Millions of residents have been driven off the roads because of a partial ban on cars, while tens of thousands of workers have been forced to move away because their factories were relocated.

The heart of the trip is in Beijing, where Bush is to spend four nights and days.
His challenge, like the way he describes the U.S.-China relationship, is complex.

Before there was a scientific explanation for eclipses, myth and mystery was pervasive. Many cultures thought a demon or dragon was devouring the sun.

In ancient China, "any unusual phenomenon involving celestial bodies was noted for potential omens, either good or bad, that might befall the current Emperor," according to Sten Odenwald of the department of physics at Catholic University. An eclipse occurred in 2134 B.C., but was not predicted by Hsi and Ho, who were believed to have been two astrologers who served the Emperor Chung K'ang.

"By some accounts, the two astrologers were negligent in their duties and did not foretell the event for the Emperor," Odenwald writes in a historical article published by NASA. "They were summarily beheaded for their negligence of duty."

The ancient Chinese banged pots and drums to shoo the frightful sun-eating character away, according to the Exploratorium Science Center in San Francisco. In India, people would immerse themselves in water to help the sun fight the dragon.

Even nowadays many myths persist. In Egypt, as one example, children are often kept indoors with windows covered or shades drawn during an eclipse.

Uribe has worked for the Medellin Cartel and is a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar. He has participated in Escobar's political campaign…."

Perhaps unsurprisingly due to the links between the drugs traffickers and the paramilitaries Uribe also grew closer to those involved in the AUC paramilitary alliance. During his period as Governor of Antioquia, Uribe openly supported and financed local vigilante groups known as CONVIVIR. According to Human Rights Watch many CONVIVIR groups "were directed by known paramilitaries" whilst others "threatened to assassinate Colombians that were considered as guerrilla sympathizers of which rejected joining the [CONVIVIR]".

The central goal of Libertarianism is hard to disagree with: freedom. Defining it is another matter. Party members I've met often speak of freedom as if it were a phantom limb: you're born with it, but it gets taken from you by the bureaucratic violence of the EPA, the ATF, the DOE, the DEA, the U.N., NCLB, NAFTA and--above all--the IRS. Freedom's restoration is the magic moment when the nanny state melts away and you can see the life you were supposed to live before the tax auditors and environmental regulators and drug warriors all came to rope, brand and pen you in for life with their endless rulemaking and intrusions.

If the freedom that lives in the Libertarian imagination has an earthly home, it is the American West. If it has a temple, it's Nevada. It's not just the low taxes or the libertine veneer of Las Vegas; Nevada is free, I was told, in part because so much of it is populated by an unbroken and unbowed caste of ranchers, miners and homesteaders who believe in the primacy of private property.

As you might guess, things that come between a Nevadan and his land don't sit well, and over the past decade, there's been nothing more disruptive than the environmental movement's good intentions. Nye County rancher Jim Berg, 68, doesn't call himself a Libertarian, but he thinks the GOP has lost its will to keep the government from affecting his livelihood. He has plenty of war stories about his county's showdowns with the Federal Government, including a 1991 standoff when armed federales came to confiscate cattle belonging to a neighboring rancher who had let his herd graze on off-limits federal land. The Forest Service got some of Berg's cattle in the dragnet, auctioned them off and kept the proceeds. "They wanted trouble that day," he says. "Why else would you gather another man's cattle with 25 to 30 armed men?"