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This week on Uprising:

* US Soldier Hunts and Kills 16 Afghan Civilians, Among them 9 Children
* Santorum Wins in Southern States Throw A Wrench Into GOP Nomination Race
* Fukushima One Year Later

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US Soldier Hunts and Kills 16 Afghan Civilians, Among them 9 Children

The Taliban has called off negotiations with the US and Afghan government this week in the wake of the deadliest “intentional” attack on civilians by the US since the start of the ten year war. The fundamentalist militant group had planned on opening headquarters in the Gulf State of Qatar for the talks but have balked over what they say are unacceptable conditions from US negotiators.

It is not clear if it was in response to the attack by an unnamed US Army staff sergeant who about a week ago walked a mile in the middle of the night to two different villages near his base in southern Afghanistan and murdered 16 civilians, including 9 children and 3 women. While the US military maintains that the shooting rampage was done by a single rogue soldier, some Afghans are claiming there was more than one gunman involved. The villages near the soldier’s base in Panjwai were believed to be a Taliban stronghold and were often targeted by the US military for night raids with helicopters and dogs. Residents of Panjwai, are demanding a public trial rather than the military tribunal being set up by the US. The Taliban have vowed to avenge the killings, which come a month after Americans were videotaped burning Korans.

The accused soldier, an 11 year army veteran who had done two tours in Iraq, was part of a village stabilization project to help local police track down Taliban. This was the 38 year old father of two’s first posting in Afghanistan. The unnamed soldier hails from the controversial Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State which has become infamous for producing the so-called ‘kill team’ accused of murdering civilians in Afghanistan in 2010, and has seen 12 soldier suicides and hundreds of cases of PTSD.

The massacre and ensuing Taliban decision to break talks puts a severe damper on the Strategic Partnership Agreement which the US had been negotiating with President Hamid Karzai to extend the American presence in Afghanistan past the 2014 troop withdrawal date. Karzai has now demanded that US/NATO troops stop patrolling villages and remain in their bases by 2013.

GUESTS: Ahmed Rashid, journalist who has been covering Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia for more than twenty years. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review, Daily Telegraph, and more. He is the author of the 2001 New York Times No1. best selling book Taliban. His latest book is called Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan; Derrick Crowe, Political Director of Brave New Foundation, focusing on the War Costs and Rethink Afghanistan campaigns

Visit www.ahmedrashid.com, and www.warcosts.com for more information.

Santorum Wins in Southern States Throw A Wrench Into GOP Nomination Race

The results of several more primaries for the GOP nomination for President are in, with former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum winning races in Alabama and Mississippi this past Tuesday. The results showed a three-way split in the two Southern States, between Santorum and his rivals, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, who came in a close second and a close third respectively. Overall, the front runner still remains Romney who won Hawaii and American Samoa, and leads the delegate count with 485 delegates according to the Associated Press. Santorum, who has solidly taken his place as the ultra-conservative and evangelical representative of the GOP, has about half as many. One thousand, one hundred and forty four delegates are needed to win the Presidential nomination. A New York Times editorial opined this week that Romney’s path to the nomination “will in no small part depend on what Newt Gingrich does from here.” If Gingrich stays in the race, which he has vowed to do, he will continue to split the anti-Romney vote with Santorum, making it easier for Romney to blaze to victory.

Tuesday’s races follow from last weekend’s races – Santorum claimed a strong victory in the Kansas primary caucus on Saturday, walking away with the majority of the 40 delegates at stake, while Romney prevailed in Wyoming, capturing at least half of that state’s six delegates. The next primary race takes place in Missouri on March 17th.

GUEST: Adele Stan, is the Washington bureau chief for AlterNet and an Uprising Election 2012 analyst

Fukushima One Year Later

It has been just over one year since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster struck Japan. The accident began on March 11th 2011, with a massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan’s Northeastern coast, destroying the Fukushima power plant’s electrical system, causing coolants to stop functioning and resulting in a reactor meltdown. More than 300 workers received significant radiation doses while attempting to contain the meltdown, six of them with radiation levels exceeding lifetime legal limits. Future cancer deaths due to radiation accumulation in the area are estimated to range from 100 to 100,000. In response to the meltdown, the Japanese government ordered a 20 kilometer evacuation radius around the plant and a ban on consumption of food grown in the area. Decontamination efforts are expected to be long and laborious, with eight percent of Japan being affected from radiation released from the Fukushima Daiichi incident according to the government.

Events were held in various cities in the US as well as around the world on March 11th to mark the one year anniversary of the Fukushima incident. Many of the events were organized by anti-nuclear activists eager to remind the world of the dangers of nuclear power.

Today the Fukushima-Daiichi power plant remains in a state of “cold shutdown,” meaning that the plant operates in a stable manner and emits radioactive levels low enough to pose no public danger. But the most damaged sections of the plant are too polluted with radioactivity to allow any people inside them. The government has hired workers to continue the painstaking task of decontaminating the area so that the thousands of evacuated people may some day return.

GUEST: Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste watchdog at Beyond Nuclear

Visit www.greenaction-japan.org and www.beyondnunclear.org for more information.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking… the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.” — Albert Einstein