Olympics 2008, Beijing raising the bar

With the Olympic Games breathing down Beijing's neck, the city is racing against the clock to ensure it meets one of the commitments it made when it won the bid for the games in 2001: blue skies.

As one alights on the Jingshun highway that connects the airport to Beijing, a question comes inevitably to mind: will Nini, the flying swallow chosen as one of the five mascots for the 2008 games, prosper in a city gridlocked by incessant waves of traffic