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Remnants of Fay soak the Southeast

(AP) — The remnants of Tropical Storm Fay spread over a wide swath of the South on Monday, bringing heavy rain and wind as forecasters warned of possible flash flooding and tornadoes from Louisiana to Georgia.

The rain could be good news for some, including farmers looking for a break from a long-term drought that stretches from parts of Louisiana through the Carolinas into Virginia.

In Florida, drenched by Fay last week, floods forced residents in northern parts of the state out of homes Sunday. Some residents started cleaning up Monday as water slowly receded in places, while others saw swollen rivers continue to rise.

As Fay ebbed, a new storm was brewing. Tropical Storm Gustav, the seventh tropical depression of the Atlantic hurricane season, formed in the central Caribbean and was heading for the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. At 2 p.m. ET Monday, reports from an Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicated that the storm had maximum winds near 60 mph.

Hurricane warnings have been issued for the southern and western parts of the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti. A hurricane watch has been issued for Haiti from north of Port-au-Prince to the northern border of the Dominican Republic. See Gustav’s predicted path

In the southern U.S., thunderstorms, flash flooding and isolated tornadoes were a possibility Monday from northwestern Georgia through Alabama and Mississippi to southeastern Louisiana, all because of remains of Fay, forecasters said. iReport.com: Floridians carry furniture from flooded homes

In Georgia, a family member said Fay’s winds knocked an oak tree onto the Plains home of former President Jimmy Carter late on Saturday. One of the former president’s sons, Jeff Carter, said both his father and his mother, Rosalynn Carter, were at home at the time but neither was hurt.

The storm’s remnants were likely to bring several inches of rain to Alabama, Mississippi, eastern Louisiana and Tennessee. Many hoped the storm could bring much-needed relief from a regional drought.

We need something like this to recharge the soil. It probably won’t be a total drought-buster, said National Weather Service senior forecaster Andy Kula in Huntsville, Alabama.

Rain was also reaching western North Carolina’s parched mountains. Meteorologist Doug Outlaw at the National Weather Service in Greer, South Carolina, said some areas of extreme southwestern North Carolina had gotten as much as an inch of rain as remnants of Fay moved in from northeast Georgia, where as much as 3 to 4 inches had fallen.

Fay made landfall a record four times in Florida before it was downgraded to a tropical depression late Saturday. The storm caused widespread flooding as it zigzagged across Florida for nearly a week. Watch as Floridians flee floodwaters

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Beijing’s past faces its future

BEIJING, China (CNN) — As in Rome and Athens, ancient relics in Beijing stand in stark contrast to the highways, buildings and vehicles of the modern age. At Beijing’s Jianguomen, the fortification-like Ancient Observatory — dating from 1442 during the Ming Dynasty — dodges the overpasses of the Second Ring Road while standing within steps of a subway station.

To what extent Old Beijing — which can be defined as anytime from ancient to pre-1990s, depending on the context — can survive urban development post-Olympics is perhaps best answered by Beijing’s urban planners.

Among the endangered are the hutongs, or narrow alleys, and siheyuan, or courtyards, where city residents have long lived.

Zhang Wei started the Web site oldbeijing.org eight years ago to chart the decline in the number of Beijing’s hutongs and believes only 500 remain of the estimated 3,000 that existed six decades ago.

This number is not including hutongs that are half destroyed, he said.

An estimated 520,000 people moved to the Chinese capital last year alone, according to state-run news agency Xinhua. The consequence is that low-lying houses and hutongs face destruction to accommodate the high-rises needed to house so many people, Zhang said.

It’s coming, said Mike Meyer, a three-year resident of Dashilar, a maze of hutongs within a 10-minute walk south of the new egg-like National Grand Theatre near Tiananmen Square. My landlord told me my lease ends in September, that maybe we should go month to month.

Public notices by the Beijing Municipal Construction Committee are up around the neighborhood, listing which addresses face relocation. Those fated for the bulldozer would get the white character chai (meaning tear down) painted on its wall.

No one’s ever seen the character painted, said Meyer, who’s chronicled the lives of his neighbors in a new book, The Last Days of Old Beijing. Referring to the invisible Hand, Meyer said that once the character is painted on a building, you’re a goner. Watch Meyer show one of Beijing’s old hutong areas

The destruction of neighborhoods was what prompted Sze Tsung Leong to photograph Beijing and other Chinese cities — including Nanjing, Pingyao, and Xiamen — between 2002 and 2005. The New York-based artist visited China for the first time in 1994 and again in 2001.

It was like visiting two different eras, as so much of the city that I first saw in 1994 had been destroyed and replaced with new construction, he wrote in an e-mail to CNN.

In an essay for his resulting book History Images, Leong referred to the erasure of history. As he put it, each shift in history — from dynasty to dynasty, from imperial rule to communism, from communism to the market economy — seeks to define itself with the erasure of the past. The pattern and scale of destruction were similar in all China’s major cities, Leong found. See a gallery of Leong’s photographs of Beijing

A drive along Beijing’s Second Ring Road can give a sense of the scale of what has been lost of Beijing’s imperial city, the walls of which once protected one of the largest, most unique, and most intact Imperial Cities in the world, he added in the e-mail.

