If You're Going To The Olympics: Please Post Collectibles On This Board

I hope someone does.

THOUSANDS of the cards and coins shown on the ticket sites are already listed on EBAY China.

Looks like it would cost BIG money to get any kind of comprehensive collection.



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SCREENING VISITORS

-- Visa rules have tightened. Travellers must now show a return air ticket and a hotel booking before buying a visa.

-- Hong Kong, host of Olympic equestrian events and a major gateway to China, has created a watchlist of unwelcome activists, and brought in new visa restrictions ahead of the Games.

-- Interpol is to give Beijing airport and other major border entry points access to its database of more than 14 million lost or stolen travel documents.

SECURITY CAPABILITIES

-- A 100,000-strong security force, including the elite Snow Wolf Commando Unit, is already on alert for terrorists.

-- 300,000 surveillance cameras watch the city.

-- Since May, the team of People's Liberation Army (PLA) engineers in charge of Games security checks and emergency rescues has run daily drills on finding and defusing explosives, rescuing and evacuating people from damaged buildings.

-- The U.N. nuclear watchdog has trained Chinese security personnel to respond to radiological attacks -- such as a "dirty bomb" -- in which radioactive material is released.

OLYMPIC VENUES

-- At least two surface-to-air missile launchers were set up in late June about a kilometre south of the Bird's Nest National Stadium.

-- Authorities pledged to revamp public emergency shelters by the venues last October, saying 20 to 30 new shelters, with room for 1.5 million to 2 million people, were needed every year.

-- Gas stations within 300 metres of Olympic venues and all Games-designated gas stations must install video surveillance equipment and "explosion-prevention devices".

-- Unmanned spy planes will fly over the east coast city of Qingdao, host of sailing events, to scan for "suspicious activities".

BEIJING CITY

-- Random identity card and passport checks have increased.

-- Stringent security is in place on public transport with spot checks on bottled drinks, and x-ray machines and sniffer dogs deployed in subway stations to check commuters' luggage.

-- Liquids, matches and lighters have been banned in hand luggage on domestic flights since officials said crew foiled an attempted airline bombing in Xinjiang in March.

-- Fireworks have been banned from the Chinese capital for three months from July 1; and some bars and restaurants close to Olympics venues have been told to shut down.

-- To prevent food safety problems or sabotage, inspectors will be posted in factories making food for the Olympics.

RESTIVE REGIONS

-- Chinese police said the bomb attack in Xinjiang's outpost city of Kashgar was a "suspected terrorist" attack. State television said on Tuesday the weapons used were similar to those seized in a police raid on an "East Turkestan terror camp" run by separatist Uighur militants in January 2007.

-- With authorities keen to present China as a harmonious nation, rights groups say restive western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang have seen controls tightened.

-- Deadly riots in Tibet in March, and in southwest Weng'an county, Guizhou, in late June, have highlighted social strains and prompted a new stability drive.

-- Local officials have been ordered to defuse petition campaigns by discontented citizens to prevent "mass incidents" such as riots and demonstrations.

-- In late June, Shanghai, which hosts some soccer qualifiers, banned dissidents, petitioners and other "controlled" people from leaving the city during the Games. Subway shops were ordered to shut for a month from August 5.

Sources: Reuters, Chinese media

(Writing by Gillian Murdoch and Guo Shipeng, Beijing Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by Benjamin Kang Lim and Jeremy Laurence)

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Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited.