Beijing's Olympic glamour: One World, One Dream?

One place tourists aren't likely to see during the Olympic Games next month is a nut shop just north of the Forbidden City. Plastered with posters of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao and four Chinese flags, the little building appears held together with tape and string. 

The Yu family moved in during the 1950s and opened a small shop in 1981, about the time China began its transformation from a planned economy into one that promotes entrepreneurs and, in theory, protects private property rights. 

But the nut shop is now slated for the wrecking ball.

More than 1.25 million people in Beijing -- at times as many as 13,000 people a week -- have been evicted since the city won its Olympic bid in 2001, according to the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions. 

These residents are facing an issue that surfaces in every Olympics, gentrification in the name of improving a city's image. But in China, where the government is clamping down hard on anything that incites instability, those trying to fend off what appears to be inevitable have fewer options and face greater risk.  Full story...

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