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China police to learn how to drive for Olympics

Beijing police will be sent back to driving school in readiness for the Olympics and some will get hotted up cars and racing training, state media said on Monday.
By the end of next year, 10,000 police will be given driving safety training, with 1,500 to learn high-speed manoeuvres to complement their customised cars, the Beijing Times said.
"In accordance with Olympic security needs, some police cars will be customised -- especially those patrolling areas around Olympic venues," the Beijing Times quoted a police academy official as saying.
"The (cars) will have anti-rolling capability, racing seats and other safety systems," the official said.
Recruitment for racing training would start next month, the paper said, with police to be tested on their cornering and high-speed skills in a simulated racing environment.
Successful recruits will then be taught the art of "driving down narrow roads, overtaking, intercepting cars and high speed u-turns", the paper said.
Keen to show it can host a world class event and protect the safety of the hundreds of thousands expected to attend, Beijing has already taken a number of measures to boost security.
Earlier in the month, China announced plans to build a 50,000-strong civil security force in addition to the recruitment of 2,000 extra police reported in March.
The communist country is on alert for domestic sources of unrest that could disrupt the Games, from angry petitioners from the countryside to activists seeking independence for Tibet.

China to make Olympics a smoke-free zone

China vowed on Monday to organize a "non-smoking" Olympic Games, but health officials admitted that changing the habits of 350 million smokers would be difficult.
China would enforce a ban on smoking in public places, a Health Ministry official told a news conference on Monday, with those places that offer services to children a top concern.
"Smoking will be banned at all Olympic-designated hospitals by the end of 2007," Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Bin as saying.
The ban would also apply to public transport and in offices, Zhang said, acknowledging that changing habits would be hard.
"China faces many obstacles to overcome in hosting a non-smoking Olympics," he said.
The ministry's vow comes as Beijing passes the 10th anniversary of its ban on smoking in public places.
In practice, many of the capital's millions of smokers habitually ignore the bans given that they run only a slight risk of punishment or complaint from bystanders.
"We need consistent efforts to wake up the public, tell those smokers in public places that they are damaging the health of people around them, and encourage our numb fellows to stand up against such behavior," a China Daily editorial said this month.
China is the world's largest producer and consumer of cigarettes with nearly 2 trillion sticks consumed a year.
Tax on cigarettes contributed 159 billion yuan ($19.8 billion) to the government in 2005, around 5 percent of fiscal revenues.
The World Health Organization estimates that smoking kills 1.2 million people a year in China.

Olympic guests checking into Beijing hotels for the 2008 Games will pay much less for their rooms than participants at Athens in 2004.
Organisers yesterday promised that the city's large number of hotels meant room prices would be kept at a reasonable level.
"As Beijing has enough hotels, prices are sure to be lower," said Xiang Ping, vice-director of the Games Services Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).
The average price for a five-star hotel room will be US$353, while that for four-star and three-star hotel rooms will be US$272 and US$176 respectively. This compares to prices of around 500 euros (US$628.9) for a five-star room during the 2004 Athens Olympics.
"As we promised in our Olympic bid, the highest price for a standard room for accredited participants will be no higher than US$370," Xiang told China Daily.
According to Xiang, up to now BOCOG has signed services contracts with 112 hotels in Beijing including 38 five-star, 40 four-star and 34 three-star hotels.
Together with the Olympic Village, the Athletes' Village and the Media Village, these hotels will accommodate 50,000 accredited athletes, journalists, officials and sponsors.
"The prices are based on quotes from all the hotels in 2005 and 2006, the hotel price increase rate in Beijing and its consumer price index," Xiang said, adding that the prices will be only a little bit higher than the present charges.
As for prices for tourists and spectators, Xiang said she hoped they would be similar to the contracted hotels' rates.
But tourism officials said hotels have the right to decide their own prices. "We suggest hotels set their prices according to market demand," said an official from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Tourism. "We won't arbitrarily set the prices."
In Athens during the 2004 Games, hotel prices rocketed, putting off many potential sports fans.
The Beijing Tourism Administration estimates that during the 2008 Games, Beijing will receive 500,000 to 550,000 overseas tourists and spectators, while the number of domestic visitors will reach 2.58 million.
According to statistics from the China National Tourism Administration, about 55 million overseas visitors came to China last year.