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<p>U.S. travel visas, far more difficult to obtain since the September 11 terrorist attacks, were a hot topic of discussion when Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski met at the White House with President Bush earlier this year.</p> <p>"To improve the ease and safety of such travel, the United States will establish in Warsaw a program to pre-screen visitors traveling from Poland to the United States," Mr. Bush assured the visiting head of state, who had made clear that "millions and millions" of law-abiding Poles and Polish Americans were counting on improvements in the visa process.</p>

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<p>One issue missing from the 2004 presidential elections debate is wasteful federal spending that yearly robs hundreds of billions of dollars from hardworking taxpayers.</p> <p>John Kerry won't touch it because the base of his party isn't into cutting spending (unless it's in the Defense Department or intelligence agencies).</p>

<p>It was 15 years ago today that the Communist leadership of the People's Republic of China sent tanks into Beijing's Tiananmen Square to subdue peaceful demonstrations. Thousands were killed and disappeared into the nation's gulags. In the years since, China has been welcomed into the community of nations with open arms, winning the 2008 Summer Olympics and being admitted into the World Trade Organization. The hope was that engagement and exposure to civilized governments would encourage Beijing's thugs to appreciate the rule of law. So far, the strategy has not worked. China's Communist rulers are as tyrannical as ever.</p>

<p>Despite U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's promises to fully investigate the scandal in the Oil for Food program, United Nations officials have been doing their level best to conceal information from investigators and the public. The office of Benon Sevan, the outgoing boss of the program, has sent at least three letters to companies who participated in it urging them not to hand over documents to investigators without first clearing their release with the United Nations. Unfortunately, while Mr. Sevan has continued to stonewall, Ambassador Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), is undercutting efforts by the Iraq Governing Council to conduct its own audit of the program.</p>

<p>The Chinese Communists have decided that enough is enough in Hong Kong. Last Wednesday, Beijing ordered a naval battle group into Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor for the first time since the colony's 1997 handover from Britain. Made up of two submarines, four frigates and two destroyers, the group of warships sailed slowly through the world's busiest port and passed the skyscrapers of Asia's economic hub. Hong Kongers crowded the shoreline to gawk unbelievingly at a show of force that could only mean one thing: Beijing is threatening the use of military force to kill Hong Kong's yearning for democracy.</p>

Now.

<p>Human rights at the U.N.</p> <p>Let it be noted that in the fourth year of the 21st century, the secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, announced creation of a new post of special adviser on the prevention of genocide.</p>

<p>French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte was just getting over the "diplomatic hurricane" caused by France's opposition to the war in Iraq when another scandal erupted.</p> <p>He now has to defend his country against accusations of corruption in the United Nations' oil-for-food program, and he is blaming the right-wing news media.</p>

No more room in hell And these dead are walking tall. By Matt Zoller Seitz Dawn of the Dead Directed by Zack Snyder According to movie lore, one can kill a zombie by destroying its brain. But there is no way to kill the zombie metaphor. As a cinematic symbol of chaos, groupthink and generally uncivilized behavior, the ghoul is the most resilient and versatile monster around. It is infinitely and easily adaptable - a fact proven by the current, excellent Dawn of the Dead remake, which pulls off the difficult trick of pouring new wine into an old bottle....

<p>Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor drew national attention to a developing judicial trend in October when she addressed the Southern Center for International Studies in Atlanta: "I suspect that over time we will rely increasingly, or take notice at least increasingly, on international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues."</p>

<p>Asking John Kerry to cough up his sources on foreign leaders who told him they looked forward to regime change in Washington next November challenges credulity. Anyone who knows how to keep off-the-record conversations off the record and is trusted by foreign leaders has heard the same refrain not once, but time and again.</p>

<p>The silly season in Massachusetts politics is traditionally launched by the banter and blarney of the St. Patrick's Day breakfast for pols and pundits held in South Boston, but Democratic Rep. Barney Frank didn't wait for the green eggs and ham to lambaste his Republican opponent by threatening to unleash his mother on him.</p>

<p>There now are 40,000 U.N. blue helmeted peacekeepers in six black African countries. Most of them are "volunteered" by other African countries. The best troops are from South Asian countries - Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.</p> <p>Soon Sudan, emerging from the nightmare of a 30-year civil war, will need 8,000 to 10,000 more. But before the first peacekeepers could get there, a new insurgency erupted in the west - the Chad-based Darfar rebellion. Khartoum hit back ruthlessly with scorched-earth tactics and ethnic cleansing.</p>

<p>John Kerry misrepresented his voting record on Cuba during a recent visit to Florida, the Miami Herald reports.</p> <p>Here's how reporter Peter Wallsten put it in a story published Sunday: "John Kerry had just pumped up a huge crowd in downtown West Palm Beach, promising to make the state a battleground for his quest to oust President Bush, when a local television journalist posed the question that any candidate with Florida ambitions should expect: "What will you do about Cuba?</p>

<p>On Tuesday, Richard W. Rahn wrote, "Yet another major reason for slow job growth is the drop in the dollar and the rise in oil prices" ("How to create more jobs," Commentary). The dollar may have fallen against the euro and yen, but China has pegged the yuan at 8.3 per dollar since 1995. This permits China to keep manufactured exports cheap by exchanging yuan for U.S. Treasury securities.</p>

<p>The New York Times has dropped political cartoonist Ted Rall, who traces the trouble back to his March 2002 cartoon of "terror widows," which depicted September 11 family survivors capitalizing on the attacks.</p> <p>The image "became the target of a coordinated e-mail attack by right-wing 'warbloggers.' These pro-Bush bloggers, coasting on a wave of post-September 11 patriotism, sent out e-mails to their followers ... asking each other to deluge the Times and other papers with complaints that purported to come from their readers," Mr. Rall wrote on his Web site (www.rall.com) yesterday.</p>

<p>A former Polish military officer who supplied the CIA with crucial intelligence in the last years of the Cold War has died.</p> <p>Polish Col. Ryszard Kuklinski died late Tuesday at a hospital in Tampa, Fla., from a stroke. He was 73.</p>

<p>Last week, French President Jacques Chirac used the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao as an opportunity to call for an end to the EU's ban on selling arms to the Communist state. During the meetings in Paris, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said, "Our feeling is that the embargo is out of date as relations between Europe and China improve." Referring to China's role in the world, he added that Beijing is "a privileged partner and a responsible one." The French foreign minister neglected to mention that the original reason for the embargo had nothing to do with Beijing's relationship with Europe. It was a response to the crackdown on democratic activists in Tiananmen Square in 1989. In this light, there is no justification to lift the arms ban because the political and human-rights situation in China continues to deteriorate.</p>

<p>The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, which recognizes animal and eco-terrorism as forms of domestic terrorism, has been drafted by the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance.</p> <p>The draft bill, which is currently being circulated to state legislators across the country, would increase penalties for persons participating in politically motivated actions and it creates specific penalties for those who aid in such acts of terrorism.</p>