Egypt

With the Muslim Brotherhood opting to flood Gaza'a lifeline one really has to wonder whether the Islamist regime has not found a way of working with its erstwhile enemy, Israel.

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John Kerry visits Egypt as dozens injured in violent protests

US Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in Egypt, as major protests take place in several cities. Police used tear gas against protesters in the city of Mansoura. At least one person was killed and dozens injured in the violence.

RT,

2 February, 2013

The protester was killed after being run over by a police car which was dispersing the crowd. The accident sparked more anger, leading to further clashes with police.

A conflicting report from the Egyptian Popular Current said that four people were killed in the Mansoura clashes. That report was not confirmed.

Dozens of people were injured during the violence, which began when police fired tear gas at protesters, Ahram Online reported. Video footage from ONTV showed officers dragging and beating up a man captured during the demonstrations.

The situation in the city remains tense, and police units have been deployed to the area.

An Egyptian protester plays drums during an anti-government protest in the canal city of Port Said on March 1, 2013. (AFP Photo)

Earlier on Saturday, around 500 protesters threw stones and petrol bombs at a police station in Port Said, setting it on fire. The interior ministry says protesters then blocked fire engines from reaching the blaze. Five protesters were hit by a police car while blocking traffic, according to AP.

Human Rights Watch spoke out against police violence in Port Said on Saturday, saying Morsi should"publicly acknowledge that the police's right to use lethal force is not unlimited — even when they come under attack — and order the police to limit any use of force to what is strictly necessary."

"Neither the Interior Ministry nor the president has admitted any wrongdoing on the part of the police in Port Said," the statement said.

More than 70 people have been killed in clashes with police since the second anniversary of Egypt's uprising in late January.

Saturday's protests come as US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Egypt on an official visit. Kerry met with opposition leaders during the day, and is set to meet with Mr. Morsi on Sunday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi in Cairo, on March 2, 2013. (AFP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin)

In a round-table discussion, Kerry told opposition figures that Egypt needs to pass necessary reforms to qualify for a $4.8 billion IMF loan package. Steps could include increasing taxes and curbing energy subsidies.

“It is clear to us that the IMF arrangement needs to be reached,” Kerry said. Agreeing with the IMF would unlock financial assistance from the US, including Obama's $1 million pledge last April.

Kerry also said that Egyptians need to come together to boost the confidence of businesses.

“It is paramount, essential, urgent, that the Egyptian economy gets stronger, and gets back on its feet, and it’s very clear that there is a circle of connections in how that can happen," he said.

“To attract capital, to bring money back here, to give business the confidence to move forward, there has to be sense of security, there has to be a sense of political and economic viability,” Kerry added.

Kerry's visit has been rejected by Egyptian opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahi and his colleague, Mohamed El-Baradei. The two men turned down invitations to meet with Kerry in Cairo.

“I received an invitation and turned it down, and Dr. ElBaradei received an invitation and he turned it down,” Sabahi said in an interview with a local television channel. “We want to send a message that we reject American pressure,” he added.

Members of the opposition have accused America of siding with the Muslim Brotherhood, which they say is no different from the government of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak. The opposition says Washington is not critical enough of the Brotherhood's methods of imposing power, including introducing an Islamist-backed constitution despite and opposition boycott, the Lebanese Daily Star reported.

An Egyptian protester holds a sign during a demonstration against the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo on March 1, 2013. (AFP Photo / Gianluigi Guercia)

Tensions are also running high due to the fact that the US has expressed discontent over the political divisions that are gripping the country. In particular, Washington is pushing the main opposition group, the National Salvation Front, to change its decision to boycott parliamentary elections set to start in April.

US President Barack Obama told Morsi in a phone conversation last week that he welcomed the Egyptian leader's "commitment" to represent all Egyptians, but encouraged him to find common ground with the opposition.

One opposition group, the National Association for Change, branded those comments as "blatant interference in Egypt's internal affairs."

Morsi's administration says the opposition is attempting to use street violence to overturn the leader's election victories.

A screenshot from AP video. March 2, 2013.

