Fireworks lit the sky when the clock struck midnight (2100 GMT Friday) and packed cars drove around the capital Juba with drivers honking and passengers waving their new flag from the windows.
The noise from the large crowd gathered around the countdown clock, at the main crossroads in the new country's capital Juba, was deafening, an AFP news hound said.
Standing next to the flashing clock, which read "free at last," 27-year-old university student Andrew Nuer could barely describe how he felt as cars hooted around him and people danced in the street.
"We have struggled for so many years and this is our day -- you cannot imagine how good it feels," said Nuer, who had just come back from Cairo to celebrate independence.
"We pray to God in the future to help us make this a prosperous and peaceful country, and to show the world that we can do it," he added.
Hours earlier, world leaders including UN chief
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
had flown into Juba for Saturday's official celebrations.
"Fifty years fighting for independence and if this is freedom, then this is great," said Daniel Bol, banging his tin drum.
One sign on the back of a car full of flag waving southerners read: "Just divorced." South Sudan's independence comes exactly six months after a referendum that saw southerners vote almost unanimously to split with their former civil war enemies in the north.
For decades, until a peace agreement was signed in 2005, southern rebels fought two wars with successive Khartoum governments for greater autonomy and recognition.
"We are free! We are free! Goodbye north, hello happiness!" screamed Mary Okach.
Saturday's independence ceremony is to be held at the mausoleum of the late rebel leader John Garang, who died only months after signing the peace accord that ended Africa's longest-running conflict and opened the door to eventual nationhood.
Military parades, prayers and a performance of the new national anthem are to take place from 0815 GMT, followed by the declaration of independence, the raising of the Republic of South Sudan's flag and the new country's first president, Salva Kiir, taking the oath of office.
The ceremony, due to be attended by 30 African leaders and top-ranking foreign officials, will be the largest international gathering ever seen in Juba -- a war-damaged former garrison town on the White Nile that lacks even basic infrastructure, including reliable power, water and sewage systems.
Southern officials have said the chief guest of honour at the celebrations will be Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president. Omar's peculiar talent lies in starting conflict. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its imminent secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
, who is wanted by the
International Criminal Court... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
for alleged crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur.
The UN chief said after arriving in Juba on Friday that the people of the world's newest nation had "achieved their dream." The UN and the international community will continue to stand by South Sudan. I am very happy to be here," Ban added.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Organisers of a landmark south Sudan independence vote confirmed Thursday the turnout threshold needed for it to be valid has been reached as ex-US president 
Republican John McCain, speaking to a raucous crowd on Cuba's independence day, hammered Democrat Barack Obama for saying he would meet with Cuban President Raul Castro and called Obama a "tool of organized labor" for opposing a Latin American trade deal. 
JUBA, Sudan - Southern Sudan's minister of defence and another government official were killed on Friday in a plane crash, southern government officials said. 
The tragedy of Rwanda a dozen years ago was that no one was concerned until the genocidal rampage killed some 800,000, and the UN vowed "never again." The tragedy of Darfur today is that everyone is concerned -- but little is being done, least of all by the UN. 
President Bush and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan agreed on the need for a bigger, more mobile peacekeeping force in Sudan's troubled Darfur region during a White House meeting yesterday, but Annan made no specific requests for U.S. military help.
While the outside world focuses on Kim Jong-il's nuclear weapons program, domestically he runs the world's most tightly controlled society. North Korea continues to rank last in the index of press freedom compiled by Reporters Without Borders, and for the 34th straight year it earned the worst possible score on political rights and civil liberties from Freedom House. An estimated 250,000 people are confined in "reeducation camps." Malnourishment is widespread: According to the United Nations World Food Program, the average 7-year-old boy in North Korea is almost 8 inches shorter than a South Korean boy the same age and more than 20 pounds lighter. 
In November 2005, without warning, Than Shwe moved his entire government from Rangoon (Yangon), the capital for the last 120 years, to Pyinmana, a remote area 245 miles away. Civil servants were given two days' notice and are forbidden from resigning. Burma leads the world in the use of children as soldiers, and the regime is notorious for using forced labor on construction projects and as porters for the army in war zones. The long-standing house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and Than Shwe's most feared opponent, recently was extended for six months. Just to drive near her heavily guarded home is to risk arrest.
Life in Zimbabwe has gone from bad to worse: It has the world's highest inflation rate, 80% unemployment and an HIV/AIDS rate of more than 20%. Life expectancy has declined since 1988 from 62 to 38 years. Farming has collapsed since 2000, when Mugabe began seizing white-owned farms, giving most of them to political allies with no background in agriculture. In 2005, Mugabe launched Operation Murambatsvina (Clean the Filth), the forcible eviction of some 700,000 people from their homes or businesses"to restore order and sanity," says the government. But locals say the reason was to forestall demonstrations as the economy deteriorates. 
