Beijing adds new forest park for Olympic Games

BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- To improve air quality and attract tourists during the 2008 summer Olympics, Beijing has approved a national forest park, bringing the total number to 15, the municipal forestry authorities said Thursday.

The forest park, called Labagou, boasts rich plant and animal species and is of great importance in protecting the environment protection of the 2008 Olympics host city, said the municipal forestry department.

The Labagou National Forest Park, which is in Huairou District, a northern outskirt 160 kilometers from central Beijing. It covers an area of 10,000 hectares and is the city's largest forest park.

The park is not only an important zone of silver birch scenery, but also has the largest natural rhododendron forest in north China, according to the department.

With the new "member", Beijing's national forest parks cover more than 62,300 hectares. The first national forest park was set up in 1992.

The forest coverage rate reached 50 percent in Beijing by the end of last year, 8.6 percentage points higher than that of five years ago, the department claimed.

Beijing 2008 - Pound: US bids still stand a chance

Eurosport - Wed, 09 May 23:21:22 2007

Beijing 2008 - The head of the World Anti-Doping Agency Dick Pound said on Wednesday he does not believe high-profile drugs positives by Americans Floyd Landis and Justin Gatlin would hinder future US Olympic Games bids.

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Cyclist Landis and Olympic 100 metres champion Gatlin have tested positive for the male sex hormone testosterone. Both have denied knowingly taking banned substances.

Their positives come at a time when the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) is considering whether to bid for the 2016 Summer Games.

"If you eliminated all countries where there were athletes getting positive tests, you would not have the Games anywhere," Pound told Reuters by telephone.

"If the U.S. is seen to be making an effort to deal with the problem, that is very much in its favour, especially since it is such a leader as a country anyway."

International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Pound, often a critic of U.S. anti-doping efforts, said he did not think the recent positive tests would negatively affect how Olympic committee members view a U.S. bid.

CLEAN TEAM

"I have the sense that under (USOC Chairman Peter) Ueberroth you have somebody who is prepared to step up to the plate and say 'enough is enough,'" Pound added.

Ueberroth announced last week that Gatlin's coach Trevor Graham had been banned from using USOC facilities due to the "unusual number of athletes he has coached who have been convicted of doping offences."

Ueberroth and USOC Chief Executive Officer Jim Scherr have also said sending a drugs-free team to the 2008 Beijing Games was a high priority, even if it meant the team returned from China empty handed.

A USOC delegation visited Chicago on Wednesday and will tour San Francisco and Los Angeles later this week as part of its review of a potential 2016 Games bid.

The three cities are finalists for any U.S. bid. A final decision is expected by late fall and if the USOC does goes forward the candidate city would be selected next March.

The IOC will choose the 2016 Games host city in 2009.

Madrid has already signalled its intention to bid again while Italy, India, Japan and Brazil have also shown an interest.

Angola launches "To Beijing 2008 Olympic Games" hiking activity

Special report: 2008 Olympic Games

LUANDA, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Angolan Olympic Committee and the Angolan Paralympic Committee here on Sunday launched the "To Beijing 2008 Olympic Games" hiking activity to support China hosting the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

At 8:45 a.m. local time (0745 GMT), Angolan National Assembly Speaker Roberto de Almeida, holding the torch, led Angolan senior officials and some 5,000 local people to start the "To Beijing 2008 Olympic Games" hiking activity at the National Stadium in the capital Luanda.

Before the start of the 5,000-meter-long hiking activity, the Angolan speaker told Chinese ambassador to Angola Zhang Beisan that Angola supports China to hold the 2008 Olympic Games. "I wish China a successful holding of the 2008 Olympic Games," he said.

To enrich Angolan people's knowledge about China's holding of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the Chinese embassy set up an exhibition stall at the Angolan National Stadium in the capital Luanda to distribute materials publicizing the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and spread knowledge about preparations made by the Chinese government.

The exhibition stall also attracted Speaker de Almeida and ambassador Zhang Beisan presents a set of "Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Mascots" to the speaker.

Feist shines on the Olympic stage

the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and others

Enlarge Image

Feist was the main event at the Cultural Olympiad concert in Vancouver. (Laura Leyshon for The Globe and Mail)

At the Orpheum Theatre

in Vancouver on Tuesday

It might have been the night to kick off the two-year countdown to the 2010 Olympics, but for most of the sold-out crowd at the Vancouver Orpheum Theatre on Tuesday, it was all about the headliner with the signature voice: Feist.

The Calgary-raised indie pop singer entered to a roar of applause and finished with an extended standing ovation from the crowd of about 2,700. A sure sign of Grammy-nominated Feist's draw power were the empty seats that filled only when she appeared, 2½ hours into the nearly four-hour show.

It wasn't the first Olympic event for Feist - as a child, she performed in the 1988 Calgary Olympics with 1,000 other children at the opening ceremonies. Tongue firmly in cheek, she referred to the two years of rehearsals she endured as "a great way to spend your early carefree years," to much audience laughter.

Because it was a night devoted to the Olympics as much as the diverse musical artists on the program, it occasionally had the overly long, disjointed feel of a well-organized variety show. By the time Ontario's master of the melancholy song Ron Sexsmith made it to the stage, a big portion of the audience had cleared out for an impromptu intermission.