The Qianmen area, particularly southeast of the Qianmen gate — home to Dashilar and Meyer’s house — and south of the Beijing Railway Station, was where one can best see the juxtaposition of demolished neighborhoods amid the new buildings that would replace them, Leong noted.

Within a few minutes’ walk of Meyer’s home is Liulichang, Beijing’s 750-meter (half-mile) antiques street which has flourished since the Yuan dynasty 800 years ago.

During the past eight years, the government put in $146.2 million into the renovation of hutongs and siheyuan around there, said Kong Fanzhi, director of Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage at a news conference in July.

Wal-Mart is down the street, Meyer said, pointing. Anchoring it is the Sogo Department Store and hotels. Watch one commentator discuss post-Olympics China

Tenants on Beijing’s new shopping streets won’t be the post office, Meyer said, but Apple, Prada and Starbucks. The investment is going toward the renewal or makeover of buildings and streets, like Liulichang itself, Meyer added.

Nonetheless, such new establishments are popular among local residents, sometimes not even for the products sold, Meyer said. It’s air-conditioned, Meyer said of Wal-Mart, while Starbucks offered anonymity and alone time from Dashilar’s high density, he added.

Zhang is among those who lost their homes within the Qianmen area. He started oldbeijing.org to remember his house and hutong, Dongbanbijie, which were demolished to accommodate a widened street. As time went on, the collection of similar stories grew. Aside from the 16,400 registered users on his Web site, 1,000 people have contributed pictures over the years, Zhang said.

The history of development is the history of demolition, said Zhang. In recent years, development gets faster, and we see hutongs disappearing faster.

Life in the hutongs has its pluses and drawbacks.

Many buildings, constructed hundreds of years ago, are beyond repair, with walls unable to bear pipes or with rudimentary electricity wiring. Meyer’s courtyard has no backdoor, presenting a fire hazard, and the public bathroom is a five-minute walk away.

Nonetheless, his home is comfortable and seals out water and Beijing’s famous dust storms, Meyer said. I haven’t had anything stolen, he added. Never seen a cockroach or a rat. He pays 800 RMB ($116) rent per month for his two-room, 200-square meter apartment, double the size of his neighbors’ homes in the siheyuan.

Meyer estimates negotiations would start at $1,000 per square meter despite what he considers a worth of $8,000 per square meter (55,000 RMB), given the location.

Meyer says he can completely stand in the shoes of government officials who’d view such neighborhoods as slums in the city center, so close to the Great Hall of the People and Tiananmen Square. Beijing was merely following the path of other world cities, such as London, Paris and New York, he said.

Reputations and promotions of city officials aren’t built on what is protected but on what is built, Meyer said.

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Russian lawmakers back Georgia rebels

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) — Russian lawmakers asked President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday to recognize the independence of two breakaway regions of Georgia: Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Neither Russia nor the United Nations currently recognize either region as independent, despite both declaring de facto independence from Georgia.

The two regions have autonomous governments backed by Russia.

On Monday, both houses of Russian parliament — the Federation Council and the Duma — voted unanimously for such recognition. They acted after several committees, including the committees on foreign affairs, defense and the Commonwealth of Independent States, met to consider the matter.

However the parliamentary votes are not legally binding and Medvedev will make the final call.

We have more political-legal grounds than Kosovo to have our independence recognized, South Ossetia President Eduard Kokoity told the upper chamber, according to the Interfax news agency. When I say ‘we’ I mean both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Georgian troops attacked pro-Russian separatists in South Ossetia on August 7, triggering a Russian invasion of Georgia.

Russian tanks, troops and armored vehicles poured into South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian territory, Abkhazia, the following day, advancing into Georgian cities across the administrative borders with those regions.

Each side offered conflicting figures on how many people died in the fighting.

Kosovo declared independence from Russia’s historical ally Serbia in February. Serbia still considers Kosovo a province and has refused to recognize its self-declared status.

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U.S. seeks release of Olympic protesters

BEIJING, China (AP) — Washington’s top diplomat in China pressed the government to immediately free foreign activists jailed for protesting during the Olympics and criticized Beijing Sunday for failing to use the games to show greater tolerance and openness.

Chinese police have sentenced at least 10 foreigners to 10 days of detention for protesting during the games, including eight Americans, a German and a British citizen. The activists were among small groups of demonstrators who unfurled banners criticizing China’s rule in Tibet in the capital just before and during the games.

The protesters were quickly dragged away by security forces and, in the first week of the 17-day event, escorted out of China within days. But activists caught in the last week of the Games have been kept in custody under rules that allow officials to hold them without charge for up to 14 days.

British and U.S. officials are seeking the quick release of their citizens.

Ambassador Clark T. Randt Jr. said consular officials met with eight detained Americans on Friday,and that they had not made any claims of maltreatment at the hands of Chinese officials.

