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This week on Uprising —

• As Hamas wins a majority in the Palestine Legislative elections, we’ll hear a detailed analysis by Nadia Hijab of the Institute for Palestine Studies
• Report from the World Social Forums: We’ll speak with Djiadia Dagnoko from Bamako, Mali, and Sujatha Fernandes from Caracas, Venezuela.
• The first nationwide study on day-laborers is released – we’ll speak with Abel Valenzuela, the lead author of the report, on surprising facts about day-laborers, worker abuse, and the benefits of workers’ center.
• Plus Empire Notes on a part 2 of “a strategy for Iraq,” and the Black Commentator on Walmart.

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Palestine Elections
GUEST: Nadia Hijab, Senior Fellow at the Washington, DC-based Institute for Palestine Studies, author of “Womanpower: The Arab Debate on Women at Work” and co-author of “Citizens Apart: A Portrait of Palestinians in Israel”

Palestinians went to the polls last week to vote for members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. About 80 percent of eligible voters were registered, and more than 700 candidates ran for 132 seats. The Associated Press called the election, “an exemplary exercise in democracy, with far fewer disruptions than expected and extraordinarily high turnout.” The latest election results as of this recording show that Hamas won an outright majority on the Council with at least 70 seats out of 132. The US and European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization. Time Magazine called the victory “a Middle East earthquake.” Israeli and American officials reacted with trepidation to the news.

Empire Notes
GUEST: Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade

We go now to our weekly commentary Empire Notes by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary continues from last week’s topic of a new strategy for victory in Iraq.

Empire Notes is online at www.empirenotes.org.

Update on Americas World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela
GUESTS: Sujatha Fernandes, Researcher and Lecturer on Latin American

Five years ago, the World Social Forum was organized by anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist activists from all over the world, as a counter-event to the elite World Economic Forum that takes place in Davos Switzerland every January. The forum has grown tremendously over the years, with 120,000 attending last year’s forum in Porto Alegre. This year for the first time, the forum takes place in three cities on three different continents. On January 19th, 20,000 activists gathered in Bamako, the capital of Mali in West Africa, to discuss cotton subsidies and debt relief for poor countries. On Tuesday, January 24th, thousands of activists kicked off the Americas Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela with a massive march against globalization and the war in Iraq. Organizers expect 100,000 attendees. President Hugo Chavez is expected to address the forum. Others expected to attend the World Social Forum in Caracas include Gold Star Mother for Peace, Cindy Sheehan and Uruguayan journalist, Eduardo Galeano. The third World Social Forum will take place in Asia, in March in the Pakistani city of Karachi.

Black Commentator
GUEST: Glen Ford, co-publisher of The Black Commentator

The Black Commentator is an online political magazine bringing you commentary, analysis and investigation from a black perspective. Today’s commentary is about Walmart.

The Black Commentator is online at www.blackcommentator.com.

Nation-wide Study on Day Laborers
GUEST: Abel Valenzuela, associate professor of Chicana/o studies and urban planning at UCLA, director of the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty, lead author of the report, “On the Corner: Day Labor in the United States”

The nation’s first survey on day laborers survey on day laborers was released on January 23rd, showing that nearly a quarter are US citizens, 43% are married or live with a partner, and almost two thirds have children. The report also found that most day laborers are active members of their community in terms of attending church, sports clubs, or community centers. But the study also found a disturbing trend of worker abuse by employers. One in two workers were cheated out of wages in the two month period prior to the survey, 44 percent were denied food, water and breaks; 32 percent worked more hours than initially agreed to with the employer; 28 percent were insulted or threatened by the employer; and 27 percent were abandoned at the worksite by an employer.

Download the report.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“The poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world… Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.” – Gustavo Gutierrez, considered to be the father of liberation theology.