WASHINGTON, October 9 (RIA Novosti) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has reaffirmed his plans to review “questionable” cuts to US defense budget and to maintain a hard stance on missile defense in talks with Russia in a key foreign policy speech during the current election campaign. “I’ll roll back President Obama’s deep and arbitrary cuts to our national defense […]
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Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Marie Mawad and Ilya Khrennikov – October 5, 2012 Looking for a public bathroom in Moscow? Facebook Inc. (FB) has you covered. Still a dwarf in Russia, the world’s largest social network is courting local geeks to build apps tailor-made for their home market. Its goal is to win over users in Europe’s most populous country […]
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Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 Subject: USAID Russia Lessons Learned From: Sarah Lindemann-Komarova <echosiberia@gmail.com> USAID Russia Lessons Learned by Sarah Lindemann-Komarova, Siberian based civil society development activist. Almost everyone knew it was time for a USAID end strategy in Russia. The possible exception to this maybe a few organizations that did not leverage years of generous support from the American […]
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MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti)-The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has funded Russian non-governmental organizations, stops its operations in Russia from Monday. Russia said in September that USAID, which provided financing for pro-democracy and human rights groups that have irked the Kremlin, would have to close its offices in the country by October 1. President Vladimir Putin […]
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Voice of America – By James Brooke – September 25, 2012 James Brooke is VOA Moscow bureau chief, covering Russia and the former USSR. As American officials struggle to meet an Oct. 1 deadline for closing the 20-year-old USAID office in Moscow, it is worth looking at America’s other great 20th century aid program to Russians. In a corner of […]
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Yekaterina Kravtsova – Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 24, 2012 The State Duma tentatively approved a bill on Friday to broaden the legal definition of high treason, seen by human rights groups as part of a continuing crackdown on foreign-funded organizations in Russia. While lawmakers contend that the bill would make the work of law enforcement authorities more effective, […]
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(Interfax Moscow, 20 September) As early as two years ago Russia warned the USA about its grievances over the Agency for International Development (USAID), head of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Aleksey Pushkov has said. “We warned the US side a long time ago – I think this story is already two years old – that we were not […]
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MOSCOW. Sept 20 (Interfax) – The independent election monitor Golos is searching for Russian sponsors to substitute grants from the closing Moscow office of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Golos said some of its projects were endangered by the USAID pullout. “Nevertheless, we will continue election monitoring no matter what,” says the Golos statement received by Interfax […]
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By Nikolaus von Twickel – Moscow Times – September 20, 2012 Moscow’s abrupt decision to kick out the U.S. Agency for International Development raised new worries Wednesday about a widening crackdown on pro-democracy groups. The Foreign Ministry bluntly accused the agency, better known as USAID, of meddling in domestic politics. Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Wednesday that the agency had […]
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