The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Washington

President Bush's agenda in Asia this week is front-loaded with trouble on the continent: nuclear worries, political repression, recovery from natural disaster. Then comes plenty of sports. Bush embarks Monday on his last venture as president to the Far East, a trip built around the Olympic Games in Beijing. The president will stop en route at an Alaskan Air Force base to speak to military personnel and get his plane refueled, then fly through the night to South Korea. With less than six months left in office, Bush is out to show that the United States is engaged in Asia's affairs, and that the economic and security dividends pay off back home. His enthusiastic plans to attend the Olympics are meant to pay respect to the Chinese people in their moment of glory. Yet as hard as Bush tries to define the games only in the context of sports, there is no escaping the politics of a world event held in a police state. China, trying to ensure the event is clean of controversy, has only intensified its repression of political dissent, religious expression and press coverage. Bush says he can and will candidly raise concerns about China's human rights record to President Hu Jintao. Given the long travel and time differences, Bush begins his agenda in earnest on Wednesday in Seoul, South Korea. The country is a key partner in the six-country coalition striving to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons. Progress has been stop and start as the world watches to see whether North Korea will come to terms on allowing its nuclear dismantling to be verified.