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This week on Uprising:

* Understanding the Standoff at the Red Mosque in Islamabad
* Empire Notes on the Pakistan Standoff
* Filipinos Brace Themselves for the Human Security Act of 2007
* Black Agenda Report on Cheney and Impeachment
* New Study Finds Racial Discrimination Persists in the Lending Industry

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Understanding the Standoff at the Red Mosque in Islamabad

GUESTS: Zia Mian, with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Professor of Physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad

Thousands of people have been protesting across Pakistan against a government raid on Islamabad’s Red Mosque that left dozens dead. The Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, is housed inside a compound along with the Jamia Hafsa religious school, where 200 to 500 followers of a rebel cleric’s Taliban-style movement had gathered for a siege. News media had reported that about 50 to 60 hard-core militants were leading the fighting, but most of the others were women and children. The raid involved more than 36 hours of room-to-room fighting with the final government-reported death-toll of 108 over the course of the standoff. According to Reuters, “Lal Masjid has been a hotbed of militancy for years, known for its support for Afghanistan’s Taliban and opposition to [President] Musharraf’s backing for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism.” Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the ostensible leader of the Mosque rebels who was killed in the raid, had earlier announced that he hoped that the deaths of him and his fighters would spark an Islamic revolution in Pakistan.

Read Pervez Hoodbhoy’s article about the Lal Masjid incident here: http://www.countercurrents.org/hoodhoy110707.htm

Empire Notes on the Pakistan Standoff

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 the Pakistan Standoff

Empire Notes is online at www.empirenotes.org.

Filipinos Brace Themselves for the Human Security Act of 2007

GUESTS: Crispin Beltran, Filipino Congressperson and labor leader; Kuusela Hilo, a member of Anakbayan – Los Angeles, and Deputy Secretary General of Bayan – USA; Pia Rivera, member of Anakbayan Seattle and Filipino Intercollegiate Networking Dialogue

This weekend, the Government of the Philippines are enacting the so-called “Human Security Act of 2007.” The legislation, which officially attempts to increase security using tough measures against domestic terrorism, will grant newer and broader authorities to state and police forces. Despite President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s insistence that the Human Security Act will be implemented with full respect for civil liberties, human rights activists are very worried. Critics of the legislation point to its broad and vague definition of a terrorist crime. Under the act, eleven crimes are listed as terrorism so long as they attempt to create “a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace in order to coerce the government to give into an unlawful demand.” The definition fails to include crimes of state terrorism, which worries human rights activists as they see the law’s implementation within a context of hundreds of extrajudicial murders and disappearances in the past six years. Finally, under the Human Security Act, a person punished for terrorism crimes will serve a mandated prison term of forty years without the possibility of parole.

Black Agenda Report on Cheney and Impeachment

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

This week’s commentary is on Cheney and Impeachment. Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

New Study Finds Racial Discrimination Persists in the Lending Industry

GUEST: John Taylor, President & CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition

A new report by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition has found that racial discrimination persists in the mortgage loan industry. Upon examining major metropolitan areas in the nation, the NCRC concluded that black and Latino minorities were disproportionately more likely to receive high-cost loans than whites. Based on 2005 data from the Federal Reserve the report also found that the highest disparity between minorities and whites existed in middle and upper income levels. For instance, middle to upper class blacks were found to be twice as likely to have high-rate loans. According to the NCRC, high-rate loans which start out low but climb higher over the course of eighteen months leave minority communities especially susceptible to foreclosures. As a result of the study’s findings the NCRC is calling on Congress to pass two key pieces of legislation to reform lending laws and end racial discrimination.

The report is available online at www.ncrc.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“We are constantly being told that we don’t have racism in this country anymore, but most of the people who are saying that are white. White people think it isn’t happening because it isn’t happening to them.” — Jane Elliot