Beijing is expecting no big boom in foreign tourism as a result of the Olympics and may wind up with fewer overseas visitors in August than a year ago, a tourism official said yesterday. The city expects 400,000 to 450,000 foreign visitors in August, as compared with 420,000 a year ago, the deputy director of the Beijing Tourism Administration, Xiong Yumei, told reporters, according to Bloomberg News.

The lack of any expected surge in foreign visitors is likely due to China’s move in April to limit visas as part of an effort to ensure security at the Games. The action was widely viewed as an attempt to also limit protests or other disruptions by foreign activists allied with Tibetan groups, a religious sect, Falun Gong, and other causes.

Business travelers and some who live in China without formal residency report that they can no longer get multiple entry visas good for as long as two years, which could once be obtained in Hong Kong without even completing an application form. Single and double entry visas for stays of up to 30 days are now the norm. Potential visitors with ties to human rights groups have reported being denied visas altogether.

REPORT: SOME N. KOREANS URGED OUT OF BEIJING

Some North Korean workers in Beijing have been asked by China to clear out until September, Bloomberg News reported, citing a document obtained from the North Korean embassy. The document cited a July 11 directive from China that North Koreans, except for trade officials and government-dispatched personnel, should leave by July 31, the news service said.

The scope and authority of the order was unclear, as five North Korean businessmen told Bloomberg they were leaving on other dates or were unaffected. Chinese officials may be wary of protests by or on behalf of North Korean refugees, who are regularly deported from China against their will. Human rights groups have asked China to suspend the deportations because many deportees face harsh treatment from authorities upon returning to their home country.

For its part, North Korea is saluting China’s efforts to ward off criticism of its human rights record in connection with the Olympics. China’s state-run news service, Xinhua, noted approvingly a dispatch in the North Korean Minju Choson newspaper which the Chinese said demonstrated “that any attempt of using the Olympics to intervene in China’s internal affairs and to increase pressure to China is bound to fail.”

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL DISOWNS JARRING ADS

A human rights group, Amnesty International, is disowning an advertising campaign that uses athletic imagery to underscore China’s sometimes brutal tactics against dissidents. The Associated Press reported that one ad shows a man being waterboarded by Chinese Olympic officials in a swimming pool, while another ad shows a man hanging limp from an archery target. The ads from the TBWA agency won an ad contest but were rejected by Amnesty’s French arm.

SAILING SITE CLEARED OF ALGAE MUCK

An extensive skimming effort by Chinese fishing boats and the deployment of two floating booms across the bay outside the Chinese city of Qingdao have cleared a blanket of green algae that threatened to disrupt Olympic sailing events. “Now, it’s totally different from several days ago. It’s hard to find the green algae, especially in the Olympics sailing site,” a Chinese Olympic official, Wang Haitao, told the Associated Press. He said 1,700 fishing boats sent out Monday picked up “only … 10,000 tons” of algae.

An American sailor, Carrie Howe, said on a team Web site Monday that the algae bloom “seems to have been successfully tackled” by the mobilization on the part of the Chinese, the AP said.

HUNGARIAN OLYMPIAN DIES DURING TRAINING

A Hungarian athlete who won gold medals in canoeing at the 1996 and 2004 Olympics, Gyorgy Kolonics, died yesterday while training for what would have been his fifth trip to the Olympic Games, the Associated Press reported. Kolonics, 36, suffered apparent heart failure while practicing in Budapest.