China vows Olympic-scale spending blitz

China has said it would spend more than twenty-billion dollars on a construction programme if it's awarded the 2008 Olympic games.

The official news agency said the public transport system and competition venues would be upgraded in what it called the largest construction project in China since the Great Wall.

The announcement comes as inspectors from the International Olympic Committee examine Beijing's sporting sites.

But it coincides with news that a pro-democracy activist has been sentenced to two years in a labour camp for sending a petition to the committee. Shan Chengfen, the wife of a jailed Chinese dissident , Wu Yilong, was among twenty-eight activists who urged the IOC last year to pressure the government over its human rights record while it was bidding to host the games.

The Hongkong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy says two other dissidents were detained ahead of the IOC visit.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service