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Koch Pledge Tied to Congressional Climate Inaction

Jane Mayer The New Yorker
Climate-change policy directly affects Koch Industries’s bottom line. Koch Industries, according to Environmental Protection Agency statistics cited in the study, is a major source of carbon-dioxide emissions, the kind of pollution that most scientists believe causes global warming.

Protests Against Obama Visit to South Africa

COSATU, Business Day (SA), SACP
A broad coalition of South African organizations, including COSATU, has called for mass demonstrations against President Obama's visit to Johannesburg. Coalition is in opposition to the University of Johannesburg plan to award Obama with an honorary doctorate for his contributions to the international community. Among the coalition demands are freedom for Bradley Manning, support for the Cuban Five, and the closing of Guantanamo.

Cautious Praise for Climate Action Plan

Tina Gerhardt, May Boeve
President Obama's Climate Action Plan aims to reduce carbon emissions; prepare the U.S. for the impacts of climate change; and lead international efforts to fight climate change and prepare for its impacts. Bill McKibben, 350.og co-founder, responded to the talk positively, stating: "It's awfully good to see the president starting to move forward on climate action--after the hottest year in American history."

labor

A vision on the verge of realization

Carla D. Washington The Hill
Tuesday marked the 75th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which ended some of the worst abuses of American workers by establishing the 40-hour work week, restricting child labor, setting a minimum wage and requiring overtime pay for hours worked beyond 40 in a given week. When will home care workers receive these most basic labor protections?

Syria and the Monarchs: A Perfect Storm

Conn Hallinan Foreign Policy in Focus
The United States is now a direct participant in the war to bring down the Damascus regime, thus shedding any possibility that, along with Russia, it could act as a neutral force to bring the parties together.

NSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Verizon Customers Daily

Glenn Greenwald The Guardian (UK)
The Government is collecting phone records for millions and millions of Americans under the PATRIOT Act. It's an outrage: The Guardian has obtained long sought-after evidence of the extent of ongoing spying on Americans under the PATRIOT Act -- and it's as bad as we'd worried. The NSA is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.
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