Tickets for Olympics on sale in Beijing

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The race is on for Beijing 2008 tickets. Since yesterday people can buy tickets for the various venues in next year’s Olympic Games which start on August 8, 2008. About 40 per cent of the 60,000 tickets to the opening ceremony will be reserved for mainlanders. Because of heavy demand for the opening and closing ceremonies, each mainland resident will be able to buy only one ticket, two for each of the various competitions. However, China’s capital also saw a rare demonstration as residents of one area protested against the construction near their homes of high-voltage power line that might cause electromagnetic pollution.

As of yesterday seven million tickets are up for grabs for the 17-day sporting event, with 75 per cent reserved for mainland residents—including 14 per cent for students and young athlete—with the rest going to the general public, and 25 per cent going to the rest of the world, including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, according to Rong Jun, director of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games ticketing department.

But the share of equestrian tickets for Hong Kong, venue of the equestrian competitions, will be decided in the coming days.

“We will have to decide the number of tickets to allot to Hong Kong residents when we get the application and after weighing up the demand from other regions’” Mr Rong said.

Sales will be held in three phases, with mainland residents able to apply for tickets on the internet, by phone and at certain Bank of China branches.

Overseas sales have yet to be launched and will be handled by each country's National Olympic Committee and ticketing agents.

Yesterday also saw some Beijing residents protest. More than 100 people staged a rally against the construction near their homes of a high-voltage power line that will provide electricity for the Olympics.

Holding a 20-metre banner that read “Reject High-Voltage Lines! Reject Leukaemia!” they voiced their concern about the health effects of the power line. The incident that went off without a hitch took place under the watchful eye of about a dozen police officers.

The power line, which would pass within about 100 metres of their residential complex and straddle its playground, scares many for its potential ill effects on human health.

The housing development is home to about 900 people. Residents say that the new power towers closest to their homes went up quickly last week with no prior notice, and that the government has not responded to their complaints.

The protesters, many of them professionals, chanted "Support a Green Olympics", invoking Beijing's official pro-environment mantra for the Games.

Beijing is investing about US$ 40 billion to upgrade its infrastructure for the August 2008 Games.

Local police declined to comment. Power company officials denied knowledge of the situation.

However, according to a study published by the British Medical Journal in June 2005, children living within 200 metres of high-voltage power lines were 1.69 times more likely to develop leukaemia than those living more than 600 metres away.