A screenshot from AP video. March 2, 2013.

A screenshot from AP video. March 2, 2013.

‘Cry dear Sphinx’: Egypt’s finance ministry proposes renting out pyramids

Renting out Egypt's iconic landmarks, including the Giza Pyramids, to international clients could rake in up to $150 billion over five years, according to a proposal aimed at boosting the economy submitted to the country's antiquities ministry.

RT,

2 February, 2013

The proposal was authored by Egyptian intellectual Abdallah Mahfouz, who argued that renting historical sites could help breathe new life into the country’s economy.

Earlier this week, Adel Abdel Sattar, Egypt's secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, reportedly confirmed in an interview with local station ONTV the existence of the proposal to rent Egypt’s main monuments – including the pyramids at Giza, the Sphinx, the Abu Simbel Temple and the temples of Luxor – to international tourism firms.

“But is it possible that we rent our monuments? … This is our heritage, our roots,” the official was quoted as saying. Sattar said he received a request from the Finance Ministry to study the proposal, which has sparked outrage from local archeologists and their international counterparts.

"Cry dear Sphinx, people want to rent you out and maybe later cut you into pieces and sell you! Shame on those who want to rent you. You are the symbol of dignity, power and Egypt’s ancient civilization," Egyptology professor Ahmed Saeed of Cairo University wrote on his Facebook page, according to Ahramonline.

The country's antiquities ministry has reportedly rejected the controversial plan, which became the talk of the town and gave rise to various rumors. The Gulf state of Qatar reportedly expressed interest in renting Egypt’s landmarks for five years for $200 billion, according to Al Arabiya.

Two years after the rise of the Arab Spring and the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's economic downturn has resulted in higher budget deficits. Currency reserves are said to be at a critical level – $14 billion, or three months' worth of imports – according to US Ambassador Ann Patterson, who said the “reserves are kept afloat only due to regular injections of cash by Qatar and Turkey.”

While financial hardships have weakened the country’s economy, protests have also paralyzed the country's tourism industry.

The Tea Party

Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaire Koch Brothers

Brendan de Melle.

Huffington Post,

11 February, 2013

A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene.

Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance. Many of the anti-science operatives who defended cigarettes are currently deploying their tobacco-inspired playbook internationally to evade accountability for the fossil fuel industry's role in driving climate disruption.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health, traces the roots of the Tea Party's anti-tax movement back to the early 1980s when tobacco companies began to invest in third party groups to fight excise taxes on cigarettes, as well as health studies finding a link between cancer and secondhand cigarette smoke.

Published in the peer-reviewed academic journal, Tobacco Control, the study titled, 'To quarterback behind the scenes, third party efforts': the tobacco industry and the Tea Party, is not just an historical account of activities in a bygone era. As senior author, Stanton Glantz, a University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) professor of medicine, writes:

"Nonprofit organizations associated with the Tea Party have longstanding ties to tobacco companies, and continue to advocate on behalf of the tobacco industry's anti-tax, anti-regulation agenda."

The two main organizations identified in the UCSF Quarterback study are Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks. Both groups are now "supporting the tobacco companies' political agenda by mobilizing local Tea Party opposition to tobacco taxes and smoke-free laws." Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity were once a single organization called Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). CSE was founded in 1984 by the infamous Koch Brothers, David and Charles Koch, and received over $5.3 million from tobacco companies, mainly Philip Morris, between 1991 and 2004.

In 1990, Tim Hyde, RJR Tobacco's head of national field operations, in an eerily similar description of the Tea Party today, explained why groups like CSE were important to the tobacco industry's fight against government regulation. Hyde wrote:

"... coalition building should proceed along two tracks: a) a grassroots organizational and largely local track,; b) and a national, intellectual track within the DC-New York corridor. Ultimately, we are talking about a "movement," a national effort to change the way people think about government's (and big business) role in our lives. Any such effort requires an intellectual foundation - a set of theoretical and ideological arguments on its behalf." 

The common public understanding of the origins of the Tea Party is that it is a popular grassroots uprising that began with anti-tax protests in 2009.

