China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is working hard to safeguard the Beijing Olympics from potential nuclear and chemical weapons attacks, state media reported yesterday.
The Beijing Times said an undisclosed number of troops, while carrying out rescue and evacuation drills at Olympic venues, were focusing on possible responses to terrorist threats involving nuclear and biochemical devices.
"We have scheduled massive training programs before the Olympics to better prepare against any possible threat," an officer from the PLA's General Staff Headquarters told Xinhua news agency.
The Beijing Times said that the military was already at a high stage of readiness for the Aug. 8 - Aug. 24 Summer Games.
None of the reports said how many PLA officers were involved in the security operations, which will also include police, private security companies and volunteers.
Olympic organizers admitted last year to budget overruns caused by extra expenditure on security at the Games, the biggest international event ever staged in China.
When Beijing's bid for the Games was accepted in 2001, the price tag was fixed at 1.6 billion yuan (US$267 million), but the budget is now more than 2 billion yuan.
Last month FBI Director Robert Mueller said during a visit to China that he was impressed with security arrangements and he expected a terrorism-free Games.
US President George W. Bush is one of dozens of foreign heads of state expected to attend the Games.
Last September China's then-police chief Zhou Yongkang (周永康) said that "terrorist" and "extremist" groups posed the biggest threat to the success of the Olympics.
Also See: Collateral risk for China
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
NOTORIOUS JAIL: Even from a distance, prisoners maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger, could be distinguished Armed men broke the bolts on the cell and the prisoners crept out: haggard, bewildered and scarcely believing that their years of torment in Syria’s most brutal jail were over. “What has happened?” asked one prisoner after another. “You are free, come out. It is over,” cried the voice of a man filming them on his telephone. “Bashar has gone. We have crushed him.” The dramatic liberation of Saydnaya prison came hours after rebels took the nearby capital, Damascus, having sent former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fleeing after more than 13 years of civil war. In the video, dozens of
RSS