Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 10 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below, and subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, you can now follow The Wonk Room on Twitter.
National Security
Hundreds of police officers and soldiers blocked protesters as Burmese pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial today. She is charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest, because of a visit by an American man who swam across a lake to her house earlier this month.
The Washington Post reports that the town of Bashika in northern Iraq “has emerged as a flash point in a growing test of wills over who will control land claimed by Arabs and the Kurdish autonomous government.”
Roger Cohen on what President Obama should say to Israeli PM Netanyahu at today’s meeting: “You can’t build settlements and expect Iran’s influence to diminish.”
Climate
Rep. Rick Boucher (D-WV) says the Waxman-Markey compromise “will preserve coal jobs” but has “already briefed Mark Warner” on his hope to weaken the bill’s global warming targets in the Senate.
“In a surprise announcement Friday,” Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-WV) said the Obama EPA ” has cleared more than three-dozen new mountaintop removal permits for issuance by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.”
“Australia plans to build the world’s largest solar power station with an output of 1000 megawatts in a A$1.4 billion (US$1.05 billion) investment,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Sunday.
Economy
The Washington Post reports that “Chinese auto sales are up, and this year China is projected to displace Japan as the world’s largest car producer.” China’s auto industry may also “try to pick up the pieces of Detroit — at a bargain.”
According to Roll Call, “the White House quietly sought to get the ball rolling on overhauling Social Security earlier this year, but it either abandoned or significantly downgraded the process under pressure from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and outside liberal interest groups.”
VoxEU’s Kevin Milligan and Mark Stabile discuss whether income transfers to poor families help children.
Health Care
A new Gallup Poll found that “up to 29% of Americans would consider traveling abroad for medical procedures” that are routinely done in the U.S.
A new study finds that “it may be riskier on the lungs to smoke cigarettes today than it was a few decades ago – at least in the U.S.,” as “changes in cigarette design [are] fueling a certain type of lung cancer.”
According to the Wall Street Journal “the growth in antipsychotic-drug prescriptions for children is slowing as state Medicaid agencies heighten their scrutiny of usage and doctors grow more wary of the powerful medications.”
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