However, the Quarterback study reveals that in 2002, the Kochs and tobacco-backed CSE designed and made public the first Tea Party Movement website under the web address www.usteaparty.com. Here's a screenshot of the archived U.S. Tea Party site, as it appeared online on Sept. 13, 2002:

CSE describes the U.S. Tea Party site, "In 2002, our U.S. Tea Party is a national event, hosted continuously online, and open to all Americans who feel our taxes are too high and the tax code is too complicated." The site features a "Patriot Guest book" where supporters can write a message of support for CSE and the U.S. Tea Party movement

Sometime around September 2011, the U.S. Tea Party site was taken offline. According to the DNS registry, the web address www.usteaparty.com is currently owned by Freedomworks. 

The implications of the UCSF Quarterback report are widespread. The main concern expressed by the authors lies in what they see happening overseas as the Tea Party movement expands internationally, training activists in 30 countries including Israel, Georgia, Japan and Serbia.

As the authors explain:

"This international expansion makes it likely that Tea Party organizations will be mounting opposition to tobacco control (and other health) policies as they have done in the USA."

Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity are both multi-issue organizations that have expanded their battles to include other policies they see as threats to the free market principles they claim to defend, namely fighting health care reform and regulations on global warming pollution. The report's warning about overseas expansion efforts by Freedomworks should therefore also be heeded by groups in the health and environment arenas.

Finally, this report might serve as a wake-up call to some people in the Tea Party itself, who would find it a little disturbing that the "grassroots" movement they are so emotionally attached to, is in fact a pawn created by billionaires and large corporations with little interest in fighting for the rights of the common person, but instead using the common person to fight for their own unfettered profits. 

Washington demosntration on climate change

Tens of thousands demand action on climate change

President Obama said in his State of the Union Address that if lawmakers don't act on climate change, he will. Protesters say they are holding him to his word.

USA Today,

17 February, 2013

In what was billed as the largest climate rally in U.S. history, thousands of people marched past the White House on Sunday to urge President Obama to reject a controversial pipeline and take other steps to fight climate change.

Organizers, including the Sierra Club, estimated that more than 35,000 people from 30-plus states -- some dressed as polar bears -- endured frigid temperatures to join the "Forward on Climate" rally, although the crowd size could not be confirmed. Their immediate target is Obama's final decision, expected soon, on the Keystone XL oil pipeline that would carry tar sands from Canada through several U.S. states.

"This movement's been building a long time. One of the things that's built it is everybody's desire to give the president the support he needs to block this Keystone pipeline," Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental activist group, 350.org, said as protesters gathered on the National Mall.

"It's time for the president to stand up," he said, describing the 1,000-plus mile pipeline as "one of the largest carbon bombs in history." Some climate scientists say the production of tar sands emits more greenhouse gases than that of conventional crude oil. Supporters, including the oil industry, say it would reduce U.S. dependence on unstable foreign sources of oil.

Among the protesters were senior citizens in wheelchairs, a dad from Indiana carrying a toddler, women from a Unitarian church in Corvallis, Ore., and college students, including Florida's Molly Kampmann who was holding a picture of a pipeline with the caption: "This is why I'm hot."

Others held placards saying, "Read my lips: no new carbons," and "We're in a climate hole: stop digging." Another, referring to a method for extracting natural gas, said: "Don't be frackin' crazy."

"We're right in the path of sea level rise," said Mark Geduldig-Yactrosky of Portsmouth, Va., explaining his concern about climate change. "We're a low-lying area. We have rising oceans and subsiding lands. So that personalizes it for us."

Burlington, Vt., resident Michael Ware, holding a "Stop Vermont Yankee" banner, said last year's extreme weather convinced many Americans that climate change is serious. "What will Vermont, what will any state, look like in 20 years?" he asked.

"I have six grandchildren, and I want them to have a habitable planet," said Linda Britt, who came from Ann Arbor, Mich., with other grandparents.

