Our weekly edition is a nationally syndicated one-hour digest of the best of our daily coverage.

Audio Stream | Podcast | Mp3 Download

This week on Uprising —

* Bush’s Plans To Privatize Iraqi Oil
* Immigration Reform and the Democratic Party
* The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country
* Empire Notes on Nancy Pelosi and the Antiwar Movement
* Black Agenda Report on “Contagious Shootings”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bush’s Oil Plans for Iraq

GUEST: Antonia Juhasz, visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.

A proposed hydrocarbon law is quietly being introduced by the Iraqi government that would radically alter the nation’s oil industry. Iraq’s oil reserves are the third largest in the world and account for one-tenth of the world’s reserves – at an estimated 115 billion barrels. A draft of the controversial hydrocarbon law was obtained on Sunday by The Independent. The plan will allow foreign companies to profit from Iraq’s oil reserves in generous agreements binding for at least thirty years. Largely structured through so-called production-sharing agreements, or PSA’s, the law would enable foreign oil companies to gain a share of Iraq’s oil profits in return for investment in the industry’s infrastructure and operations. The leaked draft also shows plans for companies to take their profitable returns out of Iraq, tax and restriction free. If implemented, the hydrocarbon law would allow for the first large scale operations of foreign oil companies since Iraq nationalized its natural resource in 1972. Iraqi oil, long suspected of being an objective of the Bush and Blair administrations by anti-war critics, accounts for seventy percent of the nation’s economy.

Read Antonia Juhasz’s article, “Spoils of War: Oil, the U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area and the Bush Agenda,” in the latest issue of In These Times magazine (Vol 31, Issue 01).

Empire Notes on Nancy Pelosi and the Antiwar Movement

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

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is on Nancy Pelosi and the Antiwar Movement

Empire Notes is online at www.empirenotes.org.

Immigration Reform and the Democratic Party

GUEST: Eunsook Lee, Executive Director of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium

Members of the new Democratic-controlled Congress have predicted that reform of the nation’s immigration policy is likely to happen this session. Immigration reform is a part of the party’s one-hundred hours agenda. House of Representatives Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer said that President Bush expected an “easier time” dealing with Democrats in a meeting last week with congressional leaders. House Republicans had blocked President Bush’s immigration proposals last year and instead passed legislation authorizing the construction of a 700 mile border fence along the U.S. – Mexico border. Sensing a shift in the political climate, leaders of grassroots immigration rights coalitions have outlined their principles and strategies to achieve real immigration reform in the government’s 110th Congress. In a telephone press conference yesterday, members of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement demanded that any changes to immigration law must contain eleven elements including a non-tiered path to legalization, the passage of the DREAM Act, and halting the militarization of the border. The coalition’s proposal is signed on to by nearly 300 organizations in 35 states.

Black Agenda Report on “Contagious Shootings”

GUEST: Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report

This week’s commentary is called “Contagious Shootings.” Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

The Unquiet Grave

GUEST: Steve Hendricks, freelance investigative reporter and author of “The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country.”

On February 24th 1976, the body of Anna Mae Aquash was discovered in the Badlands of South Dakota. Aquash was a member of AIM, the American Indian Movement. The FBI claimed that she had died of exposure despite the fact that there was a bullet hole in her head. Aquash’s murder is the departure point for a new book by freelance investigative reporter, Steve Hendricks. Hendricks sued the FBI over several years to pry out thousands of unseen documents on AIM. Those documents shine greater light on the FBI’s secret war on American Indians and form the basis of Hendrick’s book, “The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country.”. According to Howard Zinn, “The Unquiet Grave is a riveting anti-detective story in which the detectives—the FBI—are themselves investigated and their violations of the basic rights of Native Americans exposed. Few people know about this disturbing episode in our country’s recent past, but many should and will, thanks to Steve Hendricks’s fascinating book.”

For more information, visit www.stevehendricks.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“No human being should ever have to fear for his or her life because of their political or religious beliefs. We are in this together, my friends, the rich, the poor, the red, white, black, brown and yellow. We share responsibility for Mother Earth and those who live and breathe upon her. Never forget that.” — Leonard Peltier