The New York Times has a piece today titled “In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad.” “We basically have a system of self-monitoring by corporations. There used to be an agency at the UN that did monitoring — The United Nations Center on Transnational Corporations — but that was basically ended in the 1990s. The International Labor Organization is important but can’t hold companies accountable, only governments — and governments frequently plead that they are fundamentally at the mercy of corporations that would leave if they were made to pay and treat workers better.

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“The disruption of the Indian Ocean includes the overfishing in its waters, the devastation by dumping of toxic waste, the problem of its militarization. When Vasco Da Gama came into the waters in 1498, he entered a world of demilitarized trade that linked China to Africa. The Portuguese ships inaugurated an era of violence that is now taken up not only by the warships of the U.S. and India, but also by the large trawlers and toxic waste ships. The Indian Ocean needs a long-term solution. In 1971, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution, making the Indian Ocean a…

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Hauter said today: “The president’s energy vision is troubling for our water resources. His speech touted the development of so-called ‘clean energy,’ but it may as well have been written by the oil and gas industry. His plan to open up more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources and to support shale gas development trades clean water for energy. “President Obama should not confuse offshore oil and onshore shale gas development for clean energy. Although gas companies should absolutely be made to disclose the chemicals they use, simply disclosing chemicals does not prevent shale gas…

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“The year 2011 in Egypt has proven to be an unprecedented year of protest and revolutionary vitality. It is tempting to hope that the struggle for revolutionary change will find a new life in the ongoing electoral process and in the institutions it will generate. Yet it is belief in this hope that is the biggest threat to Egypt’s revolution. The type of limited, hollow “democracy” that the SCAF and its allies want for the country is largely aimed at undermining Egypt’s protest movement after it has proven its potential to make meaningful strides toward the demands that drove millions…

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iWatchNews is reporting: “The Israeli-born wife of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is matching her husband and placing her own $5 million bet on a super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich in the upcoming Florida primary. “The gift came from Miriam Adelson, according to sources familiar with husband Sheldon’s previous $5 million donation to the super PAC ‘Winning Our Future.’ The funds, in the form of a wire transfer, are expected to be received by the PAC on Tuesday.”

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“Open marriages are consensual, honest and based in love. Saying ‘let me have an affair or I’m going to divorce you’ is not consensual — it’s coercive. Being married and then waiting to come clean until after you’ve started an affair is is not open or honest. If Gingrich had approached his wife with his feelings beforehand, perhaps she would have said, ‘yes, well, actually I’ve been thinking about that possibility myself,’ and then they could have honestly had a healthy, open marriage. But what we’re hearing about is an affair that started in deception and ended in coercion –…

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COSTAS PANAYOTAKIS, [in NYC] cpanayotakis at gmail.com, Panayotakis is associate professor of sociology at the New York City College of Technology at CUNY and author of the forthcoming book Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy. He said today: “As global financial markets and the world are anxiously watching to see if the negotiations to restructure the Greek debt held by private investors come to fruition in the coming hours, it is important to remember that even if these negotiations do bear fruit, the Greek and eurozone crises, with all the risks these pose for the global economy, will…

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“Romney’s official positions in the hierarchy of the Mormon Church raise serious questions under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Do the American people want the functional equivalent to the Mormon Pope and his College of Cardinals sitting in their Salt Lake Vatican City ordering the President of the United States what to do? Romney must come clean and fully explain his official positions in the Mormon Church hierarchy and the extent to which he takes orders from their Prophet and Apostles.

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TIMOTHY CASEY, tcasey at legalmomentum.org, Casey is senior staff attorney with Legal Momentum, “the nation’s oldest legal defense and education fund dedicated to advancing the rights of all women and girls.” He said today: “When it comes to programs to aid the poor, some of the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination are rushing to the bottom. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have played the race card, implying that Food Stamps and other programs for those in need are programs for Blacks. But the facts are to the contrary — only one quarter of Food Stamp recipients are African-American.…

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AP reports that President Obama today will be “hosting King Abdullah II of Jordan at the White House.” PETE MOORE, pwm10 at case.edu, Professor of political science at Case Western Reserve University, Moore is author of Doing Business in the Middle East: Politics and Economic Crisis in Jordan and Kuwait. He said today: “An obvious question given what has happened in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria is: Why not Jordan? The socioeconomic grievances in the other countries are there in spades. We’ve certainly seen some protests in 2011 — and some that go back further — but why haven’t we…

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