Haze that covered Beijing for days cleared on Tuesday as rain fell 10 days before the Olympics open, but China's government came under fresh pressure from a damning human rights report. The city's chronic pollution, a sometimes stifling mix of construction dust, vehicle exhaust and industrial fumes, has been one of the biggest worries for Games organizers, who promised a green Games and have enacted special measures to lift the pall. They have raised the prospect of more pollution controls, in addition to keeping nearly half of Beijing's 3.3 million cars off roads and shutting many factories near the capital, but have refused to give details, insisting air quality is improving. However it appeared the winds, powered partly by a tropical storm to the southeast, were the key factor in the turnaround from Monday, and Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates said pollution concerns remained. “There doesn't appear to be a great improvement,” Coates said, comparing the situation with when he was last in the Chinese capital in March. “Let's hope that there are more solutions and that they will kick in and there will be an improvement, that's what we're all hoping for,” added Coates, who arrived in Beijing on Monday along with some Australian athletes. Du Shaozhong, deputy chief of the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, said the haze, which reduces visibility to a few blocks, did not mean air quality was bad. “We do not approve of the use of pictures to pass judgment on air quality ... you have to look at the complete monitoring system, and scientifically look at the data,” Du told reporters. “Cloud and fog are not pollution. This kind of weather is a natural phenomenon, and has nothing to do with pollution.” The relatively few athletes already in Beijing tend to be preparing for non-endurance or indoor sports for which pollution is not such a big worry. Support staff making ready for their teams' arrival said they would keep a close eye on conditions. “It's a worry, but then it's the same for everybody,” Julian Jones, an Australian team staff member, said. Beijing is not the only Games city to suffer. Hong Kong, host to the equestrian events, was hit by its worst air pollution ever recorded on Monday. Pollution was thick again on Tuesday, making it hard even to see across the city's famed harbor. “We can see how the horses and riders feel. But we don't know if it's from the heat or the humidity or the dirty air,” said Reinhard Wendt, chef de mission for the German equestrian team. Also in Hong Kong, Amnesty International took aim at another Olympics sensitivity - human rights - in a report saying China had failed to honor pledges made when seeking to host the Games. “There has been no progress toward fulfilling these promises, only continued deterioration,” said Amnesty's report. Human rights Another controversy swirling around the Games has been the human rights record of China's communist leaders, and Amnesty International and other critics stepped up the pressure over the issue. “Unless the authorities make a swift change of direction, the legacy of the Beijing Olympics will not be positive for human rights in China,” Amnesty said in a report. “In fact, the crackdown on human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers has intensified because Beijing is hosting the Olympics.” Adding to rights groups' concerns, a Chinese lawyer said a Beijing-based activist who had campaigned for the rights of people evicted from their homes for the Olympics would go on trial Monday, four days before the Games start. Ni Yulan, a 47-year-old former rights lawyer who was disbarred in 2002, has already been detained for three months, according to her lawyer, Hu Xiao. Human Rights Watch researcher Nicholas Bequelin said the decision to put Ni on trial the same week that the Games were due to begin was “an alarming gesture of defiance and a new setback for human rights in China”. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao hit back at Amnesty and other critics as he defended the government's human rights record. “Anybody who knows about China will not agree on this report on the deterioration of the Chinese human rights situation,” Liu said in response to the Amnesty report. “We hope it can take off the colored glasses it has worn for many years to see China in an objective way.” Internet censorship IOC will investigate apparent censorship of the Internet service provided for media covering the Beijing Olympics, press chief Kevan Gosper said on Tuesday. China, which has promised media the same freedom to report on the Games as they enjoyed at previous Olympics, loosened its regulations governing foreign media in January last year. Despite these new regulations, which are scheduled to expire in October, foreign media in China have complained of continuing harassment by officials and Human Rights Watch released a report earlier this month saying China was not living up to its pledges. Attempts to use the Internet network at the Main Press Center to access the website of Amnesty International, which released a report on Monday slamming China for failing to honor its Olympic human rights pledges, proved fruitless on Tuesday. Gosper said the IOC would look into anything that interfered with reporters doing their jobs in reporting the Games.
