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This week on Uprising:

* Cuba and Fidel, One Year Later
* Immigrant Woman Seeks Sanctuary in Church
* Scandal Over Food Imports from China Continues
* Remembering the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act
* Empire Notes on Ryan Crocker’s Recent Comments on Iraq

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Cuba and Fidel, One Year Later

GUEST: Sujatha Fernandes, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Queens College and author of the book, “Cuba Represent: Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures”

On Thursday July 26th, acting Cuban President Raul Castro addressed a crowd of 100,000 people to mark the 54th anniversary of the Moncada Rebellion which sparked the Cuban revolution. This major annual address has usually been given by Fidel Castro. In fact, Fidel Castro’s last public appearance was exactly a year ago on July 26th 2006 for last year’s Moncada celebration. Five days after that appearance, Fidel Castro underwent surgery for an undisclosed medical condition, and, in an unprecedented move, temporarily ceded power to his brother Raul. Fidel has missed every major Cuban event since his initial surgery including the funeral of Raul’s wife, Vilma Espin. Cuban exiles have been largely disappointed however – over the past year the structures of the Cuban revolution have remained intact without major reforms or political uprisings. Fidel has assumed a presence through his essays entitled, “Reflections of a Commander in Chief.” His political future and the future of the Cuban Revolution remain a question yet to be answered.

Empire Notes on Ryan Crocker’s Recent Comments on Iraq

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

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is about Ryan Crocker’s Recent Comments on Iraq.

Empire Notes is online at www.empirenotes.org.

Immigrant Woman Seeks Sanctuary in Church

GUEST: Liliana, undocumented immigrant who faces deportation, Cyndi Villanueva, bi-Lingual Secretary at Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church, Angela Thielen, KPFK volunteer interpreter

This past May, immigration enforcement agents arrived at the home of an undocumented woman in the Southern Californian city of Oxnard in order to deport her. The woman, who goes by the name Liliana, has a husband and three children who are all U.S. citizens. The deportation order stems from 1998, when Liliana attempted to use a forged birth certificate to enter the US. Faced with the dilemma of family separation, she has sought sanctuary at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Long Beach. For nearly two months Liliana and her son have lived in a converted church office building while the rest of her family comes to visit on weekends. St Luke’s Episcopal Church has joined a growing number of churches nationwide in what’s being called the New Sanctuary Movement, aimed specifically at helping undocumented immigrants. There are participating churches in 50 cities across the US.

Scandal Over Food Imports from China Continues

GUEST: Patty Lovera, Assistant Director of Food and Water Watch

Several countries have recently banned a host of Chinese products ranging from pet food to shrimp. The moves were prompted by a finding this April by the US Food and Drug Administration that North American dogs and cats were poisoned by tainted Chinese pet food ingredients. China‘s product safety watchdog said recently that it had revoked the business licenses of several firms that had exported diethylene glycol and melamine-tainted products linked to the pet food scandal. A growing number of Chinese products have been found to contain potentially toxic chemicals and other contaminants. Most recently the government of the Philippines has claimed that a Chinese produced candy contains cancer causing formaldehyde.

For more information, visit www.foodandwaterwatch.org.

Remembering the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act

GUEST: Maria Foscarinis, Executive Director of The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and one of the primary architects of the Mckinney Act

This July was the 20th anniversary of the Stewart B McKinney Homeless Assistance Act. Named after the Republican Congressman Stewart B McKinney, the act emphasized emergency measures, transitional measures and long-term solutions to combat the homeless crisis. At the time, it was viewed as the first step in a larger effort to eradicate homelessness, but subsequent efforts never materialized. McKinney died of AIDS in 1987 and was a major force on Capitol Hill in advocating for the homeless – he spent the night with homeless residents on the streets of Washington, D.C. soon before his death. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty commemorated the anniversary by passing out bittersweet chocolate bars to members of Congress.

For more information, visit www.nlchp.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“We have weapons of mass destruction we have to address here at home. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Unemployment is a weapon of mass destruction.” — Congressman Dennis Kucinich