It also happened to be a night to celebrate the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, which had just picked up a Grammy. The VSO was a guiding presence throughout the program, which included Sexsmith, Quebec singer and multi-instrumentalist Jorane, Dene folk singer Leela Gilday and Toronto's Suzie McNeil, best known for her big vocal performances on Rock Star: INXS.

The Cultural Olympiad 2008 event started off with the requisite promotional video and words from Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee chief executive officer John Furlong, while Premier Gordon Campbell watched from the audience. Between performances, emcee Ben Mulroney plugged Canadian Idol and provided French translation.

Conductor and pianist Bramwell Tovey played David Foster's Can You Feel It? The tattooed McNeil belted out a song called Believe, rife with the uplifting platitudes so favoured by feel-good events.

Aboriginal music award winner Gilday reminded us of the not-so-beatific Downtown Eastside, with her song Calling All Warriors, dedicated to the women who have gone missing there.

If the universe were just, Sexsmith and Jorane would be superstars by now. The Quebec cellist and pianist has a stunning voice and eccentric songwriting style that melded perfectly with a symphony orchestra. Sexsmith gave his usual stoic delivery with heart-melting vocals, acoustic guitar in hand, and the VSO provided the rush-of-sound on songs such as Gold In Them Hills.

At around 10 p.m., Feist appeared, the new-found Canadian mainstream star. Dressed in head-to-toe white, her black hair framed around her face, she worked through a random sampling of material, including Feel It All, The Park, So Sorry, When I Was a Young Girl, Honey Honey, Sealion and, in a duet with Sexsmith, Brandy Alexander, a song they had written together. She can get the audience going with a couple of guitar notes, then begins the Feist groove - she bobs at the knees, boogies around the stage, appears to wildly enunciate even though you often can't make out the foggy words.

If the show had a stiff, corporate feel early on, Feist provided lighthearted relief. She was also full of praise, for the VSO, Sexsmith and her band, which accompanied the orchestra to thrilling effect on her hit song 1234.

Jowell rejects call for Olympics boycott

This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Thursday February 14 2008. It was last updated at 11:35 on February 14 2008.

Tessa Jowell. Photograph: Nils Jorgensen

Boycotting the Olympics would not help the human rights situation in Darfur, the Olympics minister Tessa Jowell said today.

She said that although aspects of Chinese policy were "wholly unacceptable", a boycott was not the right way to exert pressure on Beijing.

She was speaking in response to calls from Sudanese rebels for the international community to boycott the Olympics because of China's support for the Sudanese government and its role in Darfur.

"The world has known for the last seven years that Beijing would host the Olympics," Ms Jowell told the Times.

"Most progressive governments accept that there are wholly unacceptable aspects of Chinese policy, but that did not stop the International Olympic Committee awarding them the games.

"A call for a boycott doesn't serve any purpose and it would be a great pity. This doesn't mean, however, we should be distracted from the urgency of Darfur."

China steps up efforts to fight pollution

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will aim this year to reduce its emissions of sulphur dioxide by 6 percent from their 2005 levels as it steps up efforts to fight pollution, its top environmental official said in remarks published on Tuesday.

The official Xinhua news agency cited Zhou Shengxian, head of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), as saying that the government would close many small coal-fired power plants, as well as steel mills and cement plants, to cut emissions of the acid rain-causing pollutant.

Zhou also said the government aimed to reduce COD, or chemical oxygen demand, a measure of water pollution, by 5 percent from its 2005 level this year.

Many Chinese cities suffer from choking smog, including this year's Olympic host Beijing. The level of air pollution in the capital and its possible effects on athletes has been one of the biggest issues facing organizers of the Games.

Zhou said that Beijing would work with five other provinces and municipalities surrounding it to control air pollution during the Olympics, including by limiting traffic and shutting down polluting factories.

"We will make full use of the Olympic air quality coordinating teams this year to improve regional cooperation and implement relevant measures," Zhou said, according to Xinhua.

Authorities will step up the country's waste water treatment capacity by 12 million tonnes this year, with the aim of making sure all waste water in 36 major cities is treated by the end of next year, he said.

Sulphur dioxide and COD are primitive indicators of overall environmental health, and do not reflect the many other chemicals that contribute to widespread pollution.

China has promised to cut the two pollution measures by 10 percent between 2006 and 2010, but has not set out year-by-year targets.

Oxygen warms up for Olympics

By Paul J. Gough

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - NBC Universal's most recent acquisition isn't wasting time getting into the swing of things with the company's Olympics coverage.

Oxygen will carry a nightly program highlighting gymnastics during the 2008 Beijing Games as well as yet undetermined amounts of equestrian, tennis, rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming. The female-focused cable channel will carry Olympic programming from 6-8 p.m. EST, before the NBC network's primetime coverage begins.

It's the first time that NBC Universal has revealed specific programming plans for its coverage, which will encompass more than 3,600 hours on TV and broadband. The idea for Oxygen is a little like what NBC Universal's USA Network did for figure-skating show "Olympic Ice" during the 2006 Winter Games in Turin.

"It's fantastic to have this prime access slot," said Lauren Zalaznick, the president of the Oxygen and Bravo networks. "It's going to be an insider's look at the sum total of the gymnastics competition, setting up the drama of the competition that night or the next night."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter