Not exactly surprising...

Global poll slams Bush leadership

Since the death of his father, Akhmad-hadji Kadyrov, in a terrorist bombing on 9 May, 28-year-old Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov has emerged as the most powerful and the most feared man in Chechnya despite his lack of formal education and the alleged involvement of his security force in the systematic abduction, torture, and execution of Chechen civilians.

While Russian human rights activists decry Kadyrov’s reported involvement in human rights violations, he can seemingly do no wrong in the eyes of the Russian leadership, which has augmented his powers and bestowed on him one of the country’s most prestigious awards.

THE WARLORD AND THE COMMISSAR

MOST two-term American presidents lose steam in their second four years. If scandal doesn't get them (Watergate, Iran-contra, Monica Lewinsky), weariness does. Sitting presidents rarely campaign on a revolutionary agenda, just feel-good blather: Ronald Reagan's “Morning in America”, or Bill Clinton's “Bridge to the 21st century”. And a re-elected president is a lame-duck long before his second term ends, leaving little time to get much done.

George Bush seems determined to be different. He has laid out a second-term domestic agenda more ambitious than anything seen in the first term, and that was hardly a lull. It brought the biggest tax cuts since 1981, the broadest education reform in a generation and the costliest expansion of Medicare, the state health system for the elderly, since it was set up in 1965.

If the first-term legacy is largely a deficit, the second term promises to shake some of the country's economic pillars. At the Republican convention last September, Mr Bush spoke of transforming America's fundamental economic institutions for the 21st century, and offered two broad organising themes. The first was to make the United States the best place in the world to do business. That covered changes from tort reform (fewer burdensome lawsuits) to a simpler tax code, spurring more economic growth. The second theme was to foster an “ownership society”, by giving individuals greater control over, and responsibility for, their own health care and pensions. In particular, it meant restructuring Social Security, America's public pension system, by basing it partly on private accounts.

Empty campaign promises? Not so. At his post-election press conference, the president left no doubt that he regarded his victory as a mandate for reform. “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital”, he said, “and now I intend to spend it.”

George Bush's second term

Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the Identity Theft Prevention Act. This act protects the American people from government-mandated uniform identifiers that facilitate private crime as well as the abuse of liberty. The major provision of the Identity Theft Prevention Act halts the practice of using the Social Security number as an identifier by requiring the Social Security Administration to issue all Americans new Social Security numbers within five years after the enactment of the bill. These new numbers will be the sole legal property of the recipient, and the Social Security administration shall be forbidden to divulge the numbers for any purposes not related to Social Security administration. Social Security numbers issued before implementation of this bill shall no longer be considered valid federal identifiers. Of course, the Social Security Administration shall be able to use an individual's original Social Security number to ensure efficient administration of the Social Security system.

[ron paul] Government IDs and Identity Theft

This is a very interesting discussion about whether foreign court decisions should impact american law. It's pretty long, though.

Justices Scalia & Breyer Discussion on International Law Impact

Romania's new president, Traian Basescu, promised to overhaul the way the country is run, saying the former communist elite's grip on the state must be loosened without further delay.
"People of the old (communist) regime are running the state institutions. These puffed-up faces of the old regime are destroying everything, they are chewing up democracy," Basescu said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"We need to finish with this regime," he warned. "Their bad luck is that I know the system from the inside," he said.

---
Fraud and corruption is probably one of the key things they have to address before they can join the EMU. It'll be interesting to see how much progress they make on this -- acceptance into the EMU is probably the single major goal of Basescu (as it was his predecessor).

[romania] Basescu wants big fraud uncovered

The creation of an anti-secession law is based on "doing the utmost for a scenario of peaceful reunification," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said yesterday.

"Commencing the legislative process against secession aims at curbing separatist activities, which is favourable for maintaining the peace, stability and prosperity of the Taiwan Straits and the Asia-Pacific region as well," Liu said at a regular news briefing.

Anti-Secession Law (chinese perspective)

"China's proposed anti-secession law will establish a special court for handling cases of "separatist activity," while officials on both sides of the Taiwan Strait would be held to account if they do not act appropriately in opposing Taiwanese independence, Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu said yesterday."

Interesting article, keeping in mind I don't think anything has even officially been proposed, other than the fact that such a law should be passed and that it should embrace the one china and one state, two systems notions.

China anti-secession bill will rock relations

[from moscow times]

"Moldova Lashes Out

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) -- Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin said Russian troops are stationed illegally in his country and that Moscow's explanations for failing to meet a deadline to withdraw were not credible.

Voronin, in an interview with ORT-Moldova television aired Tuesday, also dismissed as "silly" Moscow's claims that separatists in the Russian-speaking breakaway province of Transdnestr were preventing their withdrawal. He said Russia has great influence over Transdnestr. "

In mildly related news, the new romanian president (Traian Basescu) has said that he wants to move to a more tight partnership with Muldova. Of course, the big romanian issue will continue to be reforms necessary to join the EU.

IranExpert has an interesting article about a paper from CPD (a very hawkish organization) about a plan for non-military approaches to the iranian problem, from their perspective. The article is at the following URL:

http://www.iranexpert.com/2004/neocon22december.htm

I did some additional research, and there are significant links between CPD and the bush administration, so it's very likely the policy paper will have some influence in the administration. The contents of the paper can be found at the following URL:

http://www.fightingterror.org/newsroom/CPD_Iran_policy_paper.pdf

As mentioned in the iranexpert paper, William Beeman has been highly critical of the paper. He has written fairly extensively on US-Iran relations. Some of his recent papers on this topic follow:

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/publications/AQ-IRAN-US.pdf

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/publications/IranUS.pdf