2008 Olympic Games.

BEIJING (AFP) — Beijing has launched a drive to boost stocks of a blood type rare in China but likely to be more common among the thousands of visitors expected here during the Olympics, state media reported Thursday.

Beijing Red Cross Blood Center wants to double its stocks of rhesus negative blood in time for next year’s Games, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Only 0.3 percent of ethnic Chinese have rhesus negative blood, compared to 15 percent of Caucasians, Xinhua added.

“All healthy Chinese citizens, no matter what type of blood they have, should contribute to the Olympic Games,” Yang Lan, a TV anchorwoman who is promoting the blood drive, said according to the news agency.

The centre said they would also welcome donations from foreign tourists or residents.

BEIJING, Nov 8 (Reuters) - The main stadium for next year’s Beijing Olympic Games, the $400 million “bird’s nest”, will open to the public for the first time in April to host a test event, a state newspaper said on Thursday.

The National Stadium, nick-named the bird’s nest after the way the steel beams interlace, is expected to be the last Beijing Olympic venue to be completed. The rest will be finished by the end of this year.

The stadium would get its first taste of action at April’s International Association of Athletics Federations’ Race Walking Challenge, the Beijing Daily said, citing vice-mayor Liu Jingmin.

It would then host the 2008 China Athletics Open in May.

“These two events will be the first and the last times before the Olympics that the bird’s nest will be open to the public,” the report said.

The stadium is scheduled to open in March. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard, editing by Nick Macfie)

Hong Kong (dpa) - Hong Kong is to spend more than 19 million US dollars to try to generate enthusiasm for the Olympics ahead of next year’s 2008 games in Beijing, officials confirmed Thursday.

Despite frantic excitement in mainland China, interest in the games has been “lukewarm” in Hong Kong even though it will host the equestrian events, government officials acknowledge.

To whip up more interest in the Olympics, the Hong Kong government now wants to spend 150 million Hong Kong dollars (19.3 million US dollars) on patriotic promotions, a spokesman said.

Torch relays and Olympic-themed carnivals and street parties will be staged and banners, bunting and decorations put up in major tourist areas in the run-up to next August’s games.

Hong Kong officials are understood to be concerned after there was a thin turnout for a trial equestrian event in August and believe the Olympic spirit in the city is “not feverish enough.”

However, they expect the situation to change after the Olympic torch reaches the city of 6.9 million in May on its way to Beijing, an event that is expected to draw 200,000 to 300,000 overseas visitors.

Legislators will be asked on Friday to approve the 19.3 million US dollar spending in a vote that is expected to be a formality in the largely pro-Beijing city parliament.

The finance committee’s deputy chairman, pro-democracy legislator Emily Lau, criticised the cost of promoting the Olympics and said Hong Kong should spend only “a fraction of that amount.”

“Is it really wise to spend that much money? We have been asking for money to spend on the elderly and the poor and children and the government is very reluctant,” said Lau.

“Now suddenly the government is saying ‘150 million dollars? Go ahead.’ But I am sure many of my colleagues are going to say it is money well spent and they are going to approve it.”

Hong Kong’s Beijing-appointed government has at times struggled to generate patriotism towards China since the city reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 after 156 years of British colonial rule.

To combat the apparent indifference, China flag-raising ceremonies have been introduced and patriotic broadcasts introduced before evening news programmes featuring rousing images of the “motherland” set to the Chinese national anthem.

BEIJING - Olympic organizers have dismissed reports that pork for Beijing athletes will come from secret farms where pigs are specially raised on herbal medicine and daily exercise.

The Beijing Olympic organizing committee (BOCOG) has sought to defuse concerns over the safety of China’s food supply but says news of the pampered pigs were efforts by the producer to promote itself.

The reports in Chinese media are “false and an exaggeration,” and “resulted in a negative impact on society,” BOCOG said in a statement posted on its website.

“It is absolutely unnecessary for the Beijing municipal government to require companies to produce so-called special Olympic pigs,” the statement said.

Recent articles featured a Beijing-based company called Qianxihe Food Group, which is raising pork for Olympic athletes. The pigs were reportedly bred in a secret location with 24-hour security monitoring.

The reports said the pigs were fed Chinese herbal medicines to ward off sickness and had two hours of outdoor exercise a day.

“It is very wrong for some companies to spread false propaganda because people are paying so much attention to the Olympic Games,” BOCOG said in the statement, without naming Qianxihe.

The president of Qianxihe, Liu Yanyun, never made the comments attributed to him in the articles, said a man who answered the telephone Wednesday at a number listed for the company. He refused to give his name or title.

“There is no such thing. The reports were wrong,” he said.

Qianxihe is an Olympic sponsor and a company official has told The Associated Press that it will supply hormone-free pork for athletes and that the meat would be available in ordinary supermarkets. The official, whose last name is Tong, did not mention any of the details in the local reports.

China’s product safety woes have included instances of food tainted with chemicals, preservatives or drugs.

Olympic organizers have said they would use a high-tech tracking system to monitor food production, processing facilities and hygiene during the Games to ensure food safety. The BOCOG statement also said that the food supply chain in Beijing was safe, saying 97 per cent of pork products were up to standard.

DENVER (AP) — The U.S. Olympic Committee received confirmation from Olympic officials Wednesday that there will be no restrictions on Bibles being brought into the Olympic village in Beijing next year.

The USOC contacted the International Olympic Committee about the issue in response to a story posted on the Catholic News Agency Web site citing a list of prohibited items that was reported to include Bibles.
That story said the Italian daily, La Gazzetta dello Sport, reported that organizers cited “security reasons” for prohibiting athletes from carrying any kind of religious symbol at Olympic facilities. Those reports and others were producing active blog discussions on several Web sites.

USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said the federation contacted the IOC about the news reports.

“We have heard from the IOC and there will be no restriction on athletes bringing the Bible or any other religious book into the village for their personal use,” Seibel said in a telephone interview from USOC offices in Colorado Springs.

Seibel said the Beijing Organizing Committee never considered any ban on Bibles.

Li Zhanjun, the director of the Beijing Olympics media center, also discounted the report.

“There is no such thing,” Li said. “This kind of report is an intentional distortion of truth.”

Religious services will be available in the Olympic Village next summer for Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, he said. Religious texts like the Bible and Koran should be available.

“Even if there aren’t, the athletes can bring the texts themselves, there’s no restriction,” Li said.

With the Olympics heading to the largest Communist country in the world, many observers are interested to see how China handles issues like freedom of the press and freedom of religion over the 16 days next August.

IOC rule 51 states “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

But that rule is in place to prevent participants from using the games as a political platform and doesn’t include any ban on Bibles.

A notice on the official Beijing Olympics Web site explaining entry procedures into the country said “each traveler is recommended to take no more than one Bible into China.”

“We fully expect that the standards established by the IOC for previous Games will be in effect for these Games,” Seibel said.

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Associated Press Writer Anita Chang in Beijing contributed to this report.