Official: China Bus Blasts 'Not Terrorism'

OFFICIAL: CHINA BUS BLASTS 'NOT TERRORISM'

Two deadly explosions on buses in the Chinese city of Kunming on Monday were "not terrorism," a local official asserted yesterday, according to China's state-run news service, Xinhua. The city's vice mayor, Du Min, said there was no evidence of a link to terrorism or to the Olympic Games set to take place in Beijing and other Chinese cities next month, according to the news agency. Mr. Du said there were no clues about who caused the apparent bombings. Authorities are offering a reward of about $14,000 for information.

CHINESE STUDY: FIGURES UNDERSTATE BEIJING POLLUTION

Air sampled near Beijing's main Olympic venues last summer had far more airborne particulates and ozone than permitted under Chinese standards, a newly published study by Chinese scientists found, according London's Daily Telegraph. Chinese officials have claimed to be meeting "blue sky" standards on about nine out of 10 days, but scientists from the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences said the official measurements are averages that include many reporting sites on the fringe of the city and even in nearby mountains, the newspaper said. Measurements for taken by the study's authors at a site three miles from the Olympic stadium between August 17 and September 30 found so-called PM10 levels averaged 190 micrograms, nearly double the Chinese standard and almost four times the World Health Organizations limit, the Telegraph said.

BEIJING AIRPORT TO CLOSE DURING OPENING CEREMONIES

Beijing's newly expanded international airport will close to all flights from 7 p.m. to midnight on August 8 to ensure security for the Olympic opening ceremonies, Xinhua reported yesterday. Other new security measures include requirements that railroad passengers carrying liquids taste them or have them tested, the news service said. "We should mobilize the masses of people to contribute to the security of the games," a Communist Party official, Zhou Yongkang, said as he inspected security measures in Beijing.

CHINA VOWS COMPLETE FREEDOM FOR PRESS COVERAGE

A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry is promising in the clearest terms yet that the government will not interfere with journalists coming to cover the Olympics. "The Chinese government will abide by the Olympics' reporting rules seriously and completely, and try its best to facilitate the reporting," the spokesman, Liu Jianhao, said at a news conference yesterday, according to Xinhua. He said complaints from NBC and other broadcasters over limits on live coverage from venues such as Tiananmen Square were being addressed. "We think some requests are reasonable, but we must accommodate both the need for security and journalists' need to report," Mr. Liu said.

'GENE-DOPING' FOR SALE IN CHINA

A sting operation conducted for a German television documentary has captured a Chinese physician on camera offering to help an American swimmer enhance his performance with injections of stem cells for $24,000, the Associated Press reported. The documentary, aired Monday by ARD television, said the hospital was in China, but it did not name the hospital or doctor, whose face was blurred in the video. The doctor said he had experience with gene therapy, but none applying to athletes, though he thought it would be fruitful. The documentary also shows a journalist posing as a coach found it easy to purchase steroids and a doping agent, EPO, in China, the AP said.

AMERICAN GYMNASTS IN VISA HITCH

Alternates for the American gymnastic team for the Olympics may now be heading to China, after confusion about whether they would be permitted into the country, the Associated Press reported. Officials at USA Gymnastics said they were not aware that, unlike listed team members, alternates need to get visas. A contingency plan was set up to have the alternates train in Tokyo, but efforts are now under way to get visas and have the alternates train in Tianjin, about an hour's drive from Beijing.