Qinhuangdao, the port city in north China’s Hebei province, is going all out to help ensure blue skies as a co-host of this summer’s Olympic Games. The local environmental protection bureau said that Qinhuangdao, 280 kilometers east of Beijing, has invested RMB20 billion (about $2.78 billion) in a major environmental protection drive with the aim to improve air quality for the August Olympics.

This includes 2,00 projects featuring air pollution control, industrial sewage recycling, city garbage treatment, development of environmentally-friendly tourism, water sources protection and afforestation.

The government ordered all desulfurization projects at major coal-fired power plants to be completed before July 1.

Local chemical plants and iron mines are now required to cut pollutants that might darken the Olympic skies and water. In addition, the city has set up an air-quality monitoring network focused on heavily-polluting businesses.

Ji Zhenhai, the provincial environmental protection bureau director said Hebei, the province that surrounds Beijing and Tianjin, has also pledged to spend about RMB21 billion on anti-pollution projects and environmental monitoring stations.

Businesses in heavily-polluting industries — power, iron and steel, chemicals and concrete — will have to cut production or even close if they fail to meet the emission standard during the Games.
Source: China View

News that Yao Ming is suffering a stress injury in his foot which will end his American NBA season has sent shock waves through China.

Yao is the face of the Beijing Olympics, the center of the Chinese sports world, and a national treasure. Even the thought that he may not recover in time to represent China at the Games has the country on edge.

The Chinese blogosphere was flooded with comments from worried fans and Yao supporters. ‘I would rather lose my job or girlfriend,’ read one blog, ‘than lose Yao Ming from the Olympics.’ Another blogger lamented, ‘This is the winter of Chinese basketball.’

At a Houston news conference, Yao Ming said, ‘If I cannot play in the Olympics for my country this time, it will be the biggest loss in my career to right now.’

ABC sports analyst Christine Brennan said, ‘Yao Ming in many ways is a little Johnny Appleseed and a little Tiger Woods and a little Michael Jordan. Put all that together and that’s what this man means to China.’

All the worry may end up being premature.

Doctors say Yao likely faces a three to four month recovery after surgery, which would give him time to recover for the Olympics.

Some have even suggested that the injury may be a blessing in disguise because Yao will have more time to rest before the Games than he would have had he finished the season with the Rockets.
Source: ABC News

London bus drivers are being asked to sign up for a three-month journey from Trafalgar Square to Beijing. In a scheme to celebrate cultural links between this year’s Olympic Games host city and London, host to the Games in 2012, an iconic red double-decker bus will set off on a three-month journey.

Leaving in June, the bus is expected to arrive in Beijing before the Olympic flag is handed over to London Mayor Ken Livingstone at the closing ceremony.

Eight drivers from London’s various bus operators are needed to make the trip which will cross Europe, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan before reaching China.

Not to rain on anyone’s parade but as London buses appear to have the greatest difficulty finding their way from Clapham to Balham — a distance of a few miles — this may be the journey too far.
Source: Shanghai Daily

The Olympics has caused the first mobile paper to be launched in China. Zhu Ling, Editor-in-Chief of China Daily, and Wang Jianzhou, Chairman of China Mobile (seen in our illustration) together launched China’s first English-Chinese mobile paper at a ceremony and press conference held in Beijing.

Jointly produced by China Daily and China Mobile, China Daily Mobile News sends English-Chinese news to users’ cell phones as multimedia messages through wireless technology.

China Daily Mobile News will allow visitors to experience China’s internationalization, technological advancements and improved English communication standards.

The China Daily newspaper group has a professional team of English-speaking staff reporters, correspondents, editors and foreign experts. And China Daily Mobile News presents the media information to users in English and Chinese.

Users of China Mobile Go Tone and M-Zone can subscribe by sending the message ‘CD’to 10658000 for RMB5 a month.

China Daily Mobile News will be sent to users twice a day, one in the morning and the other in the evening. Each multimedia package contains 10 to 20 pieces of news.
Source: China Daily

The Beijing Olympics may be a time to slow down smoking, a habit that kills about a million people in China every year.

China has about 360 million smokers, which is 26% of its population and a third of the global total. Financially the nation is partially dependent on the tobacco industry for huge tax revenues.

It is not considered socially unacceptable to smoke. Even top Chinese athletes such as Liu Xiang, world and Olympic champion in the 110m high hurdles, advertises for Chinese tobacco company Baishan, while some football and basketball professionals still enjoy a smoke at half-time.

In most other countries of the world smoking is realized to be pretty evil and is banned most places. Possibly the tobacco companies have though they could outsource smoking to China. This may be changing.

Communications expert Ren Mengshan is openly advocating the Olympics as ‘a good platform for the government to promote non-smoking and the benefits of good health.’
Besides declaring the Beijing Olympics ’smoke-free,’ organizers have also banned tobacco from public places where athletes and Olympic officials are likely to meet.

The capital has further mandated that 70% of all hotel rooms be non-smoking and since October last year, has banned taxi drivers from smoking in their cars.

In addition to its recent efforts, since 1996 Beijing authorities have tried to ban smoking in public places such as restaurants, schools, hospitals, train and bus stations, libraries and museums.

Although their efforts have met with little success, there are glimmers of hope.

Beijing’s first non-smoking eatery, the Meizhou Dongpo, opened in the capital in October last year. Tables in the Sichuan-style eatery are decorated with signs that read ‘no-smoking restaurant, a forest in the middle of the city.’
Source: Times of India