Soros Foundation

A Russian private security firm acted improperly when it carried out a botched attempt to retake the recently-seized offices of U.S. financier George Soros' New York-based Open Society Institute in Moscow, a foundation official said Monday. "We've terminated our agreement with the security company because we don't believe in using methods that allegedly were used," Stewart Paperin, the institute's executive vice president, said Monday in a telephone interview from New York.

His democracy watchdog group had just been ordered out of neighboring Uzbekistan by an authoritarian president who seemed fearful the American billionaire might foment a revolt. But George Soros wasn't pulling any punches. "Unfortunately, the Uzbek government is very repressive," the controversial Hungarian-born philanthropist told reporters here in the Kyrgyz capital in April. "It has 7,000 people in prison for political offenses.

In the wake of U.S. financier George Soros' public defense of jailed Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Moscow offices of the Soros Foundation were raided early today by dozens of men equipped with camouflage gear and stun guns, who hauled away 15 years worth of documents and computer data. The operation, which began shortly after midnight, was carried out by private security forces ostensibly hired by a businessman with whom the foundation had been engaged in a legal dispute.

A Russian private security firm acted improperly when it carried out a botched attempt to retake the recently-seized offices of U.S. financier George Soros' New York-based Open Society Institute in Moscow, a foundation official said Monday. "We've terminated our agreement with the security company because we don't believe in using methods that allegedly were used," Stewart Paperin, the institute's executive vice president, said Monday in a telephone interview from New York.

His democracy watchdog group had just been ordered out of neighboring Uzbekistan by an authoritarian president who seemed fearful the American billionaire might foment a revolt. But George Soros wasn't pulling any punches. "Unfortunately, the Uzbek government is very repressive," the controversial Hungarian-born philanthropist told reporters here in the Kyrgyz capital in April. "It has 7,000 people in prison for political offenses.

The Cal State Fullerton debate team, which for the last three years has worked with poverty-stricken high school students around Orange County, recently teamed up with the George Soros Foundation to increase student communication skills across the county. The new partnership will allow the university to more than double its Daniel Webster Project, which currently reaches out to about 30 students across three county high schools.

The president of the Soros Foundation appealed for help Friday in finding a well-known American disaster relief worker who has disappeared in Chechnya and is feared dead or held captive. Frederick C. Cuny, a 50-year-old specialist in disaster relief who has worked in more than 30 war zones from Biafra to Bosnia, has not been heard from directly since March 31. A message from companions was received April 9.

THE AMERICANS ARE COMING! U.S. foundations and think tanks are flocking to Russia, throwing their money and brains into the post-Cold War drive for democracy and free markets. With grants, studies, workshops, manuals, training and advice, the Americans are aiding Russian reformers in and out of government. . . .

University professors and administrators from the Baltic states, many of whom have never traveled outside of what used to be part of the Soviet Union, will attend Cal Lutheran University's first Scandinavian and Baltic Institute in July. Leonard Smith, founder of the institute, said educators will experience not only American universities but American culture as well. The group will combine visits to several Southland campuses with trips to Disneyland and the Getty Museum.

New arrests were announced Wednesday in the cases of two Iranian Americans held here on charges of conspiring against the government. State radio quoted Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei as saying, "Internal elements related to these people have been arrested." Ejei did not say how many people were arrested or give details on their alleged connections to Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh.

In the wake of U.S. financier George Soros' public defense of jailed Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Moscow offices of the Soros Foundation were raided early today by dozens of men equipped with camouflage gear and stun guns, who hauled away 15 years worth of documents and computer data. The operation, which began shortly after midnight, was carried out by private security forces ostensibly hired by a businessman with whom the foundation had been engaged in a legal dispute.

TODAY Good Morning America (N) 7 a.m. KABC McLaughlin Group 6:30 p.m. KCET SUNDAY CBS News Sunday Morning (N) 6 a.m. KCBS Good Morning America (N) 6 a.m. KABC State of the Union With Candy Crowley Healthcare summit; economy: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). Healthcare summit; economy: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). 6 a.m. CNN Fareed Zakaria GPS George Soros, the Soros Foundation; Simon Schama, Columbia University; Lionel Barber, the Financial Times.

The good news: Iran has released two of the four Iranian Americans it has been detaining on trumped-up charges. Haleh Esfandiari, a 67-year-old scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington who had been held in solitary confinement at Tehran's notorious Evin prison, was permitted to leave the country over the weekend, and on Tuesday came word that Parnaz Azima, a correspondent for the U.S.