By: Popularresistance.org, 11/01/2013

People realize that the institutions don’t work because they are experiencing the consequences. This week was the one year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy and the recovery effort, Occupy Sandy.To mark the occasion, people rom those areas brought a human “wave of change” to city hall in New York and held a march they called “Turn the Tide.” Protesters are demanding that five priorities be met: good jobs, affordable housing, sustainable energy, community engagement and strong healthcare.

Sandy demonstrates the dysfunction of government to address both the people’s needs and climate change. As Naomi Klein wrote this week in How Science Is Telling Us All To Revolt, “there is still time to avoid catastrophic warming, but not within the rules of capitalism as they are currently constructed; which may be the best argument we have ever had for changing those rules.”

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The former National Security Agency contractor exposed wide-reaching American surveillance programmes like Prism.US spy agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has found a job at a major Russian website and will start work on Friday, his lawyer said, in another indication he will stay in the country long-term.

Lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, who has been the only public link to Mr Snowden in Russia, told Russian news outlets that the former National Security Agency contractor had found IT-related work.“He’ll be working at one of the largest companies, maintaining the largest website in our country,” Mr Kucherena said.The lawyer refused to name the website out of concern for Mr Snowden’s safety, noting only that it was not a government agency.

More on: independent.co.uk

By Nick Squires, The Telegraph – October 31, 2013

NSA spied on the future Pope Francis before and during the Vatican conclave at which he was chosen to succeed Benedict XVI.The American spy agency monitored telephone calls made to and from the residence in Rome where the then Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio stayed during the conclave, the secret election at which cardinals chose him as pontiff on March 13.

Leaks by Edward Snowden, the fugitive former US intelligence operative who has been granted asylum in Russia, have suggested the NSA conducted extensive spying on several European countries in addition to Italy, including Spain, France and Germany.The revelations have seriously strained relations between the US and its European allies and trade partners.

More on: Telegraph.co.uk

By: RT.com, 10/31/2013

Pennsylvania authorities have denied a doctor the right to challenge a so-called “medical gag rule” that prevents him and other physicians from warning the public about the health dangers associated with fracking. Dr. Alfonso Rodriguez of Dallas, Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit against the state last year, asserting that Act 13 of 2012 forces medical professionals to enter “a vague confidentiality agreement” that prevents them from having a completely honest dialogue with patients.

Naturalsociety, By: Christina Sarich, 10/27/2013

In the small, university town of Gottingen, Germany, a handful of autonomously acting ‘Flower Children’ have decided to rogue-plant cannabis seed in the hundreds of thousands as an act of defiance against the ‘demonization’ of a plant that has been proven to treat multiple ailments. To put it in simper terms, citizens are planting cannabis plants randomly throughout the town to really show officials what the people want.

The pro-marijuana supporters point to Germany’s restrictive laws, and many comment on the plants abilities to do more than just get people high. Police continue to pull the plants up, no matter where they sprout, and often mistake non-cannabis plants as the work of the activists. They have been told to be vigilant about removing anything that looks like cannabis.