The Clean Olympics

Liu Qi, secretary of the Chinese Communist Party's Beijing Municipal Committee, promised a "clean" 2008 Olympics.

This promise comes one day after the party expelled Liu Zhihua, the Beijing vice mayor in charge of Olympic construction projects. He has been accused of bribery and other offences.

Liu Zhihua took bribes of "several million yuan" and "helped his mistress to seek profit in projects".

Liu Qi said:

"We must tighten auditing and monitoring efforts on the preparatory work of the Olympics to prevent all potential problems. Efforts must be made to ensure that staff members involved in the Olympic preparations and venue construction projects remain on track, and make sure the Olympics are clean."

Lucrative projects, such as the Olympics, do seem to bring out the worst in people.