Russians seek to put restrictions on NGOs - Europe - International Herald Tribune: "MOSCOW Russia moved Wednesday to impose greater government control over charities and other nongovernmental organizations, including some of the world's most prominent, in what critics described as the Kremlin's latest effort to stifle civil society and democracy"
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Totalitarian states are boringly predictible. When the state claims the divine attributes of solving everyone's problems, then it must have no competition--even religion and charity must come under the control of the state. It is a bit ironic, however, that organizations such as the Ford Foundation, Greenpeace, and Amnesty International which are generally liberal organizations with statist objectives are found to operate "under the cover of implementing humanitarian and educational programs in Russians regions, [and] ... lobby for the interests of certain countries and gather classified information on a wide range of issues." [Nikolai Paturshev, director of the Federal Security Service (Russia)].