Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

With the Central Government and IOC in Beijing this week to mark the one year countdown before the start of the Olympics, problems are starting to surface concerning a variety of issues over the events, and in particular the 'soft' issues that are so important in making a success of the Games.

SYDNEY, Australia, Friday, Sept. 7 — President Bush has accepted an invitation from President Hu Jintao of China to attend the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing, a move that drew condemnation from human rights advocates and a Republican member of Congress, who are calling for a boycott of the Games.

With one month until the 2008 Olympics, Beijing's air still falls short of international standards, BBC tests show.

Excellent foresight news report covering the not-so-spectacular olympic games of 2008 from the journalistic time-machine of davesgonechina.

BEIJING — Visitors to China's capital can stroll through "Racist Park," enjoy a plate of "Crap in the Grass" and stop by a Starbuck's franchise for a cup for "Christmas Bland" coffee.

Now the Beijing government is trying to clean up such mistranslations and sloppy editing (including the inversion of 'a' and 'r' in carp on menus) before an expected 500,000 foreigners arrive for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Tomorrow will mark one year until the Beijing Olympics. The games, which have been called everything from China’s great coming-out party to the genocide Olympics, will undoubtedly put the country under a media spotlight the likes of which most people living here have never seen.

Chinese Olympic organizers acknowledged Tuesday they were struggling to handle an unforeseen and baffling problem inside Summer Games venues and at the showpiece Olympic Park.

Not enough people.

A LEAKED speech by a police commander in charge of security at the 2008 Beijing Olympics has disclosed that the authorities fear mass protests by disaffected Chinese as the biggest threat to the Games. Yu said he was planning the preventive detention of anyone organising “incitement” and of those who “plot behind the scenes”. He said police were building a databank of people known for bad behaviour, singling out Chinese who use the traditional right to petition government as a means to make trouble.

China has been using this summer's Games to flamboyantly tout its scientific and technological prowess. But with many foreign journalists in China complaining that they don't have the complete freedom to write independent stories, how much of what you read can be trusted?