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:

* G-20 Ignores Protesters, Moves Ahead with Neo-Liberal Agenda to Solve Crisis
* Black Agenda Report: Comparing Iraq and Afghanistan
* New Israeli Government Veers Sharply to the Right
* Prospects for Iraqi Peace

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

G-20 Ignores Protesters, Moves Ahead with Neo-Liberal Agenda to Solve Crisis

At their London meeting this past week, the Group of 20 countries agreed to reform the international finance system through the use of regulations, registries, and executive pay caps. More significantly they agreed to set aside a 1.1 trillion dollar “recovery fund,” the majority of which will be used by the International Monetary Fund. There was also agreement to shun protectionist measures and ensure the continued free flow of capital. But just outside the halls of the meeting, thousands of protesters from all over Europe and the world gathered to denounce the summit as illegitimate and to demand people’s needs over the needs of banks and corporations. On Wednesday April 1st, a day designated as Financial Fools day, a demonstration outside two major banks turned into a battle between several dozen police and several hundred protesters. One man collapsed and died after the protests but details surrounding his death are as yet unclear. An overwhelming show of force by police curtailed some demonstrations on Thursday, day two of the two day summit. The heads of the G20 nations seemed to take little notice of the tumult outside and it remains to be seen how effective their agreed-upon actions will be on stabilizing the global economy.

GUEST: Robin Hahnel, professor emeritus of economics at American University, currently a visiting at Portland State University, author of several books including “Panic Rules!: Everything You Need to Know About the Global Economy,” “The ABCs of Political Economy: A Modern Approach,” and “Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation.”

Read Robin Hahnel’s article about what the G-20 protesters want at: http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/
women/the_way_we_live/article6011322.ece

Black Agenda Report on Black-White Income Gaps

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is on Black-White Income Gaps.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

New Israeli Government Veers Sharply to the Right

On Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party was sworn in by the Israeli Knesset after forming the largest cabinet in his nation’s political history. Netanyahu, who was previously the Prime Minister of Israel from 1996 – 1999, formed his coalition government by naming hard-line right winger Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party as his Foreign Minister and the Labor Party’s Ehud Barak as Defense Minister. The new far-right leaning coalition government formed out of Israel’s February 10th elections has raised concerns about the future prospects for peace with the Palestinians. Before being sworn in, Netanyahu claimed he would negotiate with the Palestinians but omitted any references to a two-state solution – a policy he has consistently and publicly opposed. Lieberman, who was questioned in a bribery probe yesterday, declared on Wednesday that Israel was not bound by the Annapolis accords of 2007. In further statements, the new Foreign Minister stated his opposition to withdrawing from the Golan Heights as a condition of peace with Syria.

GUEST: Jeff Halper, Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and a professor of anthropology, Halper is author of “Obstacles to Peace: Reframing the Israel-Palestine Conflict”

Prospects for Iraqi Peace

Even as President Obama shifts troops and resources away from Iraq into Afghanistan, fresh fighting has erupted in Baghdad that threatens to unravel any nascent stability. The fighting broke out last weekend in response to the arrest of Adel Mashadani, a key figure in the Sunni “Awakening” movement, whose fighters were paid by the US to lay down their weapons. Meanwhile seven people were killed in a suicide attack in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Mosul has seen a spike in violence over the past two years, as Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters were driven out of Anbar. The US Army today formally handed over to Iraq, control of the anti-al-Qaeda fighters. The Bush administration’s so-called “surge” in US troops literally bought the peace in Iraq’s Anbar province, enabling President Obama to recently announce a draw-down in combat troops by 2010. There are currently plans for at least 50,000 troops to remain in Iraq until 2011. The US Senate is due to vote on Obama’s nomination of Christopher Hill to be the next US Ambassador to Iraq. Meanwhile, Iraq Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki this past week addressed an Arab summit in Doha, Qatar, touting the success of peace and democracy in Iraq. But has Iraq really emerged from years of devastating war?

GUEST: Ra’ed Jarrar, Iraq Consultant to the American Friends Service Committee

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict — alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence.” – Dorothy Thompson