Obama has pledged repeatedly to tackle climate change. In his State of the Union Address, he gave Congress an ultimatum: if lawmakers don't act, he will. Protesters say they are holding him to his word. They want him to not only reject the pipeline but also set limits on carbon pollution from both new and existing power plants. Last year, the EPA proposed limits only on new plants.

In January 2012, Obama rejected the initial 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Port Arthur, Texas, saying he needed more time for environmental review. Since the project crosses a U.S. border, it needs a permit from the State Department, but Obama has said he'll make the final call.

The project's developer, Calgary-based TransCanada, has since broken the project into two parts. It received approval last year from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin construction of the 485-mile, $2.3 billion southern leg of the project from Cushing, Okla., to the Gulf Coast. Obama's pending decision involves the 1,179-mile, $5.3 billion northern leg, from Alberta to Steele City, Neb.

The pressure on Keystone has intensified since Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, who like Obama had rejected the initial route, notified the president last month that he'd approved the revised route through his state. Heineman, a Republican, said it would avoid environmentally sensitive areas and bringjobs and other economic benefits.

TransCanada President Russ Girling, who hailed Heineman's reversal, traveled to Washington earlier this month to lobby personally for the billion-dollar project.

US plans in Syria

Pentagon Says 75,000 Troops Might Be Needed to Seize Syria Chemical Arms

NY Times

15 November, 2012

The Pentagon has told the Obama administration that any military effort to seize Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons would require upward of 75,000 troops, amid increasing concern that the militant group Hezbollah has set up small training camps close to some of the chemical weapons depots, according to senior American officials.

The estimated size of the potential effort, provided to the White House by the military’s Central Command and Joint Staff, called into question whether the United States would have the resources to act quickly if it detected the movement of chemical weapons and forced President Obama, as he said in August, to “change my calculus” about inserting American forces into Syria. So far Mr. Obama has avoided direct intervention into the most brutal civil conflict to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings, and the Pentagon assessment was seen as likely to reinforce that reluctance.

The White House on Thursday declined to comment on the Defense Department’s assessment.

The Pentagon has not yet been directed to draft detailed plans of how it could carry out such a mission, according to military officials. There are also contingency plans, officials say, for securing a more limited number of the Syrian chemical weapons depots, requiring fewer troops.

The discovery that Hezbollah has set up camps close to some of the depots, however, has renewed concern that as the chaos in Syria deepens, the country’s huge chemical weapons stockpiles could fall into the wrong hands. Hezbollah fighters have been training at “a limited number of these sites,” said one senior American official who has been briefed on the intelligence reports and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “But the fear these weapons could fall into the wrong hands is our greatest concern.”

So far, there is no evidence that Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon but has become increasingly active in protecting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, is making any effort to gain control over the chemical weapons. Its decision to train fighters close to the major chemical sites, some officials speculate, could be rooted in a bet that their camps will not be bombed if the West believes there is a risk of hitting the stockpiles.

Mr. Assad has openly threatened to retaliate beyond his country’s borders if outside forces try to break the current stalemate to unseat him, and there is renewed concern about whether he or his proxies might use the chemical weapons as their last shield. Officials say that attacks along the borders with Turkey and Israel have forced the administration to consider the risks of Syria’s troubles spreading in the region.

Mr. Obama has been clear for more than a year that he would resist direct American intervention, but in August he said one circumstance would cause him to revisit that position. “A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized,” he said at a news conference. “That would change my calculus.”

Mr. Obama brought those concerns up again in a news conference on Wednesday, saying that the United States was in close contact with Turkey and Jordan “and obviously Israel, which is having already grave concerns as we do about, for example, movements of chemical weapons that might occur in such a chaotic atmosphere and that could have an impact not just within Syria but on the region as a whole.”

The American concerns have been heightened by another sign that Mr. Assad may be arming himself to strike out — Syria’s continued imports of missile technology, even at a time when the Assad government is reeling under sanctions.

Syria already has a vast arsenal of missiles able to reach Turkey or strike Israel, and in the past it has provided Hezbollah with missiles. But American officials voice concern over even modest improvements in Syria’s missile stockpiles.

