Brown will not attend Games' opening ceremony; Olympic torch route cut in half in San Francisco

LONDON: Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain will skip the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

He became the second major world leader after the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to stay away from the opening ceremonies, although Brown's office insisted Wednesday that he was not boycotting the Olympics and would attend the closing ceremony.

Asked whether President George W. Bush would go to the opening portion of the Olympics, the White House press secretary Dana Perino demurred, citing the fluid nature of a foreign trip.

"It is extremely premature for me to say what the president's schedule is going to be" in August, she said. Full Article Link