Mongolia

A delegation of six elected officials from Mongolia arrived i Annapolis last week to observe Maryland lawmakers as they conducted their daily routine of hearings and floor sessions. They first visited the House and later popped in to watch the Senate.As is the polite custom of the Senate, the representatives of the new Mongolian democracy were formally introduced to the lawmakers, who greeted them with applause.Always a quick one with a historical tidbit, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. announced to the Senate and its visitors that Maryland and Mongolia are alike in at least one respect.

BEIJING - As the U.S. men's indoor volleyball team joyously and raucously celebrated its unlikeliest of gold medals, its coach, Hugh McCutcheon, found a private corridor to collect his thoughts. Yesterday afternoon, this bedrock of serenity and strength during unspeakable family tragedy finally experienced a moment that overwhelmed him. McCutcheon's steady demeanor after his father-in-law was killed here on the first Saturday of the Games, on the eve of Team USA's opening match, had permeated his squad, which struggled to express proper awe and admiration for its leader after its 3-1 victory over Brazil.

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia - For proof that China's surging textile exports to the United States this year have been putting people out of work, look no further than the rows of unmanned sewing machines in Zheng Chenli's shut-down factory - in Mongolia. Zheng's MCX garment factory was one of about 80 textile plants owned or partially financed by foreigners, including more than 20 plants financed by entrepreneurs from China, that operated here for years, solely to get around quotas that capped China's exports of clothing to the United States.

U.S. diplomat shot to death in Sudan NAIROBI, Kenya -- A U.S. diplomat and his driver were shot and killed early yesterday in Sudan as they were going home from a New Year's Eve party in Khartoum, the capital. In Washington, the Agency for International Development identified the diplomat as one of its officials, John Granville, 33. American officials said it was "too early to tell" whether the shooting had been random or planned, but Sudanese officials said the circumstances were suspicious, especially because gun crime is rare in Khartoum, considered one of the safer cities in Africa.

KARAKORUM, Mongolia -- On a summer day, the silence at the Erdene Zuu Monastery can be unnerving. Inside the main hall, a dozen lonely monks are singing the tantric chants of Tibetan Buddhism; the grounds have the wasted and beaten look of chronic neglect.Yet here and throughout Mongolia, the beginnings of a great religious revival are slowly becoming apparent, one with profound implications for neighboring China and its troubled province, Tibet.Mongolia is more than another former Communist state recapturing its traditions.

KARAKORUM, Mongolia -- In a quiet valley at the end of a rutted road, a few stone and ceramic fragments have been piled on top of each other in memory of the past. The beheaded stone lions and smashed tiles are about all that remain above ground of ancient Karakorum, once the capital of the world's largest empire.Now, 790 years after Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, his descendants are trying to establish themselves in the modern world, breaking out of centuries of isolation and foreign occupation to build an open, prosperous nation.

During her 15 months teaching students in rural Mongolia, Katie Church lived in a tent. She had no running water or electricity. She cooked her meals in a makeshift fireplace. She fought winter temperatures that dropped to 40 degrees below zero. Six years later, the St. Mary's High School graduate has returned to Mongolia in hopes of helping substance abusers. Church, who has dedicated her life to public service since graduating from St. Mary's College in 1999, was recently honored by the Southern Maryland school with its first Outstanding Young Alumni award.

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia -- Storm clouds roll over the city and suddenly rip open to pour rain over this sprawling, dusty outpost. A crowd of Buddhists crane their necks heavenward and weep.It is more than relief from the blazing central Asian sky that prompts the tears. These people believe they are witnessing a miracle. Mongolians wipe the sweat off winning racehorses for good luck, and these believers rub and lather the rain into their hands and faces."A gift from the gods," someone says.

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia -- When she was an accountant for a collective farm under Mongolia's former communist system, L. Gochoogiin used to scold herdsmen whose livestock died. It is your fault, she would tell them, for neglecting the state's cattle and sheep. But after this year's devastating winter, the 62-year-old woman recalls her sternness with remorse. Now a private herder, she cannot step outside her felt-covered yurt without seeing a field of carcasses. The cold killed 12 cows and 60 sheep and cashmere goats.

