Chinese officials eager to assuage fears about food safety are keeping carrots, peppers, and tomatoes to be fed to Olympic athletes under guard, while the sites of pig farms providing pork to the Games are being kept secret, McClatchy News Service reported yesterday. Chinese Olympic officials reacted angrily to announcements from Olympic teams in America, Australia, and elsewhere that they planned to bring at least some food supplies to Beijing because of concerns about hormones and drugs in Chinese-grown food. American officials said some food samples taken in China had so much steroid content that athletes would have failed drug tests. Olympic organizers in China played down the reports, but last month a Chinese swimmer banned for life for failing a drug test blamed impure meat he consumed at a barbecue.

CHINA USES COMMANDOS, REWARDS TO STEM DISORDER

China has put a force of 100,000 commandos on high alert and is offering large rewards to head off violence during the Olympic Games set for Beijing next month, the state-run news agency, Xinhua, reported. Rewards ranging up to 500,000 Yuan, or about $73,000, are being offered to those who report details of “major threats” between July 10 and October 31, the agency said. China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, told reporters on Saturday that security is the top priority and run-throughs are under way to make sure there are no disruptions. “It’s necessary to carry out an exercise on the whole process of services for the arrival, departure, room and board of our Olympic guests, discover the loopholes and problems in each area and make relevant adjustments,” Mr. Xi said, according to Xinhua.

BEIJING ADJUSTS WORKING HOURS, OPENS BUS LANES

Authorities in Beijing are ordering some workplaces to delay their workdays by an hour and to consider flex-time and telecommuting to ease traffic problems on the city’s crowded roads in advance of the upcoming Games. Between July 20 and September 20, most private businesses are being urged to start their day at 9:30 a.m., while government-owned enterprises will start business at 9 a.m., Xinhua reported yesterday. Large shopping centers will open at 10 a.m. and be encouraged to remain open late into the night.

The changes appear to be aimed at heading off morning traffic jams that could prevent athletes and spectators from reaching event venues. Beijing has also unveiled special traffic lanes, painted with the Olympic rings, which are to be use to whisk Olympic participants to their destinations.

OLYMPICS HOTEL BOOKINGS WEAK

With less than a month to go before the opening of the Olympics, the Games are looking like less of a bonanza for Beijing’s hotels than many had expected. “At least for now, supply exceeds demand,” a staffer for a company marketing apartment rentals, Song Zhi, told Agence France-Presse. Government officials have encouraged local residents to take vacation during the Games, a strategy that has led many homeowners to make their houses and apartments available to rent. “We were told there would be a lack of beds so property owners got ride of tenants and upped the rent for the games period,” Mr. Song said. Beijing may also have glutted the hotel market by bringing 336,000 rooms on line for the Games. As of last month, about three quarters of five-star hotels were booked beginning August 8, while lower-quality lodgings were less than half reserved, according to figures from the Beijing Tourism Bureau.

RONALDINHO DEFIES TEAM ORDERS TO PLAY OLYMPICS

A global soccer star, Ronaldinho, is planning to travel to Beijing with the Olympic team of his native Brazil despite orders from his employers at a Barcelona soccer club to return to join training for a European league championship. “I feel positive and I am not thinking about anything that is not good,” the player, whose real name is Ronald Moreira, told reporters last week, according to a soccer Web site, Goal.com. “I am not thinking about if someone is going to stop me or try and block me from Beijing.”

Ronaldinho, 28, is expected to skip a required training session in Spain today, buy himself out of his contract, and transfer to a Milan club, news outlets reported yesterday.