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This week on Uprising:

* Iraqi Deaths Due to US Invasion Approach 1 Million
* Empire Notes on Obama and Hiroshima
* US Plans to Increase Irradiation of Food Imports
* Black Agenda Report on a new Zogby Poll on racism
* Ana Castillo Discusses her new novel about the US-Mexico Border

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Iraqi Deaths Due to US Invasion Approach 1 Million

GUEST: Patrick McElwee, Policy Analyst at JustForeignPolicy.org

US forces in Iraq claimed to have killed 32 suspected militants in a raid in eastern Baghdad earlier this week. But Iraqi police and witnesses said that the raid killed nine civilians, including two women, and wounded six others. The death toll in Iraq keeps mounting daily. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University last year concluded that 601,000 violent Iraqi deaths were attributable to the US invasion as of July 2006. Now, the non-partisan institute, JustForeignPolicy.org has updated that study and are expecting the number of Iraqi deaths to cross the 1 million mark some time next week.

View the frequently updated web counter here: www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

A detailed explanation of the methodology behind the estimate is available here:
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/counterexplanation.html

Empire Notes on Obama and Hiroshima

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 Obama and Hiroshima.

Empire Notes is online at www.empirenotes.org.

US Plans to Increase Irradiation of Food Imports

GUEST: Britta Belli, managing editor of E, the Environmental Magazine, and author of the new article, “Nuking Food: Contamination Fears and market Possibilities Spur an Irradiation Revival”

During President Bush’s recent visit to India to cement a nuclear agreement with the US, he commented on an impending new agricultural deal to import Indian mangoes to the US. While ardent fans of delectable Indian mangoes like me, are excited at the prospect, what Bush failed to mention was that the fruit would be subject to radiation before being made available to US consumers. The radiation is intended to kill any lingering bacteria in the mangoes. It’s not just mangoes – but many different kinds of produce that are to be radiated, supposedly for food safety. Already one third of commercial spices sold in the US market are subject to radiation, as are about 15-18 million pounds of ground beef. But according to Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, “Irradiation is a high-tech end-of-the-line solution to contamination problems that can and should be addressed earlier. Consumers prefer to have no filth on meat than to have filth sterilized by irradiation.”

Britta Belli’s article about radiating food can be found online at www.emagazine.com/view/?3790

Black Agenda Report a new Zogby Poll on racism

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

This week’s commentary is about a new Zogby Poll on racism. Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Ana Castillo Discusses her new novel about the US-Mexico Border

GUEST: Ana Castillo, author of “The Guardians”

As temperatures soar over a hundred degrees along the US-Mexico border, nearly three hundred Mexicans attempting to cross over have been found dead. The fates of countless other immigrants who have gone missing remain unknown. The trauma to family members of missing immigrants is imagined in a novel called “The Guardians,” the newest offering by prolific author Ana Castillo. In the story, Rafa, an undocumented man who often crosses back and forth across the border, goes unexpectedly missing as his sister Regina and his son Gabriel or “Gabo,” become desperate to learn of his fate. The search for Rafa along the borderlands of New Mexico and El Paso, Texas accentuates the human element all too often ignored in our nation’s immigration debate. Cristina Garcia, author of “A Handbook to Luck,” called Ana Castillo’s newest novel “[a] surprising and powerful novel that captures the vulnerability and stark beauty of life in a small border town. Castillo instills the voices of her four main characters with such passion and humanity, their vitality practically crackles on the page.” Ana Castillo is an accomplished poet, novelist and essayist. Her books include, “Peel My Love Like an Onion,” “My Father Was a Toltec,” and “So Far From God.” She has won many awards such as the Carl Sandburg Award, the American book award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in fiction and poetry.

For more information, visit www.anacastillo.com. .

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“The Border Patrol got started up in 1924, the year I was born. That’s when Mexicans got to be fugitives on our own land. Whether you lived on this side or that side, all Mexicans got harassed. Sometimes the police would come knocking on your door and pull you out. It didn’t matter if you were born over here or not. When I went to fight in Germany I’d tell people, Here los Anglos are fighting the Nazis. Over there, where I live, they treat us Mexicans as if they were the Nazis.” — spoken by the character of Abuelo Milton, from Ana Castillo’s book, The Guardians.