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This week on Uprising:

* Protests Rock Bolivia Over New Constitution
* Empire Notes on Declining Violence in Iraq
* Oxfam Warns of Worsening Climate Change
* Black Agenda Report on Somalia
* Journalists Decry Racism in Media Coverage of Mumia

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Protests Rock Bolivia Over New Constitution

GUEST: Ben Dangl, author of “The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia” published this year by AK Press, live from Cochabamba

At least four people have died in violent confrontations in Sucre, Bolivia, where the framework for a new constitution was approved on Saturday. Although each article has yet to be included, if approved, the new constitution will radically alter the future of Bolivia’s political system. Once the final changes are proposed, voters will determine if a new constitution will be set in place through a referendum. President Evo Morales, an indigenous Aymara and former coca union leader, has long advocated for a constitutional assembly. The majority of delegates to the Assembly belong to Morales’ Party, MAS or Movement Toward Socialism, and have gathered in Sucre to hammer out the new constitution. After a months-long impasse, the framework was finally approved this weekend – although nearly all of the opposition delegates are boycotting the meeting. Meanwhile, opposition protesters have clashed with police; throwing rocks, dynamite and Molotov cocktails in a last-ditch attempt to stop the assembly from carrying out its work, which is due by December 14.

Empire Notes on Declining Violence in 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 commentary is about declining violence in Iraq.

Empire Notes is online at www.empirenotes.org.

Oxfam Warns of Worsening Climate Change

GUEST: David Waskow, Policy lead on Oxfam America’s Climate Change campaign

Earlier this month Bangladesh was struck by the worst cyclone since 1991. Cyclone Sidr hit the impoverished South Asian country on November 15 with winds of 155 mph and a 5-foot tidal surge, killing around 3,500 people, leaving thousands missing or injured, and displacing 2 million. Meanwhile Oxfam International warns that natural disasters like Cyclone Sidr have quadrupled over the last two decades, from an average of 120 a year in the early 1980s to as many as 500 a year today. In a new report entitled, “Climate Alarm: Disasters increase as climate change bites,” Oxfam warned this week that the at the same time as climate hazards are growing in number, more people are being affected by them because of poverty, powerlessness, population growth, and the movement and displacement of people to marginal areas.

Download the entire report here: http://www.oxfam.org/en/files/bp108_
climate_change_alarm_0711.pdf/download

Black Agenda Report on Somalia

GUEST: Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report

This week’s commentary is on Somalia. Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Journalists Decry Racism in Media Coverage of Mumia

GUEST: Hans Bennett, Journalists for Mumia

On December 6th, NBC’s Today Show will feature a new book coinciding with its release date about death-row journalist Mumia Abu Jamal. The book’s title, “Murdered by Mumia,” reveals its intent. It is co-written by the widow of the Philadelphia Police Officer that Abu Jamal was convicted of killing, Maureen Faulkner, and conservative radio talk show host Michael Smerconish. The book, say Faulkner and Smerconish is “the first … to carefully and definitively lay out the case against Abu-Jamal, and those who’ve elevated him to the status of political prisoner.” Fearing a program rife with bias, the group “Journalists for Mumia” are calling on NBC to ensure that all sides are fairly represented on next week’s Today Show. They contend that there has been a history of media bias with respect to covering the case of Mumia Abu Jamal.

For more information, visit www.abu-jamal-news.com and freemumia.com.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“If Mumia Abu-Jamal has nothing important to say, why are so many powerful people trying to shut him up?” — John Edgar Wideman