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Most business interests would do anything to avoid a public fight with the most powerful man in the Senate.

Not Koch Industries.

The privately owned conglomerate of conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch is busy trading volleys with Majority Leader Harry Reid in the battle over the Affordable Care Act and the government shutdown.

What's unusual here is the word trading. It wasn't so many years ago that the Koch brothers and their company would have said nothing, just absorbed political slams without comment.

But that reticence has been steadily fading as political temperatures rise. And this week, when Reid accused the Koch brothers of leading a two-pronged campaign against the ACA and for a shutdown, it took less than a day for Koch Industries to punch back.

Philip Ellender, an executive at Koch Companies Public Sector llc, distributed a letter on Capitol Hill Wednesday, taking on what he called "false information presented about Koch [Industries] on the Senate floor by Senate Majority Leader Reid" the day before. Ellender expressed hope that Reid "and other politicians will stop misrepresenting and distorting Koch's position."

Reid, citing a New York Times article that ran Sunday, had attacked David and Charles Koch and said the brothers and former Attorney General Ed Meese led other conservatives in "raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars" to fight the health care law and instigate the shutdown.

"By shutting down the government, and that's what happened, we're satisfying the Koch brothers and Ed Meese, but millions of people in America are suffering," Reid said.

Ellender's letter says that Koch Industries believes the ACA will increase deficits, bring down health-care standards and raise taxes. But he wrote that Koch Industries "has not taken a position on the legislative tactic" of linking the government funding resolution to a provision cutting off money for the ACA, "nor have we lobbied on legislative provisions defunding Obamacare."

But that still leaves the political groups backed by the Kochs — and they haven't been so hands-off. Americans For Prosperity, which the brothers have long supported, has campaigned hard to repeal Obamacare. And Heritage Action for America, which spearheaded the defunding effort, in 2011 got $500,000 from Freedom Partners, a business association that's part of the Koch network.

Just to add to the Koch confusion, Michael Needham, the head of Heritage Action, was asked Wednesday about that $500,000 contribution: It came from the Koch brothers, he said.

We had a complicated problem on our kitchen table in Jerusalem. A stack of homemade birthday thank-you notes, tucked in brightly colored envelopes, ready to be whisked off to friends in the U.S.

Postage Around The World

In the U.S., it costs $1.10 to send an overseas letter weighing up to 3.5 ounces (or approximately 100 grams). How does the rest of the world compare? Here's a roundup of what it costs for a U.S.-bound missive.

South Africa: 66 cents (up to 50 grams)

Russia: 88 cents (20g ); $2.19 (100g)

Brazil: 95 cents (50g)

Saudi Arabia: $1.07 (50g)

U.S.: $1.10 (approx. 100g)

Jamaica: $1.15 (15g, Caribbean, North and South America), $1.35 (Europe), $1.74 (rest of the world)

Ireland: $1.22 (50g)

Mauritania: $1.23 (100g)

Great Britain: $1.41 (10g); $5.59 (100g)

China: $1.63 (50g)

France: $1.90 (50g)

Japan: $1.96 (50g)

Australia: $2.46 (50g)

Denmark: $2.64 (50g)

Argentina: $2.75 (20g, within the Americas); $2.92 (outside the Americas)

Note: Converted to U.S. dollars on Oct. 8 and 9, 2013

Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, who was shot last year by Taliban militants for her advocacy of girls' education, has been awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by European lawmakers.

The 16-year-old, considered a contender for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, joins previous winners of Europe's top human rights award, including Peace Prize laureates Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela.

The Associated Press says former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked NSA secrets to the media and "a group of imprisoned Belarus dissidents were also in the running for the 50,000-euro ($65,000) award," named after the late Soviet nuclear physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov.

"The European Parliament acknowledges the incredible strength of this young woman," said Martin Schulz, the president of the EU legislature. "Malala bravely stands for the right of all children to be granted a fair education. This right for girls is far too commonly neglected."

The AP says "Europe's three major political groups had nominated the schoolgirl in a show of united support for her cause."

Earlier this week, Yousafzai told the BBC that the way forward in Pakistan was to open a dialogue with her attackers.

Yousafzai campaigned actively for girls' access to school in the Swat Valley area of northwestern Pakistan, which has become a battleground in recent years between Pakistani forces and Taliban militants who oppose education for girls. On Oct. 9, 2012, her school bus was flagged down and boarded by gunmen who identified her by name and shot her in the head.

There's been a deadly fire at a garment factory in Bangladesh — the latest in a series of such tragedies and just six months after the worst disaster in the history of the global garment industry.

At least 10 people were killed at the Aswad garment factory outside the capital, Dhaka, early Wednesday. The immediate cause was not known. This factory, like others where tragedy has struck, produced clothes for a number of Western companies.

Here's more from The Wall Street Journal:

"Aswad Composite Mills has recently produced clothes for Western retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Loblaw Cos., the Canadian owner of the Joe Fresh label, and Hudson's Bay Co., according to several online shipping databases. Hudson's Bay said it last received a delivery from the factory in April and subsequently decided it would no longer place orders with the factory. A spokeswoman didn't elaborate on whether the decision was based on safety reasons. A spokeswoman for Loblaw said it was looking into the issue. A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said it is 'working to understand the facts and will take appropriate action based on our findings.' She declined to elaborate."