Salt Lake City may seem an unlikely place for a sensitive diplomatic mission, but State Department officials brought Iranian basketball players all the way to Utah on July 17 for an unusual combination of dribbling and discussion.

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Even as China projects a new air of openness and tolerance as it rolls out the welcome mat for Olympics visitors, the government is cracking down on citizens. Last week, Chinese officials ordered copies of The Beijing News removed from newsstands and censored the newspaper’s Web site after it published a photograph of victims wounded during the 1989 democracy movement in Tiananmen Square. The authorities have barred distribution of the English version of Time Out Beijing, a magazine for which I write, for the past two months.

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At issue are the cases of 51 Mexican nationals who were arrested, tried and sentenced to death in the United States but were denied consular notification and access. Mexico sought a remedy for these U.S. breaches of the Vienna Convention at the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial arm of the United Nations and the international body that the U.S. and other Vienna Convention signatories had agreed would resolve such disputes.

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The United States and the former Soviet Union, now fragmented since the end of the Cold War, have between them ruled the roost in every Olympics since the first post-World War Two Games in London in 1948. In 1996 and 2000, the Americans beat the Russians in the final tables but Athens saw a geo-political shift, with China finishing second overall with 32 golds to the U.S. team's 36. They had been third in 2000, fourth in 1996 and 1992. Four years on from Athens, China has spared no expense in the final push to the summit.

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Chinese officials have thrown an almost smothering blanket of security across this capital of 17 million in preparation for the start of the Olympic Games on Friday. Above all else, Chinese leaders say, these Olympics will be “safe.” Even civilians have been called on to strengthen the motherland: Tens of thousands of middle-age and elderly residents wearing red armbands, reminiscent of the zealous Red Guard youth from decades ago, now patrol neighborhoods looking for even a slightly suspicious act or person.

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With the Olympics just four days away, China has been hit with a violent attack that killed 16 police officers in its troubled Muslim region of Xinjiang, one of the bloodiest assaults on Chinese authorities in many years. The attack is likely to escalate tensions that are already running high on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. China has mobilized an anti-terrorism force of 100,000 soldiers and police, along with a battery of surface-to-air missiles, to protect the Olympic Games from terrorist attacks.

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On, July 30 , 2008, President George W. Bush signed H.R. 5501, the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008 proving a significant day in the US Senate...It is already the most ambitious foreign public health program ever launched by the United States, also viewed as a meaningful and direct U.S. public diplomacy effort.

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Refusing to be overshadowed by international big names of Adidas and Coca Cola, Chinese sponsors of the Games are seeking to draw public attention from buses, subway trains, neon lights and right there in the Olympic venues.

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