Covering the business of education and training

The country's top foreign-language college, Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), the oldest of its kind in the country, has inked an agreement to make the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games a "language-barrier-free" Olympic Games.

The college hopes to offer training and support in English, French, Portugese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic.

Beijing's police have an English-language program that was introduced in 2001. So far, about half of Beijing's 50,000 policemen have received the Beijing Oral English Certificate.

With 489 days to go, the other half will have to get on the stick or they will be stuck covering fencing and horse back riding.