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

During the Olympics what you most earnestly desire, what you pray for, is to avoid a terrorist incident. Much work goes on behind the scenes to prevent this.

Now Beijing’s international airport is installing high-tech portable bomb detectors as part of its security plan to combat terrorism ahead of the Summer Olympics.

Zhang Zhi, deputy director general of the airport police, said the new detectors will be able to warn of explosives in a few seconds.

He said airport police have already been equipped with X-ray machines, anti-riot robots, and some bomb detection and disposal devices — ‘But we need more and faster bomb detectors for the Games.’

Zhang Zhi said other measures will include setting up a security zone to prevent anyone from taking shots at aircraft as they take off and land. Traffic checkpoints will be set up around the airport. In addition, background checks are being conducted on all airport employees.

China believes terrorism is the biggest threat facing this summer’s Olympic Games and has called for closer international cooperation to prevent possible attacks.

China’s generally secretive police agencies have sought advice on Olympic security from the U.S., Germany, Israel and other foreign governments.

FBI head Robert Mueller said during a visit earlier this year that China’s security preparations for the Olympics were impressive and that his agency was lending its expertise on fending off possible terrorist attacks.
Source: AP

Fu Ying, the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom and double Olympic champion Kelly Holmes will be among the 80 torchbearers carrying the Olympic Flame across London on its way to Beijing on April 6.

Broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald and actress Amara Karan will also run the one-day leg, as part of the worldwide Beijing Olympic Torch Relay.

Fu Ying said that she was glad to be involved in the event, starting at Wembley Stadium, site of the 1948 Olympic Games, and finishing at the O2 Arena at North Greenwich, which is to be one of the venues for the 2012 Games.

Large crowds are expected as the Olympic torch is carried through ten London boroughs.

The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, said, ‘Following the outstanding success of the Athens Olympic Torch Relay in London in 2004. It is a great honor for our city to participate in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay and once again carry the Olympic spirit of friendship and cooperation between nations across the world.’

It also allows him to get some publicity for the 2012 games which will be held in London.

The Olympic Flame will go to 19 cities on five continents before returning to China and arriving in Beijing for the start of the 2008 Olympic Games on August 8.
Source: China Daily

A new subway line, which runs through the complex of stadiums, gymnasiums and parks for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, is to begin trial operation on June 1.

An official has said the construction of the subway tunnel and stations has been completed.

The 4.4-km-long line starts from Beitucheng, near the northern fourth ring road, and travels underground through the gymnasium of swimming, the venue for the Olympiad opening ceremony, the Olympic Park and the Forest Park. It has four stops.

Beijing currently has 95 km of mass transit railway lines in operation, of which 54.15 kilometers were built underground.

According to Beijing’s city planning authorities the city will increase the number of subway lines to nine with a total length of 200 km by 2008, and bring them to 19 totaling 561.5 km by 2020.
Source: English East Day

China will shut coal-fired power plants, cement factories and chemical manufacturers near Beijing to reduce pollution before the Olympic Games in August.

Operators of these sites have been told they will be closed 30 days before the Olympics begin on August 8.

Ten ‘major polluters’ have already been shut and more than 15,000 old buses and taxis in both Beijing and Tianjin have been taken off the road the State Environmental Protection Administration said in a statement on its Web site.

Zhou Xizeng, an equity analyst who covers steel companies at Citic Securities in Beijing, said, ‘The Olympics are the main theme this year so all the companies will go in line with the government’s directives on the environment. Summer is a good time to cut supply because it isn’t a peak season traditionally.’

The South China Morning Post reported February 5 that Haile Gebrselassie, the men’s marathon world record holder and shown here, said that while he will attend the Games, he may pull out at the starting line if conditions aren’t safe enough. He is quoted as saying, ‘If pollution is a serious problem I will not run.’ In fairness he already has respiratory problems so that would be prudent.
Source: Bloomberg