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:

* Understanding the Crises in Britain, Greece, Spain
* Why the West is Burning – Wildfires in New Mexico and Elsewhere
* Could Your Sunscreen Be Doing More Harm Than Good?

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

Understanding the Crises in Britain, Greece, Spain

In Britain on Thursday an estimated 750,000 public sector workers staged a 24-hour strike to protest proposed cuts to pension benefits, and other austerity measures. Teachers, police, and civil servants walked off the job with about 20,000 marching in the streets, the first such action in three decades. Unions say this is only the first of a series of actions planned through the Summer and into the Fall. The LA Times reports that at the close of Thursday participants were calling the day a success. On Wednesday labor leaders worried that closing schools and bringing business-as-usual to a grinding halt would turn public sentiment against unions. The AP on Wednesday reported that the British government was betting on a backlash, hoping to bolster arguments that proposed cuts are fair and necessary. The ruling coalition plans to cut a tremendous $130 billion from the budget over 4 years. Meanwhile also on Thursday, Reuters reported that world stocks rose to their highest point in a month, and the Euro got a boost, after the Greek parliament approved further austerity measures on Wednesday. The approval, by a vote of 155 to 138, paved the way for IMF loan payments to Greece, a nation apparently on the brink of bankruptcy. Along with spending cuts on health, school closures, and tax hikes on the self-employed, $50 billion dollars worth of state-owned assets are up for sale. Weeks of on-and off protests in Greece against a tighter squeeze on domestic spending culminated in a call for a 48-hour general strike before the vote. Masses of people turned out to battle aggressive Greek security forces armed with tear gas. The Greek government is continuing to work with the European Union on a more comprehensive $157 billion dollar bailout package. And finally in Spain, weeks long protests by thousands of largely college-educated, unemployed youth, dubbed the “indignados,” or “indignants,” are quieter but not over. The tent-city in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol was cleared in early June. This week, protestors in Barcelona had agreed to leave their encampment at Plaza de Catalunya in exchange for an information booth to disseminate information to the public. However disagreements about the plan caused some protestors to resume their occupation on Wednesday.

GUEST: Steven Hill, a political writer and author whose latest book is “Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age.” He has just returned from a fact-finding trip to Spain where he interviewed participants in the Puerta del Sol protest encampment as well as think tank researchers, and last October he was in Greece where he interviewed Greek Prime Minister Papandreou and other government ministers.

Find out more at www.EuropesPromise.org

Why the West is Burning

The Los Conchas wildfire in New Mexico entered its 6th day on Friday, with over 1200 workers battling to bring it under control. As this program is being recorded, it is only 3% contained. It has burned across 93,600 acres since Sunday, including 6,000 acres of Indian reservation, and is poised to become the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s history. Thousands of Los Alamos city residents heeded a mandatory evacuation warning on Monday and remain displaced from homes threatened by the mammoth blaze. However, overshadowing all other potential dangers is the possibility of a nuclear calamity at the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory should the fire overtake the 36-square mile facility. Lab officials assert that all hazardous and nuclear materials, including 3 metric tons of highly radioactive weapons-grade plutonium, is protected, contained in concrete steel vaults. Not all experts on the subject agree. Glenn Walp, author of “Implosion at Los Alamos” told ABC news earlier this week that 20,000 barrels of nuclear waste material are stored on the site, and are at risk if the fire reaches the Lab. This is only the latest of super-sized wildfires to burn for days in the West. In Arizona, Reuters reports that the Wallow Fire has charred over half a million acres since May 29th, and continues to burn. Wildfires in Texas this spring have claimed at least 4,300 square miles. Writing for Tom Dispatch, Chip Ward calls these unmanageable fires a consequence of climate change and the unbridled expansion into, and abuse of, the West. Ward writes that just as frontiersmen, motivated by notions of a “Manifest Destiny,” won the West, the West is now “ours to lose.”

GUEST: Chip Ward, is a political activist and author of “Canaries on the Rim” and “Hope’s Horizon”. He joins us from Torrey, Utah.

Read Chip Ward’s article on Tom Dispatch here: http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175405/

Could Your Sunscreen Be Doing More Harm Than Good?

The long Fourth of July weekend coincides with heat waves hitting much of the nation, pushing Americans outdoors to beaches, pools, and bar-b-ques. However fun in the sun doesn’t come without its downsides, and for decades we’ve been taught to slather on sunscreen to prevent sunburns and skin cancer. The ever growing sunscreen market includes lip balms, sprays, powders, and lotions, fashioned for water-resistance, sports-endurance and everyday use. The SPF – or Sun protection Factor – keeps rising, with some products claiming SPFs up to 100. Skin care aisles are brimming with dozens of choices, and the brightly labeled bottles universally promise superior protection. But all sunscreens are not created equal, and the science of sun protection is in a relatively nascent phase. The Environmental Working Group recently released its 2011 Skin Deep Guide to Sunscreen, its most comprehensive evaluation of 292 brands and 1,700 products. Along with ratings, the EWG’s guide explains why titanium and zinc are good, and oxybenzone is bad, why UVA rays were long ignored, and why many sunscreens sold in the US wouldn’t be allowed on supermarket shelves in Europe.

GUEST: Sonya Lunder, Senior Scientist with the Environmental Working Group, and lead researcher on the sunscreen report.

Read the Sunscreen Report here: http://breakingnews.ewg.org/2011sunscreen/best-sunscreens/best-beach-sport-sunscreens/

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” — Galileo Galilei