Glimpses into GZ's Blue Print Announced
The two ongoing conferences in Guangzhou, Guangzhou's NPC and CPPCC, held their first press conference this morning. Much-talked about issues closely related with living standards in the city were the focus. More stories from our reporter Liang Chunmei.

Guangzhou's efforts to improve the air quality date back to 2004. According to last year's figures, in the context that the city saw increases in GDP and in the number of cars on the roads, drops have been recorded in major pollutant indeces, such as sulphur dioxide. Dinghong, Director General of Guangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau said,

"Currently our work has entered the sixth stage, focusing on eight categories. One highlight is to reduce air pollutant emissions from 28 power plants.
There are eight stages the Guangzhou municipal government is carrying out aimed at improving air quality."

Pan Jianguo, Director General of Guangzhou Reform and Development Commission announced the specific positioning to define Guangzhou's five functional districts.

"Zhujiang New town's Yuan Cun village will be the core area to develop financial business, and Pazhou the center for the international convention and exhibitions. Bai'Er'Tan will focus on boosting international business development, whereas the plan for Baiyun New city will be based on a place for living."

GZ's Odd-Even Number Traffic Restriction Revealed
With the aim of guaranteeing air quality, specific traffic control measures for the Asian Games period were announced yesterday. Wu Zeju from Guangzhou Traffic Police said the city will adopt the license plates'odd-even traffic restriction. That means cars, whether local or from outside the city, will only be allowed to drive within the city depending on the last number of their license plate. If it is odd, then you can only drive on odd dates, and vice versa. In addition, cars with yellow labels will be prohibited to enter Guangzhou during the Asian Games period. These cars are those that fail to meet emission standards. In preparation, drills will be conducted within Guangzhou in June and then extended to the PRD in September.

Chinese Dragon Boat Racing Candidates Chosen in Shunde
A series of competitions to determine who will represent Chinese national dragon boat teams in the 2010 Asian Games came ended today in Foshan's Shunde district. Last weekend, mens and womens races were held over distances including 250, 500 and 1000-meters. The Jiujiang men's dragon team from Foshan's Nanhai district and the women's team from Zhaoqing triumphed. Based on the total scores of the teams, the top three men's and women's teams will attend intensive training camps and then compete in September to be chosen as members of the Chinese delegation.