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Uprising’s guest expert Robert Jensen, sitting in for Arun Gupta – is an author and a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, analyzes today’s news headlines:

Tensions between Israel and Palestinians have sparked once more after yesterday’s shooting of a US-born right wing Jewish activist which left him alive but injured, outside the Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem. Israeli forces immediately killed a Palestinian man suspected of being the shooter. With a number of skirmishes near the mosque between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces, Israel has ordered the closure of the mosque, which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced as “tantamount to a declaration of war.” The mosque is considered one of the holiest sites for both Muslims and Jews. Meanwhile, the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner, Malala Yousafzai surprised many when she announced yesterday that she would donate $50,000 of her prize money to rebuilding UN schools in Gaza that Israel destroyed this summer. Click here for an Independent Newspaper article about Al Aqsa mosque, and here for an Economic Times article about Malala Yousafzai’s donation.

Massive protests have broken out in the West African nation of Burkina Faso over President Blaise Compaore’s proposal to change the constitution in order to extend his tenure after 27 years in power. The military has fired live ammunition into crowds and so far five protesters have been killed. The BBC summed up President Compaore’s position saying, he “first took power in a coup in 1987, and has won four disputed elections since then.” The opposition has called for civil disobedience and likened the popular discontent to the Arab Spring. Meanwhile, in the Southern African nation of Zambia, the sudden death of President Michael Sata has led to Guy Scott, a white African, and economist, filling the position of interim President. Scott becomes the first white leader in Africa since the fall of Apartheid in South Africa in 1994. There will be new elections in 3 months. Click here for a BBC article about Burkina Faso, and here for a BBC article about Zambia.

And finally, with mid-term elections just days away, the group U.S. Chamber Watch, run by Public Citizen, has found that the Chamber of Commerce has spent the most so-called dark money on elections of all outside groups. A spokesperson for Public Citizen explained, “When large corporations decide they want to get their own candidates into office but they don’t want to be seen doing it, they call the U.S. Chamber.” And, if the flood of corporate money wasn’t enough to discourage voters, the state of Georgia has apparently lost 40,000 voter registration cards. The cards were the result of a massive voter registration drive by a group called The New Georgia Project. Apparently, affluent voters received their cards right away whereas many poor voters of colors have not, and may never receive their registration cards. Click here about a Commondreams article about the Chamber of Commerce, and here for an Al Jazeera America story about Georgia’s voters.