Beijing

Beijing -- They might have had a Christmas baby. But things went terribly wrong that day in late November. It started with a bad cough. Li Liyun, a 22-year-old migrant worker, tried to ignore it because she couldn't afford medicine. She certainly couldn't afford a prenatal checkup. She and her partner, Xiao Zhijun, were so broke, sometimes they went for three days without food before refilling with a bowl of rice and cabbage soup. When Li had trouble breathing, Xiao rushed her to a clinic, which transferred her to a hospital nearby.

BEIJING -- A rare open letter signed by 17 former top officials and conservative Marxist scholars before a key Communist Party meeting accuses China's top leaders of steering the country in the wrong direction, pandering to foreigners, betraying the workers' revolution and jeopardizing social stability. "We're going down an evil road," said the letter posted on the Web site Mao Zedong's Flag. "The whole country is at a most precarious time." The challenge is unusual both for the importance of its signatories and for its timing during the time leading up to this fall's Party Congress -- an event held once every five years and a key date on the political calendar.

Beijing -- Earlier, whisking nearly 600 mph thousands of feet above Siberia, an airline crew member recognized the flight's most famous passenger. He pulled Cal Ripken Jr. aside, into the service area of the plane and asked for an autograph. But by the time the 13-hour flight had ended and Ripken had finally set foot on Chinese soil, he moved with ease through Beijing Capital International Airport, drawing no second looks, no autograph hounds and no curiosity. No, the Hall of Famer wasn't in Baltimore anymore.

BEIJING -- It was only three months ago that international energy officials revised a prediction that China would surpass the United States as the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases by 2009 or 2010. It could happen, they warned, as early as the end of this year. That might have been conservative. China's emissions of carbon dioxide, the most significant greenhouse gas, have exceeded those of the United States, according to a report released this week by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

BEIJING -- In the largest protest Beijing has seen since the ill-fated occupation of Tiananmen Square 10 years ago, more than 10,000 followers of a quasi-religious sect surrounded the Chinese leadership compound yesterday demanding freedom to practice their beliefs.The quiet and peaceful demonstration, which broke up late last night, caught China's security apparatus flat-footed at a time when it is on heightened alert to head off just such public protests.In the past six months, the government has cracked down on democracy advocates and closed or suspended various intellectual journals and publishing houses.

BEIJING -- At least three dissidents have been detained in the past week. Others report intensified police scrutiny. Since Wednesday, so many police have been following He Xintong, the wife of imprisoned dissident leader Xu Wenli, that she realized something must be up."They are on bicycles, on motorcycles and in cars, and they all have walkie-talkies so they can communicate with each other," said He, who is accustomed to police harassment but was puzzled by the sudden surge of interest in her activities -- until she heard a foreign radio news broadcast that explained everything.

BEIJING -- The high-stakes trade negotiations here pulled out of a steep dip yesterday, as the U.S. team once again canceled its departure and resumed talks on China's possible admission to the World Trade Organization.Both sides were tight-lipped about progress.John Sullivan, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce here, said the situation remained hopeful as long as, after 13 years of negotiations, the two sides kept talking about China's becoming a member of the rule-making body for global trade.

BEIJING -- Exquisitely carved chairs from the Ming Dynasty bring as much as $80,000 at Sotheby's, but the most popular home-furnishing item in the Chinese capital these days may be an $8 steel floor lamp at IKEA.Since the Swedish furniture giant opened a store here in December, IKEA's showroom has become about the hottest spot in Beijing. Each weekend, tens of thousands of people pour through the doors in what looks more like an invasion than a shopping spree.As if wandering through an amusement park, people stretch out on the futons, climb the ladders of the loft-style beds and peer curiously at the do-it-yourself flooring.

The Los Angeles Times said in an editorial yesterday:THE United States is probably a decade or more away from being able to deploy a system in East Asia to defend its forces and allies there against low-altitude missiles, but China is already threatening to turn that prospect into a source of contention.Beijing claims that such a system would provide the Japanese with a protective shield behind which they could develop offensive missiles to threaten China. It further fears seeing its strategic advantage diminished if the United States shares missile defense technology with Taiwan.

BEIJING -- In a surprise move, the United States and China are extending talks into a fourth day in an attempt to break the stalemate over Beijing's bid to enter the World Trade Organization."

