since taking office in December 2006.

Although an unprecedented number of cartel bosses have been captured or killed, violence has soared, claiming more than 34,600 lives the last four years.

The deployment of thousands of federal personnel — first troops, then police — failed to curb violence in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, where more than 3,000 people were slain last year.

The government said it stepped up security in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas after 72 Central American and South American migrants were slaughtered there last August, apparently by Zetas gunmen who tried to recruit them.

Despite the claim of increased security, the same cartel was accused of an even larger slaughter this year: 183 bodies were pulled from clandestine graves last month in the same area where the migrants were massacred. Many of the victims had apparently been pulled off passenger buses by Zetas gunmen trying to recruit them.

The government, however, says federal forces have also rescued dozens of kidnapped migrants in Tamaulipas in recent weeks.

On Friday, the federal Attorney General's Office announced the arrest of four municipal police for allegedly participating in the kidnapping of 68 migrants who were rescued by federal police last month from a house in Reynosa, a city across the border from McAllen, Texas.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read more.

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SUV accident kills 5 in eastern North Carolina

By Rick Martin, CNN STORY HIGHLIGHTSVictims include boyfriend, girlfriend and three small childrenState trooper says driver was speedingAccident occurred on a gravel road in a national forest, trooper says (CNN) -- A speeding driver traveling through Croatan National Forest in eastern North Carolina Sunday evening lost control of her SUV which overturned killing herself, another adult passenger and three children, a state highway patrol trooper told CNN.

The accident occurred shortly before 6:00 p.m., according to North Carolina Highway Patrol Trooper R.A. Woods. Police identified the driver as Maria Gonzales, 24, and the passengers as Abdil Salis, 24; Alexander Gomez, 6; Adyelis Salgonzalez, 2; and four-month-old Abdil Salis, Jr.

The state trooper said the two youngest victims were found in their child restraints.

Woods said Gonzales was driving a 1996 Chevy Blazer on a gravel road in the Craven County part of the national forest when she lost control of the vehicle. The SUV, he said, ran off the road and overturned in a canal. Woods said "the driver was driving too fast and lost control."

"We've had fatal accidents on this stretch of the road before, but this is the first time I've run across a family killed at one time," said Woods.

Woods said the adults traveling in the vehicle were boyfriend and girlfriend. He did not say how all five victims were related to each other.

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