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Lithuania, Mexico, Namibia, and Romania have new leaders who maintain the same URLs as their predecessors from the 2003 study. Comoros has a new head of state who is not operating a Web site. Poland similarly has a new president, Lech Kaczynski, who has a new URL address for his official Web site (http://www.president.pl/x.node?id=479). Estonia—s 2006 parliamentary-elected Chief of State, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, replaced his 2003 predecessor—s Web site with his own and a new URL (http://www.thilves.ee/eng/index.php). Iran, dubbed by U.S. President Bush as one of a trio of —axis of evil— countries, has seen Mohammed Khatami replaced by Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad, who likewise operates a presidential Web site in English. Despite these changes since 2003, the bulk of the leaders in this study are still in power and operating official English-language Web sites.
Three of the four Web sites forming the narrative analysis in this dissertation, Latvia, the Philippines, and Russia, have the same leaders and URLs. The fourth, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, operates what he calls a —personal Web site— different from the one studied in this dissertation. According to the site, its primary purpose is to —... provide easy access to me, my views, and my contributions to the development of Nigeria— (http://www.olusegun-obasanjo.net/). Notably, each of these four heads of state with the exception of ?Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga has recently made international headlines for inauspicious reasons. Philippines President ?Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo survived a coup d—etat attempt in 2006 but has faced allegations of scandal, corruption and human rights abuses. Russian President Vladimir Putin enjoys strong national support but international criticism for continuing human rights abuses. Nigeria—s Obasanjo won reelection in 2003 despite voting irregularities noted by international organizations and charges of rigged elections. Many of his challenges, including increasing ethnic and political polarization, and corruption, remain intact.