American intelligence and security officials, in interviews in recent days, said that the United States had picked up evidence that North Korea had resumed providing Syria with some missile technology, including assistance with Scud missiles.

A shipment of graphite cylinders that could be used in missiles and are suspected to have come from North Korea were found in May aboard a Chinese ship en route to Syria, Reuters reported Wednesday. North Korean technicians and engineers stationed in Syria have recently increased their efforts on a joint program to improve the Scud D missile’s accuracy and the warhead’s ability to defeat interceptors, IHS Jane’s International Defense Review reported in June.

Given the chaos in Syria, and Mr. Assad’s daily effort to survive, it is not clear what condition the Syrian missile program is in. The Turkish military has expressed worry about Syria’s ballistic missiles and its chemical weapons stocks. Concerned about this potential threat, Turkey and NATO nations have informally been discussing the possibility that some of the alliance’s Patriot antimissile system could be sent to Turkey, which has no Patriot batteries of its own.

Independent analysts expressed concern that if Mr. Assad is backed into a corner, he could use or threaten to use missiles tipped with chemical weapons against the rebels, despite the threat of Western intervention if he did.

“There is credible information that the Assad regime has been upgrading and expanding its chemical weapons arsenal, which needs to be maintained,” said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “A credible delivery capability is also needed, hence the North Korean angle.”

The estimation that it would take 75,000 troops to neutralize the chemical weapons grew out of what Mr. Obama, in his August news conference, referred to as extensive contingency planning for how the United States would respond if the chemical weapons were on the move or appeared vulnerable.

“The problem is that you can’t just pick this stuff up and ship it out of the country,” said one senior military official who has studied the problem. The chances of contamination of nearby Syrian towns, and of attacks on the effort to move the weapons, were simply too high. Because many of the containers holding the material are old, or of unknown reliability, the risk of leakage is high.

As a result, the official said, much of the chemical stockpiles might have to be destroyed in place. That is a lengthy, dangerous job, and would require enormous force protection around the sites. When the United States went through similar efforts to destroy its own stockpiles — under strict environmental regulations that would likely not apply in Syria — the process took years.

A second official familiar with the plans disputed the idea that all of the stockpiles would have to be destroyed in place. Some, he suggested, could be airlifted out for destruction elsewhere or burial at sea. “There are several options,” he said, “but all carry varying degrees of risk.”

That official said that rebel groups receiving nonlethal help from the United States have been asked to mark and secure any chemical weapons sites they come across.

The United States has varying estimates of how many sites exist, with the C.I.A. estimating about three dozen and the military using figures in the high 40s.

Officials said that the United States military had quietly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan to help the armed forces there, among other things, to prepare for the possibility that Syria will lose control of its chemical weapons.

'The Ministry of Truth'

No 'Leak' links: US National Archives blocks searches containing ‘WikiLeaks’

The public search engine for the US National Archives appears to be blocked for the term “WikiLeaks”. The whistleblower website has already lashed out at the move, saying the Archives has turned into “Orwell’s Ministry of Truth.”

RT

4 November, 2012

An error message pops up every time a search is performed with the word “WikiLeaks”. 

It’s not entirely clear when the US National Archives decided to block these searches.

Screenshot from archives.gov

However, WikiLeaks’ has already called the whole thing a “farce”.

“The US National Archives has literally turned into Orwell’s Ministry of Truth,” a message on the site’s Twitter account reads, adding “The US state is literally eating its own brain by censoring its own collective memories about WikiLeaks.”

The block is likely to be in line with the “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act,” a form of internet censorship the US adopted back in 2010.

It did not become law, but it prompted various US government agencies such as the White House Office of Management and Budget and the US Air Force to advise their employees not to read or access classified documents being made available by sites like WikiLeaks.

The Library of Congress went further by blocking access to WikiLeaks content from its server in 2010.

The American Library Association suggested this violated the First Amendment rights of internet users to receive information.

 

“The Library of Congress’s decision is a violation of the First Amendment and a violation of the American Library Association’s Bill of Rights. Moreover, it is a violation of the professional ethics of librarians to always provide free access to all information,” their statement said.

