• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

Uprising’s guest expert Adele Stan, longtime chronicler of the right wing, and senior Washington correspondent for RHRealityCheck.org, analyzes today’s news headlines:

A committee advising President Obama on the NSA’s mass surveillance has just concluded in a new report that the spying program should continue albeit with some restrictions. A committee advising President Obama on the NSA’s mass surveillance has just concluded in a new report that the spying program should continue albeit with some restrictions. The report, some details of which were leaked to the New York Times yesterday, will apparently advise the President to have greater White House oversight of the program as well as review which foreign leaders are being spied upon. It also recommends greater protection of the privacy of foreign citizens. According to The Times, “The advisory report offers the first signs that the revelations by Edward J. Snowden… will lead to the result he told interviewers he was seeking.” Click here for the New York Times article about the story.

Tomorrow is the 1 year anniversary of the worst mass shooting of children in recent American history. On December 14th 2012, 20 children and 6 adults were shot to death by 20 year old Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut. The tragedy spurred gun control efforts, but a year later many are questioning whether any progress has been made. The only semblance of a victory seems to have come in the form of a ten year extension of a plastic gun ban by both Houses of Congress. Meanwhile a new study has found that in the year since the Sandy Hook massacre, 194 children were killed by gun-related violence. Click here for a Time magazine article about the story.

A battle over civil disobedience to curb global warming is continuing to play out in Russia. A group of 30 people including activists from Greenpeace and freelance journalists were arrested following an action against Russian oil drilling in the Arctic Sea. The ‘Arctic 30,’ as they are being called, were arrested despite international calls for their release. It now appears that even though they were recently granted bail by a Russian court, they may not be allowed to leave the country. Click here for a Guardian newspaper article about the story.

In one of the more bizarre pieces of international news this week, we learned yesterday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un executed his uncle, Jang Song-thaek for treason. The execution and the political reasons for it were widely publicized. Kim’s uncle was a high-profile player in North Korean politics and was known to have pushed for greater economic reforms. The former British Ambassador to North Korea, John Everard wrote an op-ed calling the move, “a slap in the face for China.” China has been characterized as North Korea’s strongest ally. Click here for a UK Telegraph article about the story.