A papal visit to Brazil will be the occasion for protests, both against the public subsidy for the visit, and against some positions of the Catholic Church.

Tea plantations in Assam pay starvation wages, and claim they "can't afford" to pay more.

Of course they can afford it. They simply have to raise the price. That's fine — we can pay a little more for our tea.

The poverty of the workers pushes them to fall prey to selling their children to be domestic slaves. This is a separate problem, and could be tackled by informing people around India about the dishonesty of these recruiters/purchasers.

US citizens: sign this petition to the Senate to support a rule change so that filibusters require senators to actually speak on the senate floor.

Uri Avnery thanks Europe for making government cooperation and contracts exclude Israeli institutions and businesses that have any connection to Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine.

I did not realize before that this included European government purchases. That will put substantial pressure on Israeli business.

Avnery's article was evidently written before the announcement that Israel and Palestine have agreed to hold talks about having peace talks. Based on his past writings, I expect he will show that these talks about talks don't really change anything.

Everyone: put heat on McDonald's for telling workers to keep working in the kitchen during a heat wave with the air conditioner broken.