Russia and Iran are helping Syria import fuel, which it needs for heavy vehicles including army tanks, allowing Damascus to avoid the full impact of tightening Western sanctions imposed over its violent suppression of dissent. Russia and Iran are helping Syria import fuel, which it needs for heavy vehicles including army tanks, allowing Damascus to avoid the full impact of tightening Western sanctions imposed over its violent suppression of dissent. Syria received...

... Biographic Intelligence (1959-61); analyst of Soviet policy, Near East Division (1962-68); analyst of Soviet policy, with focus on Chinese-Soviet relations, Asia Division (1969-75); first secretary in political section, covering Soviet internal affairs and dissent, U.S. Embassy, Moscow (1976-77); senior intelligence analyst, specializing in dissent, human rights problems, emigration policy, nationality issues and cultural trends, Soviet Internal Affairs Division (1978 -91) 1951-56 — Georgetown University...

... goal was to ensure that nothing would spoil Putin's own personal May holiday — his return to power. An even better gift for Putin than motoring through a ghost town on the way to his inauguration would have been an end to all the protests and dissent in general. But by using excessive force against demonstrators, the authorities only spur the opposition toward greater creativity, determination and perhaps radicalism. Putin made a sarcastic comment in 2007 when he implied that he became the...

... Freedom on the eve of what would have been Andrei Sakharov's 91st birthday. Meanwhile, the State Duma on Friday postponed the first reading of a bill that would significantly raise fines for illegal protests. The bill, criticized as a measure to stifle dissent, would increase maximum fines for participating in illegal demonstrations from 2,000 rubles ($65) to 1 million rubles ($32,368) and for organizing them from 5,000 rubles to 1.5 million rubles. The opposition has announced plans for what's expected...

...,” the opposition newspaper Azadliq quoted Loreen as saying after last week’s encounter. “One should not be silent about such things.” Opposition activists and international rights groups accuse President Ilham Aliyev of stifling dissent in the southern Caucasus nation, which became independent of the Soviet Union in 1991. Aliyev, who denies the accusation, has run the country since 2003, when he succeeded his father. After the result was announced, hundreds of people poured onto...

... "developing in fits and starts." His point, and he makes it clearly, is that the general populace in Moscow is one or two steps ahead of the authorities. The authorities keep doing the same old stuff — seeking to repress any signs of dissent — while the people keep changing their tactics. This is what was so important on Sunday. For the first time this week, the authorities changed their tactics. To the utter amazement of everyone — protesters and authorities alike —...

... "developing in fits and starts." His point, and he makes it clearly, is that the general populace in Moscow is one or two steps ahead of the authorities. The authorities keep doing the same old stuff — seeking to repress any signs of dissent — while the people keep changing their tactics. This is what was so important on Sunday. For the first time this week the authorities changed their tactics. To the utter amazement of everyone — protesters and authorities alike —...