Epstein Secrets

In addition, various political figures and commentators have praised or come to the defense of despotic rulers including Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Bashar al-Assad. 6. Modem authoritarians can be expected to dou- ble down on their drive to neuter civil society as an incubator of reformist ideas and political

o defend embattled allies like Syria's 8ashar al-Assad. There is also growing replica- tion of what migh

evolution www.freedomhouse.org 23 EFTA00804747 BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians in Ukraine, the Maidan uprising of 2013-14, forced him to flee to Russia after a bloody crackdown failed to disperse the demonstrators. Among other things, the episode s

ussian influence with Nazi collaborators and pogromists. This served not only to explain Moscow's response, but also to deter any emulation of the Maidan protests in Russia itself. The assault on academic freedom Since the occupation of Crimea and invasion of east- ern Ukraine, it has become increasi

ago. But Obama's er jection of U.S. military involvement in Syria's civil war, in which 140,000 people have died since he first called on President Bashar al-Assad to step down, is the leading example of his second term. So, too, is the Pentagon budget proposal outlined this past week that would cut the size o

. EFTA00705926 At a G-8 meeting the following year in Northern Ireland, Obama and Putin met and made no headway toward resolving differences over Assad's leadership of Syria. The two exchanged an awkward back-and-forth over Putin's passion for martial arts before the Russian leader summed up the m

cussed on social media. What's more, it was recently dubbed into Ukrainian and downloaded (some 300,000 times) by protesters there and shown in the Maidan, which also means the Square, in Kiev. A dubbed version is now spreading in Russia, too, said the film's director Jehane Noujaim, who also directed

ns like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Organization of American States, and to defend embattled allies like Syria's Bashar al-Assad. There is also growing replica- tion of what might be called authoritarian best practices, vividly on display in the new Chinese law on nongovernment

offer no conflicting opinions and present American leaders as puppet masters. Among other claims, the docu- mentary asserts that Washington gave the Maidan forces information about Ukrainian security methods that American officials had obtained during bilateral exchange programs with the Kyiv government.