On Saturday, Randt pressed the Chinese government to immediately release the Americans, the Embassy said in a statement. U.S. officials would continue to raise concerns about the detentions with senior Chinese officials.

We are disappointed that China has not used the occasion of the Olympics to demonstrate greater tolerance and openness, the statement said.

It urged China to show respect for human rights, freedom of speech and religion.

Britain’s Foreign Office also issued a statement, confirming the detention of a British citizen and urging the Chinese government to respect its commitment to freedom of expression. It also urged British citizens to respect China’s laws.

China said it would allow protests during the Olympic Games in three designated areas and required protesters to apply for protest permits. But no applications to demonstrate were approved.

The Public Security Bureau did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the detained foreigners’ cases.

The bureau issued a statement Thursday that said a separate group of foreigners who were arrested Tuesday were ordered to serve 10 days of detention. Police did not identify the detainees, but activist group Students for a Free Tibet said they were bloggers, artists and activists from the United States.

The Embassy named the detained U.S. activists as James Powderly, Brian Conley, Jeffrey Rae, Jeff Goldin, Michael Liss and Tom Grant, a group taken into custody last Wednesday. Also named were Jeremy Wells and John Watterberg, who were detained on Thursday.

It said Chinese authorities said the group detained Wednesday would be released August 30. The pair detained on Thursday would be released August 31.

found here.

Clinton to release her delegates to Obama

DENVER, Colorado (CNN) — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will release her delegates to Sen. Barack Obama, a Clinton spokesman said Sunday, the eve of the Democratic National Convention.

Also Sunday, the Democratic Party decided delegates from Michigan and Florida — states that had been penalized for moving their 2008 presidential primaries to January — will get full voting rights at the event.

The moves answer some questions that lingered ahead of the convention, which starts Monday in Denver.

Clinton, who suspended her presidential campaign in June after Obama secured enough delegates to win the party’s nomination, will meet with her delegates at a reception in Denver on Wednesday afternoon — before that evening’s delegate vote on the nominee, spokesman Philippe Reines said.

[The reception is] an opportunity for Sen. Clinton to see her delegates — many for the first time since the primaries ended — thank them for their hard work and support and most importantly, to encourage them to support and work for Sen. Obama as strongly as she has, in order to elect him in November, Reines said.

Because Clinton suspended her campaign instead of dropping out, she kept the pledged delegates she earned in the primaries and caucuses. Earlier this month, Obama’s campaign said it agreed to put Clinton’s name in nomination at the convention in recognition of the historic race she ran and the fact that she was the first woman to compete in all of our nation’s primary contests. Watch a preview of the convention

Clinton already has urged the 18 million people who voted for her in the primaries to get behind Obama.

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee unanimously voted to end sanctions against Florida and Michigan.

The party initially stripped Florida and Michigan of their delegates for holding presidential primaries earlier than the party had wanted. However, in late May, the DNC’s rules and bylaws committee voted to reinstate the delegates but give them each a half-vote.

Sunday’s decision gives the delegates a full vote at the convention.

Ending the sanctions had been a goal of Clinton, who won Florida and Michigan in her unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama endorsed lifting the sanctions after Clinton’s withdrawal from the race.

Between Monday’s convention opening and Thursday night’s acceptance speech by Obama at Denver’s Invesco Field, delegates are expected to ratify his nomination and that of his vice presidential pick, Sen. Joseph Biden, another former primary rival.

Obama faces Republican Sen. John McCain in November in the contest for the presidency. McCain’s campaign has poked at the old Obama-Clinton splits with a campaign ad claiming Clinton was passed over for the No. 2 spot because she was too honest about Obama’s perceived weaknesses.

The truth hurt, and Obama didn’t like it, McCain’s ad says.

But Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois, an Obama supporter, told CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday: This campaign is not about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

His campaign is about George Bush and four more years of George Bush under John McCain, Jackson said. That message is going to echo clearly from this platform.

A new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Sunday night showed that Obama’s lead over McCain has evaporated. Forty-seven percent of those questioned are backing Obama, with an equal amount supporting McCain.

Taken after Biden’s selection, the poll showed that the number of Clinton Democrats who said they would vote for McCain increased 11 points since June, enough to account for most of the support McCain gained.

Clinton fared better than Obama among working-class voters in many states during the primaries. Obama on Sunday suggested the convention would help give those voters a sense of who I am.

Obama said he hopes voters will conclude that he is sort of like us. He [Obama] comes from a middle-class background. He went to school on scholarships, he had to pay off student loans. He and his wife had to worry about child care.

You’ll find out he’s pretty much like us, he told supporters, campaigning in Wisconsin on his way to Denver.

Obama hammered at McCain on the economy and on McCain’s perceived strong suit, national security.Obama told supporters at a barbecue in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, The Republican track record on national security has not been particularly good.

My job in this campaign is to explain that talking tough and acting dumb is not a way to keep you safe and secure, he said. We need somebody who talks tough, who’s going to act smart and be tough. That’s how we’re going to look after the safety of the American people.

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