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This week on Uprising:

* Extreme Weather Linked to Climate Change
* Black Agenda Report on Obama’s Pandering to the Right
* Chinese Workers Rise Up for Better Working Conditions
* Supporters of Death Row Inmate Kevin Keith Call for Pardon

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Extreme Weather Linked to Climate Change

Record heat waves, subsequent fires and air pollution have left 15,000 dead in Russia. The worst flooding in the history of Pakistan has displaced over 2 million Pakistanis, and killed at least 1600. In China, floods and landslides have left more than 3000 people dead. Looked at separately, each nation has recently experienced a different tragedy that will take years to recover from. Taken as a whole, it seems that years of dire warnings and predictions about the consequences of unchecked climate change are becoming a reality with extreme weather wreaking havoc around the globe. Here in the US the East Coast has been plagued by heat-waves, and the South-West, as well as parts of Mexico, are experiencing the driest weather in 50 years, threatening crops and water supplies. This week, the United Nations passed a unanimous resolution to strengthen aid to flood victims in Pakistan. What was most notable about the resolution was that it asserted the floods reflected “the adverse impact of climate change and the growing vulnerability of countries to climate change.” But here in the US, climate change deniers have been very effective at muddling the public’s understanding of changing weather patterns. This past winter news networks devoted much air-time to unscientific debates about the validity of global warming as the East Coast was buried under record-levels of snow. Critics say the United States government has not helped to clarify matters, and has failed to step-up as an international leader in the fight against climate change, as well as taking an ambivalent stance at home.

Guest: Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel, scientist with the Global Environment Program at Union of Concerned Scientists

Find out more at www.ucsusa.org

Black Agenda Report on Obama’s Pandering to the Right

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is on Obama’s Pandering to the Right.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Chinese Workers Rise Up

In China an illegal strike at a car parts factory in June won workers a small pay increase bringing their monthly salary to $29.30 a month. The strike was one of many in an unprecedented wave of worker-initiated labor organizing that has forced the Chinese government to change the way it does business with labor. In Guangdong Province, one of the most prosperous in the country, new regulations were just passed that facilitate the initiation of collective bargaining negotiations. Limiting the new rules to one province is seen as a sort-of trial run, setting the stage for national reforms. China’s push to modernize its economy has pushed labor issues to the forefront as a younger generation of workers is pulled to work from rural areas into urban centers. Working conditions in Chinese factories have always been harsh, but this new generation feels entitled to economic mobility and seems more comfortable questioning authority. The increasingly sophisticated workforce is not willing to, as one worker put it, “be humiliated like our parents were.” It is common for employees at electronics manufacturing plants to work 24 hour shifts, and an estimated 600,000 workers literally die from exhaustion annually. Chinese workers have seen their wages decrease as a portion of China’s Gross Domestic Product for 22 years.

GUEST: Robert Weil, author of Red Cat, White Cat: China and the Contradictions of ‘Market Socialism and has written many articles and papers on Chinese political economy, social conditions, and class relations.

Supporters of Death Row Inmate Kevin Keith Call for Pardon

Forty six year old Kevin Keith has been on death row for 16 years for the triple murder of two women and a 4 year old girl. He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on September 15th. But, an unusual coalition consisting of anti-death penalty campaigners, former judges, prosecutors, prison directors and lawmakers has come together to call on Ohio’s parole board and Governor Ted Strickland to halt his execution. They say he may have been wrongfully convicted and deserves a new trial. There is no DNA evidence linking Keith, a black man, with the murders of the three females. Instead, his conviction was primarily based on the eyewitness testimony of a survivor of the attack, and white man named Richard Warren. Kevin Keith’s supporters accuse the police of fabricating evidence, including a “phantom witness,” using a biased photo lineup and causing investigative errors. Additionally Keith received inadequate legal defense leading many to call for a new trial or a pardon. The case has fueled demands to rethink the death penalty in Ohio, which carries out the second highest number of executions in the U.S. A clemency hearing occurred this past Wednesday but the Ohio Parole Board on Wednesday August 18th unanimously rejected clemency for Keith. I spoke with Troutman a few days before the parole board’s decision.

GUEST: Rachel Troutman, assistant attorney Ohio Public Defender Office, lead counsel for Kevin Keith

Find out more at www.kevinkeith.org.

A few days after our interview with Rachel Troutman, the Ohio Parole Board voted unanimously against Keith’s clemency hearing. His execution date is now set for September 15th.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.” — Albert Einstein