Printed out and distributed on official United States Open stationery, Andre Agassi's straight-set victory over Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov looked as routine as record attendance figures and overpriced sandwiches at Flushing Meadows.

The most prominent member of Russia's first tennis family is nowhere to be seen at Flushing Meadows. Marat Safin, who won the United States Open in 2000, was here early last week, long enough to have the cast on his left wrist removed and to watch his younger sister, Dinara Safina, win her opening match.

Sergey Makarov's opening throw in the men's javelin final was enough to earn him his first major title at the world championships Sunday.

After several months of permitting China's intellectuals the freedom to call for political reform, ponder far-reaching revisions to the constitution and consider changes in the official history of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the Communist Party has ordered a halt to such debate, and security personnel have begun harassing leading academics, economists and legal scholars, sources say.

The BBC, the world's largest and best known public service broadcaster, sends out millions of words daily, but its long-nurtured reputation for accuracy, fairness and objectivity is being challenged for just 20 of them.

Harry Macklowe, the developer whose career has died a thousand deaths, came alive again late last week when he signed a contract to buy the 50-story General Motors Building for a record-setting $1.4 billion, the most ever paid for a skyscraper in the United States.

Investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs teamed up with Canary Wharf's biggest shareholder Monday in a possible ?1.5 billion ($2.4 billion) bid for the owner of Britain's tallest building.

They do not call it Motown or Motor City, but this industrial burg in the heaths of Lower Saxony now has a nickname that evokes its status as Germany's answer to Detroit.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia expects to complete long-running negotiations with the World Trade Organization this year, with entry in early 2004, the country's trade minister said Sunday.