IHT Quick Read: March 30

NEWS Sven Olaf Kamphuis calls himself the “minister of telecommunications and foreign affairs for the Republic of CyberBunker.” Others see him as the Prince of Spam. Mr. Kamphuis, who is actually Dutch, is at the heart of an international investigation into one of the biggest cyberattacks identified by authorities. Because of his outspoken position in a loose federation of hackers, authorities in the Netherlands and several other countries are examining what role he or the Internet companies he runs played in snarling traffic on the Web this week. Eric Pfanner and Kevin J. O’Brien report.

More than 143,000 home mortgages are in arrears in Ireland, but forced repossessions have been politically and legally difficult. That is about to change. Under pressure from the international lenders who agreed to a €85 billion bailout of the Irish economy in 2010, a law that has been restricting banks’ right to repossess property is being amended to allow them to repossess delinquent properties. As Ireland’s fellow euro zone member Cyprus may be about to learn, bailouts come with strings that can bind for years to come. Stephen Castle reports from Dublin.

One of the most senior employees of the SAC capital has been ensnared in the government’s multiyear insider trading investigation of the prominent hedge fund. F.B.I. agents showed up at the apartment of Michael S. Steinberg on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and arrested him in the pre-dawn hours Friday. Just the day before, Mr. Steinberg had returned from a vacation in Florida, where he and his family visited relatives and took a trip to Disney World. Peter Lattman reports from New York.

American Express customers trying to gain access to their online accounts this week were met with blank screens or an ominous ancient type face. The company confirmed that its Web site had come under attack. The assault, which took American Express offline for two hours, was the latest in an intensifying campaign of unusually powerful attacks on American financial institutions that began last September and have taken dozens of them offline intermittently, costing millions of dollars. Nicole Perlroth and David E. Sanger report.

SPORTS If Robbie Rogers returns to professional soccer, he would become the first openly gay male athlete to compete in a major American team sport. In an interview with The New York Times, he opens up about his decision to come out of the closet. Letters and e-mails and texts have flowed in from North America, Europe and Asia, and Rogers has been grateful for the support. But there has also been a growing wonder about whether Rogers will consider continuing his career, making him the first openly gay male athlete to play in a major American team sport. Sam Borden reports.

ARTS The spiraling inflation that is pushing the art of the past to ever more dizzying heights has auction house bosses rolling their eyes in ecstasy. Reports recently released sing to high heaven world auction records and gigantic sales, but refrain from noting that these are in danger of driving the market into a brick wall. Souren Melikian reports.

Raids in Russia Target ‘Foreign Agents’

LONDON - It has been a nerve-jangling week for civil society groups in Russia as they awaited a knock on the door by state officials on the hunt for “foreign agents.”

Amid concerns among international advocacy organizations about what has been described as the worst crackdown on Russian democracy since the collapse of the Soviet Union, authorities have raided scores of offices of rights groups, foreign cultural bodies and other nongovernmental organizations.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Transparency International, the corruption watchdog, were among those targeted, as well as Memorial, Russia’s oldest human rights organization.

The Russian Justice Ministry said the checks by judicial and tax officials were to investigate if the real activities of these organizations matched the declared ones.

Responding to Western criticism that the raids amounted to harassment and intimidation, President Vladimir V. Putin described them on Thursday as “legal and routine.”

The raids follow adoption last year of a law requiring NGOs that receive foreign funding to declare themselves foreign agents, a term that, to Russians, evokes Cold War-era espionage.

The day before the law came into force in November, unidentified people painted the words “Foreign Agent. Love U.S.A.” on the wall of Memorial’s Moscow offices.

Although non-compliance carries large fines, possible jail terms, and potential closure, no organization has so far registered.

The law remained on the statute book for several months while the Justice Ministry argued that it was unenforceable. But, in February, Mr. Putin told officers of the F.S.B. intelligence service that it must be executed.

“Any direct or indirect interference in our internal affairs” was unacceptable, he said.

Reacting to the wave of raids that began on March 21, High Williamson, Human Rights Watch’s Europe director, said the scale of the operations was “unprecedented and only serves to reinforce the menacing atmosphere for civil society.”

“The Russian authorities should end, rather than intensify, the crackdown that’s been under way for the past year,” he said.

The U.S. State Department expressed deep concern at what looked like a witch hunt, while German and French officials warned that the inspections could damage their countries’ relations with Moscow.

Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s policy chief, said this week, “The ongoing raids, taken together with the recent package of legislation that curtails the civil freedoms of the Russian population … constitute a trend that is deeply troubling.”

The Economist this week reported a broader fear among civil society groups that other newly passed laws will be reanimated. These include a treason law that targets anyone who offers information or assistance to a foreign state or international group.

Sean Roberts, a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, wrote last month that the N.G.O law was part of a wider strategy to prevent the resurgence of a protest movement against Mr. Putin’s rule.

However, he suggested the Russian leader’s hardline tactics were potentially undermining his efforts to isolate the opposition and maintain a national consensus.

“The Putin administration’s tough line has altered the regime’s delicate balance,” he wrote, “marginalizing the sizeable liberal-leaning elite who view Russia’s prosperity and security tied to political modernization.”

IHT Quick Read: March 29

NEWS A mortar strike at Damascus University, which the government blamed on insurgents, subverted the aura of normalcy that President Bashar al-Assad has sought to cultivate. Anne Barnard reports from Damascus.

Tight limits on cash withdrawals and other transactions were in effect when Cypriot banks, closed since March 16, reopened around midday on Thursday. Andrew Higgins reports from Akaki, Cyprus, and Liz Alderman from Nicosia.

The grab for influence and power in Karachi shows that the Taliban have been able to extend their reach across Pakistan, and not just in the frontier regions. Declan Walsh and Zia ur-Rehman report from Karachi.

President Thein Sein of Myanmar said Thursday that he was prepared to use force to quell the religious rioting that has shaken his country, answering calls even from longtime democracy advocates for more forceful security measures. Thomas Fuller reports from Bangkok.

The disturbing details of Adam Lanza’s possessions were disclosed on Thursday for the first time since he carried out the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. N.R. Kleinfield, Ray Rivera and Serge F. Kovaleski report.

A decade after severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, swept through Hong Kong and then around the world, the city is among the first to become worried about the emergence and spread of another, genetically related virus in the Middle East. Keith Bradsher reports from Hong Kong.

The leader of Italy’s center-left coalition acknowledged on Thursday that he had been unable to cobble together a governing majority in nearly a week of “dramatic” and difficult talks with representatives of the political parties in Parliament. Elisabetta Povoledo reports from Rome.

New research posits that the reddish barren spots, known as fairy circles, that dot a narrow belt of African desert could be the work of industrious sand termites. John Noble Wilford reports.

BP and three other oil giants said Thursday that they would begin a new round of drilling in a remote area about 75 kilometers west of the Shetland Islands, an archipelago north of Scotland. Stanley Reed reports from London.

ARTS In London, Helen Mirren and Judi Dench have opened in new West End plays within three weeks of each other. Matt Wolf writes from London.

SPORTS Only 12 ultrarunners have completed the 100-mile Barkley Marathons, and those connected to this ultrasecret race hope a coming documentary does not alter its counterculture charm. Dave Seminara reports from Wartburg, Tennessee.