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia -- Inside the traditional tent home, or ger, of Mongolian nomads, the squinting yak herder proffers a bowl of liquid refreshment."

What with Mark Foley and all, you may have missed some of the news that came perilously close to falling through the cracks this week. As a public service, here's a glance backward: Mongolia's legislature on Thursday began debating a law on regulating the use of Genghis Khan's name in a bid to prevent the memory of the legendary conqueror from being cheapened, an Associated Press writer named Ganbat Namjil reported. Since Mongolia emerged from the shadow of the Soviet Union in 1991, the isolated Asian nation has applied the moniker of its favorite son to more than half a dozen brands of vodka and beer and a variety of other commercial products.

During her 15 months teaching students in rural Mongolia, Katie Church lived in a tent. She had no running water or electricity. She cooked her meals in a makeshift fireplace. She fought winter temperatures that dropped to 40 degrees below zero. Six years later, the St. Mary's High School graduate has returned to Mongolia in hopes of helping substance abusers. Church, who has dedicated her life to public service since graduating from St. Mary's College in 1999, was recently honored by the Southern Maryland school with its first Outstanding Young Alumni award.

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia - For proof that China's surging textile exports to the United States this year have been putting people out of work, look no further than the rows of unmanned sewing machines in Zheng Chenli's shut-down factory - in Mongolia. Zheng's MCX garment factory was one of about 80 textile plants owned or partially financed by foreigners, including more than 20 plants financed by entrepreneurs from China, that operated here for years, solely to get around quotas that capped China's exports of clothing to the United States.

They came with cameras and heady expectations, but unlike most tourists, the visitors from Inner Mongolia weren't here to see the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument. No, they came for another great American institution - the U.S. tax system. The trip was planned three years ago as officials in China's northern territory faced a vexing problem in their increasingly capitalistic community: how to get people to pay their taxes. So they sent 20 of their brightest tax collectors on a six-month, all-expenses-paid trip to Baltimore for a crash course on American taxation.

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia -- When she was an accountant for a collective farm under Mongolia's former communist system, L. Gochoogiin used to scold herdsmen whose livestock died. It is your fault, she would tell them, for neglecting the state's cattle and sheep. But after this year's devastating winter, the 62-year-old woman recalls her sternness with remorse. Now a private herder, she cannot step outside her felt-covered yurt without seeing a field of carcasses. The cold killed 12 cows and 60 sheep and cashmere goats.

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia -- Inside the traditional tent home, or ger, of Mongolian nomads, the squinting yak herder proffers a bowl of liquid refreshment."

WHO SAID the Mongolian people are not ready for democracy, just because they are sparse, nomadic, remote and living under alien communism for 72 years? Given the chance, they upset the experts and threw the rascals out. Nearly nine-tenths of those eligible voted, no matter how many miles they had to walk to the polls.China absorbed Inner Mongolia and, in the late 17th century, Outer Mongolia. Moscow gained influence later. The Chinese empire fell to revolutionaries in 1911, and the Russian empire in 1917.

The British monarchy is a matriarchy that is not going to be dictated-to by some daughter-in-law.South Korea is putting its last two presidents on trial as warning to North Korea and role model for Mexico.Scientists in Mongolia have discovered that dinosaurs were mothers.Merry Christmas!

BUGAAN TSAV, Mongolia -- Pagmin Narmandakh shuffles through the Gobi desert in her bedroom slippers, marching over the bones of dinosaurs slumbering in an ancient seabed just below the silty surface.One of Mongolia's top paleontologists, she has been exploring the Gobi for more than 30 years. With her well-trained eye, she makes finding prehistoric relics seem easy. She has found giant tarbosaurs and tiny archaic turtles; today on her way to a dig in progress, she plucks 70-million-year-old mollusks from the sand as casually as picking seashells off the beach.

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia -- Storm clouds roll over the city and suddenly rip open to pour rain over this sprawling, dusty outpost. A crowd of Buddhists crane their necks heavenward and weep.It is more than relief from the blazing central Asian sky that prompts the tears. These people believe they are witnessing a miracle. Mongolians wipe the sweat off winning racehorses for good luck, and these believers rub and lather the rain into their hands and faces."A gift from the gods," someone says.