WikiLeaks exploded on to the global scene back in 2006, since then releasing hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic cables, including top secret documents from the US Department of Defense, and secret cables from the State Department.

Some of that classified information was seen as damaging the US government’s reputation in a number of incidents.

Recently it was revealed that the US government officially considers WikiLeaks’ and its founder Julian Assange to be enemies of the state.

Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents show that military personnel contacting WikiLeaks could face execution for "communicating with the enemy."

The fact that WikiLeaks was treated as an enemy of state would have serious implications should Assange be extradited to the US, as he could face military detention.

According to diplomatic cables released over the past months the US Justice Department’s investigation targeting of both Assange and WikiLeaks is real.

Assange himself called the investigation "unprecedented." His lawyer Jennifer Robinson told RT there are signs that the US has already lodged a sealed indictment to sue Assange, and that his case might outdo the one of Bradley Manning. The corporal is accused of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks.

At the moment Assange is holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London as the UK has forcefully asserted that it will deny him safe passage to Ecuador. Ecuador granted Assange political asylum in August over fears that if extradited to Sweden, Assange could be transferred to the US and once there, face execution.

In Sweden, the whistleblower is wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations, which he denies, although no charges have yet been filed against him.

Assange believes these charges are a pretext to hand him over to the US, where many officials have talked in favor of trying Assange in a court martial as a terrorist and spy.

Russia criticizes US human rights record

High time someone called out the US for its hypocrisy over human rights – and that this should be reflected in mainstream media

Russia condemns United States for human rights record

Russia accused the United States on Monday of double standards on human rights, criticizing its failure to close Guantanamo Bay prison and its use of the death penalty while the U.S. Congress considers a law which could punish Moscow for alleged abuses.

Reuters,

22 October, 2012

Russia and the United States attempted to "reset" their relations when President Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, but ties have turned decidedly cooler since Vladimir Putin declared last year he planned to return to the presidency.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has declared that Russia is Washington's number one geopolitical foe, while Moscow has chafed under recent U.S. allegations that it harbors human rights abusers.

Now two weeks before the U.S. presidential election, the State Duma lower parliament house held a three-hour hearing criticizing its former Cold War foe.

"The U.S. claim on the role of absolute leader in the sphere of human rights is unsustainable and is not confirmed by practical realities," Itar-Tass quoted the Foreign Ministry's human rights envoy Konstantin Dolgov as saying to lawmakers.

The Duma hearing took the form of a presentation by the Foreign Ministry recommending actions by the lawmakers.

Russia also said the United States used human rights as a pretext for meddling in the affairs of sovereign states around the world, in a veiled jibe at Washington's handling of an uprising in Libya.

"(Russian authorities) must defend against policies being carried out by the United States directed at using the concept of rights as an instrument of pressure and as a basis for intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign governments," the Foreign Ministry presentation read.

That echoed a foreign policy decree Putin signed the day he was inaugurated in May, which said Moscow would seek closer ties with the United States but would not tolerate interference in its affairs and would "counter attempts to use human rights ... as an instrument of political pressure".

In power since 2000, Putin has frequently accused the United States of meddling in the affairs of Russia and other nations.

Congress is considering a bill that would require the U.S. government to impose sanctions on people believed responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption lawyer who died in a Moscow jail in 2009, and other human rights violators.

Romney and some lawmakers have demanded the bill be adopted if the United States upgrades trade relations with Moscow, after Russia joined the World Trade Organization in August.

In a sign of deteriorating ties earlier this month, Russia said it would not renew a decades-old agreement with Washington aimed at dismantling nuclear and chemical weapons. Washington said the two sides were still talking over its extension.

Russia has accused the United States of trying to sway Russian elections and meddle in its domestic affairs through its U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and it ordered the agency's Russian operations shut down this month.

Kremlin critics said the move was intended to cut funding to organizations Putin sees as a threat following his return as president after four years as prime minister, and called it part of a crackdown on dissent.