Beijing hires foreign experts for pollution watch

By Nick Mulvenney

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing has hired a panel of foreign environmental experts to lend credibility to its pollution monitoring and forecasts during the August 8-24 Olympics, state media reported on Thursday.

Fifty days before the opening ceremony, Beijing was again shrouded in smog on Thursday in a graphic reminder of how much remains to be done to clear the city's skies for the Olympics and September's Paralympics.

This is the first time foreigners have joined the Chinese capital's fight to improve air quality, the poor state of which was in part behind Australia's decision earlier this week to tell its track and field athletes to skip the opening ceremony.

"This panel will ensure the air quality monitoring and forecasts are publicised and authoritative because we have both domestic and foreign experts," Du Shaozhong, vice director of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, told Xinhua news agency.

Environmental experts have in the past cast doubts on the Beijing's claims of improvement in air quality, particularly the much-vaunted "blue sky days" tally by which the authorities measure the improvement.

The 12-person panel, including scientists from Hong Kong, the United States and Italy, will monitor and forecast air quality in Beijing during the Olympics and will also evaluate actions already taken to improve air quality, Xinhua reported.

The panel will be headed by Tang Xiaoyan of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and he promised they would be producing forecasts up to a week ahead.

"If the forecast show a bad situation, we will take strict actions to control pollution like limiting vehicles on the road and limiting vehicles from outside coming into Beijing," he said.