Until 2005, the worst excesses of Karimov's regime had taken place in the torture rooms of his prisons. But on May 13, he ordered a mass killing that could not be concealed. In the city of Andijan, 23 businessmen, held in prison and awaiting a verdict, were freed by their supporters, who then held an open meeting in the town square. An estimated 10,000 people gathered, expecting government officials to come and listen to their grievances. Instead, Karimov sent the army, which massacred hundreds of men, women and children. A 2003 law made Karimov and all members of his family immune from prosecution forever.
Although Abdullah did not become king until 2005, he has ruled Saudi Arabia since his half-brother, Fahd, suffered a stroke 10 years earlier. In Saudi Arabia, phone calls are recorded and mobile phones with cameras are banned. It is illegal for public employees "to engage in dialogue with local and foreign media." By law, all Saudi citizens must be Muslims. According to Amnesty International, police in Saudi Arabia routinely use torture to extract "confessions." Saudi women may not appear in public with a man who isn't a relative, must cover their bodies and faces in public and may not drive. The strict suppression of women is not voluntary, and Saudi women who would like to live a freer life are not allowed to do so.
Niyazov has created the world's most pervasive personality cult, and criticism of any of his policies is considered treason. The latest examples of his government-by-whim include bans on car radios, lip-synching and playing recorded music on TV or at weddings. Niyazov also has closed all national parks and shut down rural libraries. He launched an attack on his nation's health-care system, firing 15,000 health-care workers and replacing most of them with untrained military conscripts. He announced the closing of all hospitals outside the capital and ordered Turkmenistan's physicians to give up the Hippocratic Oath and to swear allegiance to him instead.
Over the past four years, the rulers of Iran have undone the reforms that were emerging in the nation. The hardliners completed this reversal by winning the parliamentary elections in 2004 after disqualifying 44% of the candidatesand with the presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2005. Ultimately, however, the country is run by the 12-man Guardian Council, overseen by the Ayatollah Khamane'i, which has the right to veto any law that the elected government passes. Khamane'i has shut down the free press, tortured journalists and ordered the execution of homosexual males.
Obiang took power in this tiny West African nation by overthrowing his uncle more than 25 years ago. According to a United Nations inspector, torture "is the normal means of investigation" in Equatorial Guinea. There is no freedom of speech, and there are no bookstores or newsstands. The one private radio station is owned by Obiang's son. Since major oil reserves were discovered in Equatorial Guinea in 1995, Obiang has deposited more than $700 million into special accounts in U.S. banks. Meanwhile, most of his people live on less than $1 a day.
Qaddafi has made his peace with the outside world by renouncing his quest for weapons of mass destruction and opening his oil fields to foreign companies. But domestically he continues to operate a brutal regime. According to the U.S. Department of State, at least 10% of the population is engaged in surveillance of the other 90%. Libyan law provides for collective punishment in which the relatives, friends and even neighbors of someone found guilty of a crime can also be punished. Criticizing Qaddafi is considered a crime punishable by death.
Africa's last remaining absolute monarch, Mswati III took power at the age of 18. Since then he has allowed his country to slide into extreme poverty, with 69% of the Swazi people living on less than $1 a day. Swaziland has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world: almost 40%. The country has operated without a constitution for 30 years. Mswati has agreed to implement a new one in 2006, however, it bans political parties, gives Mswati the right to reject any laws passed by the legislature and grants him immunity against all possible crimes.
Europe's last dictator, Aleksandr Lukashenko was elected Belarus' first president after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Since then he has rewritten the constitution to allow him to appoint all 110 members of the upper house of the legislature, and he has harassed his opponents, sometimes having them arrested on live television. He also has mandated a return to Communist-style "mutual surveillance," encouraging workers to use "trouble telephones" to inform on one another. It is against the law to criticize him.
Fidel Castro moved into his 47th year as the leader of Cuba, continuing his record as the longest-reigning dictator in the world. He seems to be telling his people that two generations have passed and no one in Cuba is worthy of taking his place. Cuba had one of the worst scores on Reporters Without Borders' international index of press freedom.
A former ophthamology student, in 2000 Bashar inherited power from his father, who had ruled Syria for 29 years. Recently the Syrian government has received international condemnation for its presumed involvement in the assassination of the ex-prime minister of neighboring Lebanon. In Syria itself, "emergency rule" has been in effect since 1963. Amnesty International has documented 38 different types of torture that have been used in Syria in recent years. 
General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a military coup that overthrew an elected government. He appointed himself president of Pakistan in 2001 and then attempted to legitimize his rule by staging an election in 2002. However, the election did not come close to meeting international standards. Musharraf agreed to step down as head of the military but then changed his mind, claiming that the nation needed to unify its political and military elements and that he could provide this unity. He justified his decision by stating, "I think the country is more important than democracy." Prior to September 11, 2001, Musharraf was an ardent supporter of Afghanistan's Taliban regime.