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Normally, the Charlotte UltraSwim Grand Prix is a pretty tame affair. In a busy year, USA Swimming credentials eight to 10 media members to cover the meet, and that would probably be a generous estimate. But when Michael Phelps announced that the UltraSwim, which begins Friday, would be his first meet since he won eight gold medals in Beijing - and the first meet since his three-month suspension for being photographed with a bong ended - normal and tame got tossed out the window.

BEIJING - Chinese police have detained at least five parents who were trying to hold a news conference to publicize the plight of their children, who are suffering from kidney stones as a result of drinking tainted baby formula. The parents were taken late Thursday to a hotel often used by police as a temporary detention center on the outskirts of Beijing. They had scheduled a news conference in the capital for yesterday afternoon, according to lawyers. "It is sorrowful for our nation.

A broad political transition has been accelerating in recent weeks: the shift from the U.S.-dominated world we have lived in since 1989 to one in which global power has become significantly more diffuse, more networked, and more Asian. On Dec. 4, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson went to Beijing to beg China to help stabilize the tanking U.S. economy. In earlier decades, when nations around the world had economic crises, they'd send officials to Washington to ask for help. Now, it's the U.S. that's in trouble.

4 European aid workers abducted in Somalia PARIS: Armed men ambushed a convoy in Somalia yesterday, taking four European aid workers and two Kenyans hostage, officials said. French aid group Action Against Hunger said the attack took place in the town of Dhusamareb, about 360 miles north of the capital, Mogadishu, when the six were going to an airport to board a chartered plane for Nairobi, Kenya. The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry said two Kenyan pilots and four aid workers - two French citizens, a Belgian and a Bulgarian - were kidnapped.

Tatyana McFadden is coming back from the Paralympics Games in Beijing with a little extra baggage: four medals. The Clarksville native and Atholton High School graduate earned three silvers and a bronze while setting U.S. records in 100-, 200-, 400- and 800-meter races along the way. Gov. Martin O'Malley has invited McFadden and other Olympians such as Michael Phelps to a parade and fireworks display in their honor Oct. 4. And McFadden has been invited...

BEIJING - And for their final surprise, the Chinese laughed. Formally ending an Olympics that were as much mystery as majesty, the host nation unfolded its arms, threw back its head and howled. There were silly flying drummers, a human tambourine composed of thousands of shimmying women and unicyclists rolling giant glowing circles. There were guns shooting confetti into the stands, gymnasts on stilts, and Power Ranger look-alikes. In the closing ceremony, after two weeks of an Olympics run as sternly as the soldiers who stood guard, the Chinese finally let that guard down.

Editor's Note: In the spirit of the From Baltimore to Beijing blog, Rick and Kevin dialogued about their Olympic experiences: Rick Maese: Until a few years ago, tradition called for the Olympics to close with a grandiose and dramatic pronouncement. The top boss would proclaim for all of the gathered nations and athletes that these particular Games were undoubtedly the best ever. As these Beijing Games draw to a close today, there's no need to jump into the deep end of the hyperbole pool.

BEIJING - Four years ago in Athens, 26 Olympians tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, which most agree was only a fraction of those who had artificial help gushing through their bloodstream. This weekend in China, Ukrainian weightlifter Igor Razoronov submitted a dirty test. He was just the sixth athlete busted at these Summer Games, representing quite a falloff from the 2004 total. There really aren't a whole lot of conclusions for us to draw here. The athletes have either been scared clean, or they've stayed ahead of the drug testers.

BEIJING - Afterward, as his players sat grim-faced and stricken, their silver medal a shiny symbol of rare failure, U.S. softball coach Mike Candrea would tell them he was proud of them. And he would tell them something else. "As athletes, it's awfully tough to handle disappointment, but that's athletics," he said. "As I told the girls tonight, 'There are going to be other things in life that are more tragic than tonight.' " Candrea knows tragedy. He lost his wife, Sue, to a brain aneurysm just weeks before the Athens Olympics four years ago. But he was not issuing ominous warnings as much as trying to put the U.S. team's 3-1 loss to Japan in last night's gold-medal game into some sort of perspective.

BEIJING - The Olympic women's basketball semifinal between the United States and Russia needed another subplot like three-time gold medalist Lisa Leslie needed "Star-Spangled Banner" lyrics. Yet there it is, South Dakotan Becky Hammon wearing the red and white - but no blue - of Russia, a move that Leslie initially described as "un-American." This story line follows Russia upsetting the Americans in a 2006 world championship semifinal, as well as the minor detail of today's winner advancing to Saturday's gold-medal game.