First off, I've been planning to blog a bit more than I have been the past few days but the new MacBook I got had some problems so I had to send it off to get fixed. That means a lot of things I'd been saving away and bookmarking on that computer are not available. I'm back to my old (hot and noisy) HP for a the rest of the week, though I'll be traveling between Thursday and Saturday anyway, so a good time for a little break.

On to the news ... I just noticed this posted over at Idealist where I was looking through their job boards and thought I should put something up here about the continued pressure the Russian government is putting on NGOs and nonprofits. From Yahoo:

A Russian court on Friday shut down a human rights group that has exposed abuses against civilians in Chechnya, its leader said, denouncing the ruling as part of an effort to silence critics of the government's conduct in the violence-torn region.

Other rights groups said the decision showed the government's ability to use new laws targeting extremism and non-governmental organizations, which were approved this year by President Vladimir Putin despite opposition at home and abroad. Rights groups have called the laws an attempt to rein in civil rights.

Putin has been accused of stifling media freedoms and rolling back post-Soviet democratic freedoms since coming to power in 2000.

By tomorrow, all foreign NGOs working in Russia must submit paperwork to register with Russian authorities of cease activity in the country. So far, according to this piece at Voice of America, only a few dozen organizations out of several hundred working in Russia have been given the go-ahead to continue operations there.

More coverage of all this at: Jurist Paper Chase, Russia News, RFERL, Russophobe and at my friend Veronica's Neeka's Backlog (though I can't seem to get in there right now).

Not only has this story been getting short shrift over the past few months in the Western media, but the ongoing crackdowns on media freedom had as well, until the murder of outspoken journalist Anna Politkovskaya recently. Memorials have been held around the world, including in D.C. yesterday. Here's a tribute at Amnesty International.