Recent BES results and the BESIII upgrade

Using 58 million $J/psi$ and 14 million $psi(2S)$ events collected by the BESII detector at the BEPC, branching fractions or upper limits for the decays $J/psi$ and $psi(2S) to Lambda bar{Lambda} pi^0$ and $Lambda bar{Lambda} eta$ are measured, and the decays of $J/psi$ and $psi(2S)$ to $n K^0_S bar{Lambda}+c.c.$ are observed and measured for the first time. Finally, $R$ measurement data taken with the BESII detector at center-of-mass energies between 3.7 and 5.0 GeV are fitted to determine resonance parameters of the high mass charmonium states, $psi(3770)$, $psi(4040)$, $psi(4160)$, and $psi(4415)$. The Beijing Electron Collider is being upgraded to a two-ring collider (BEPCII) with a design luminosity of $1 times 10^{33}$cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ at 3.89 GeV and will operate between 2 and 4.2 GeV in the center of mass. With this luminosity, the new BESIII detector will beable to collect, for example, 10 billion $J/psi$ events in one year of running. BEPCII and BESIII are currently nearing completion, and commissioning of both is expected to begin in mid-2008.