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:

* Pakistani and Afghan Women Face Misogynist Justice
* Empire Notes on American Exceptionalism, Obama-Style
* Obama’s Cuba Policy Preserves Embargo
* Black Agenda Report on the Case of Mumia Abu Jamal
* How Wealthy Americans Made Money on Risky Scams and Hid it Offshore

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

Pakistani and Afghan Women Face Misogynist Justice

The newly reinstated chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikaar Muhammad Chaudhry, has ordered an investigation into the recent flogging of a 17 year old girl by the Taliban in the Swat Valley. The public flogging which apparently happened in February, was videotaped and can now be found on Youtube. It has sparked outrage among Pakistani human and women’s rights groups and internationally as well. According to the BBC, the girl was accused of “illicit relations with a man,” and that the man involved was also flogged, and said that he simply came to the girl’s house to do some electrical repairs. The Taliban forced the two to marry and instructed the man not to divorce his wife. Earlier this year the Pakistani government made a deal with the Taliban in the former ski resort of Swat Valley, to implement Islamic Sharia law in exchange for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, a new law aimed at the minority Shia community has also sparked outrage: the law was quickly passed and signed by President Hamid Karzai and requires, among other things, married women to have sex with their husbands on demand, and not leave their homes unescorted. The law is reminiscent of the controversial edicts enforced by the Taliban and denounced by human rights groups internationally. Karzai has justified the the law saying there was a misunderstanding based on bad translation. But he is thought to be simply using the law to appease his base among the fundamentalist, mostly Shia warlords dominating the parliament as he faces re-election this summer.

GUESTS: Farooq Sulehria, member of the Pakistan Labor Party, Sahar Saba, member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

Empire Notes on American Exceptionalism, Obama-Style

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is called American Exceptionalism, Obama-Style.

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

Visit www.empirenotes.org for more information.

Obama’s Cuba Policy Preserves Embargo

Upon returning to the United States from Cuba, Representative Barbara Lee of Oakland will be exploring medical, biotech and student exchanges between the two countries. Earlier this week, Lee headed a delegation of Congressional Black Caucus members to meet with Cuban President Raul Castro. Afterwards, Lee and two other House members visited the private home of Fidel Castro in what was described by the former President as a “magnificent meeting.” As the Congressional Black Caucus delegation met with the Castro brothers, they primarily discussed improving long-strained relations between the two governments. The Obama administration is currently reviewing U.S. policy towards Cuba and might announce changes in family travel and remittances policies ahead of a scheduled summit in Trinidad and Tobago next week. Members of Congress introduced a bill earlier this month that would lift the travel ban placed on Cuba since 1962. A similar bill is also in the Senate as well. However, changes in relations between the two countries fall short on the issue of the economic embargo on Cuba. Vice President Joe Biden said during a summit in Chile last month that his nation’s government has no immediate plans to end the decades-long policy against the island nation.

GUESTS: Sujatha Fernandes, Associate Professor of Sociology at Queens College, City University of New York, author of “Cuba Represent!: Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures”

Black Agenda Report on the Case of Mumia Abu Jamal

Bruce Dixon, sitting in for Glen Ford, is the managing editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is about the case of Mumia Abu Jamal.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

How Wealthy Americans Made Money on Risky Scams and Hid it Offshore

Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, has been at the center of a growing scandal this year, for helping wealthy Americans hide their money from the IRS. Earlier in the week, a Florida accountant was the first person arrested after UBS turned over the names of over 250 of its American clients to the IRS to avoid prosecution. The bank, which is the world’s largest manager of private wealth, has also admitted that from 2000 to 2007, it helped rich Americans avoid paying taxes by setting up sham offshore companies for them in third countries that are tax havens. The US government believes there are as many as 52,000 Americans with secret Swiss bank accounts. UBS recently ordered its staff not to travel abroad, fearing arrests by governments who are starting to crack down on tax evasion. Representatives at the recent G-20 summit in London, as one of their agreed-upon regulatory measures, promised to crack down collectively on tax havens. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a black-list of four countries that are called “non-cooperative tax havens,” and a “gray-list” of 38 other countries and territories that have committed to its tax standards but not full implemented them. The US and Swiss governments recently agreed to revise a 1996 bi-lateral tax treaty to better exchange tax information based on the OECD tax codes.

GUEST: William Brittain Catlin, author of Offshore: The Dark Side of the Global Economy

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.” — Bertrand Russell