Section: Research Organizations & Think Tanks about Ukraine
Where is Home? The Paradoxes and Potential of the Latvian diaspora
Rita Laima’s new memoir, Skylarks & Rebels, chronicles her unique personal story, and in so doing, captures the trajectory of Latvian history and grapples with the crises of identity faced by all exiles and émigrés. Laima was born in the United States to Latvian parents who were forced to flee their country’s postwar Soviet...
September 11th, 2017
CHINA Taiwanese Activist Pleads Guilty to Chinese Subversion Charges Daily Mail A Taiwanese democracy activist pleaded guilty Monday to charges of attempting to subvert Chinese government power during a trial in China that his wife called a “political show” and further soured cross-strait ties. Lee Ming-cheh appeared alongside a Chinese...
September 8th, 2017
CHINA China’s Diplomatic Ties With Ally North Korea Are Fraying NBC News When Kim Jong Un inherited power in North Korea in late 2011, then-Chinese president Hu Jintao was outwardly supportive of the untested young leader, predicting that “traditional friendly cooperation” between the countries would strengthen. Since 2013, ties between the...
Kleptocracy Daily: September 12, 2017
Russia is using anonymous companies and smuggling networks to undercut U.S. sanctions on North Korea. Pyongyang is also trying to acquire cryptocurrencies to dodge sanctions. (WaPo, Bloomberg) Spain is investigating the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Luxembourg for money laundering. (NYT) Rep. Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign...
Is Russia Thinking About a Pivot Back to Europe?
Russia / World The ongoing “diplomatic war” between Russia and the US is getting worse. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently stated that the US diplomatic mission to Russia might be cut by another 155 people. That is on top of the 755 cut already. This Monday, it was revealed how else Russia might respond to the US closure of Russia’s...
Kleptocracy Weekly: September 15, 2017
New: How Non-State Actors Export Kleptocratic Norms to the West, a KI/Hudson Institute report by Ilya Zaslavskiy. Fighting back: We live in an era of authoritarian influence, writes Thorsten Benner. How should democracies respond? (Foreign Affairs) Global Magnitsky: An international consortium of NGOs has recommended 15 cases for designation...
How the EU budget is spent: Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation
Written by Matthew Parry, © alona_s / Fotolia In the early 1990s, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the USSR, the EU began to provide support via its TACIS programme for structural adjustment and reform in 11 post-Soviet and post-communist countries. One form of support was for countries grappling with a Soviet-era...
Lawyer Emil Kurbedinov & activists detained after family of tortured Crimean Tatar recognize FSB abductor
Over ten Crimean Tatar activists, as well as prominent lawyer Emil Kurbedinov and journalist Taras Ibragimov have been detained in Simferopol after gathering with the relatives of Renat Paralamov, the father of four who was abducted and brutally tortured on September 13. …read more Source: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection...
Reagan Documents Shed Light on US ‘Meddling’
“Secret” documents, recently declassified by the Reagan presidential library, reveal senior White House officials reengaging a former CIA “proprietary,” The Asia Foundation, in “political action,” an intelligence term of art for influencing the actions of foreign governments.The documents from 1982 came at a turning-point moment when the Reagan...
Kleptocracy Daily: September 15, 2017
Fighting back: We live in an era of authoritarian influence, writes Thorsten Benner. How should democracies respond? (Foreign Affairs) Anonymous companies: At a Helsinki Commission hearing on Russian disinformation yesterday, Molly McKew responded to Sen. Whitehouse’s question on U.S. shell firms: “The anonymous movement of money… into...