Epstein Secrets

monstrated a willingness to adopt legislation and then enforce it, other countries followed suit first in Eurasia but subsequently in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Governments that adopt such laws seldom if ever shut down the civil society sector entirely. Instead, they deal with NGOs selec

ts, and blue-chip law firms were earning fees paid by a majority of the world's autocracies, dictatorships, and illiberal regimes. Some, especially Middle Eastern monarchies, are American allies. But others are hostile to democracy and regard the United States—and often the EU—as adversaries. The lobbyists a

ontent dovetailed with Putin's broader promotion of a narrative in which Russia is a great power that recovered from the chaos and weakness of the Yeltsin era and overcame the hostility of deter- mined enemies, especially the United States. Accord- ing to the manual, Russia's dark chapters—its domi- nat

Kremlin wouldn't block future Security Council resolutions on Syria. The Kremlin refused, but the details of the offer were leaked to the press by Middle Eastern and Western sources, and then subsequently denied by the Russian Foreign Ministry. It must have been the happiest denial the ministry has issued in

speaking at an international conference on this very topic held in Beirut, Lebanon, from Nov. 27-30. The conference was attended by 45 scholars of Middle Eastern and Kurdish studies from the United States, Europe and the Middle East. The consensus of the conferees was that the possibility of the emergence of

intelligence assistance that Syria couldn't do without. But Damascus isn't just a resurrected strategic ally following years of desuetude under the Yeltsin government; it is Putin's last-stand client in the region against what he sees as American hegemony. The Cheka's old hold on Damascus looms large i

d with potentially cataclysmic consequences nobody dares imagine. This Friday, the shock came in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad runs one of the Middle East's most repressive regimes. Across the country, protesters have grown ever more emboldened in recent weeks, and on Friday they poured into the street

t Ford referred to in justifying his own decision to pardon Nixon. Otherwise, Mubarak's fate could become just one more chapter in the long saga of Middle Eastern leaders who rise and fall because of the whims of fortune. Nikolas K Gvosdev is the former editor of the National Interest, and a frequent foreign

country. When Vladimir Putin became president of Russia, he offered an even more extensive pardon to his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, as well as to Yeltsin's family, citing similar considerations. Perhaps an even more relevant example to the Egyptian case was the fate of South Africa's P.W. Botha, a fo