KABUL -- Afghanistan's weather office is still strewn with rubble from the day in 1996 when Taliban supporters sacked it and put an end to weather forecasting, a science they considered sorcery. The main floor of the Afghanistan Meteorological Authority is filled with smashed equipment and charred sheets of paper, the remains of 100 years of weather records. Abdul Qadeer, head of the country's weather forecasting agency, explains that he is still reeling from the Taliban decree that he could deliver today's weather, but not the forecast for tomorrow. "They were allergic to the word 'prediction,' " Qadeer said of...