President Bush To Attend Olympic Games

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - President George Bush will be attending the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics despite a boycott by fellow world leaders because of China's violent repression of Tibetan protesters and support of the Sudanese government.

President Bush will attend the Games' opening gala on August 8 as part of a trip to Asia that includes stops in Thailand and South Korea.

"We are pleased that the Dalai Lama and the Chinese are finally in discussions, and that's one of the things the President had called on," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told reporters on Thursday.

Perino said the President's attendance was not conditional on the results of the talks between China and the Dalai Lama, who has been in exile in India since 1959.

Demonstrations in March in China against the government's refusal to recognize Tibet as a separate nation turned violent after police clashed with protesters. The violence was internationally condemned. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared that he was not attending the Olympics; he joined other world leaders, including those from Germany and Poland, in the boycott.

Save Darfur Coalition, a human rights group working to end the war in Sudan, criticized President Bush as well as "rhetoric from world leaders who claim solidarity with those suffering and dying, yet cast their lots with those who abet and enable genocide."

The war in Darfur, which began in 2003 among warring ethnic factions, is regarded as one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. China has maintained its support for the Sudanese government, which has been accused of funding an Arab militia to wage a war against non-Arab rebels.