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

* Iraq Occupation Could be Extended for Three More Years
* Black Agenda Report: Lawless Capital, Rushing to Armageddon
* Waxman Appointed to Influential Post Signaling Green Future Under Obama
* Empire Notes on the Nader Campaign
* “Separate is Never Equal”: Stories of Apartheid from South Africa and Palestine

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

Iraq Occupation Could be Extended for Three More Years

Last week the Iraqi cabinet finally approved the so-called Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the United States. The security pact, which sets a timetable for the removal of U.S. forces from Iraq by December 31st, 2011, is currently being debated before the 275 seat Iraqi parliament. Expected to come to a vote before November 25th, the SOFA agreement signed in Baghdad by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, first went through revisions during a negotiating period between the two countries. Though Iraqi negotiators were able to acquire an actual troop withdrawal date, they made concessions on a number of their desired amendments. For example, Iraqi authorities will not be able to try U.S. soldiers for any crimes committed off-base. Instead such legal matters will be subject to a joint U.S. – Iraq committee that will make decisions accordingly. Whether or not the Iraqi parliament decides to pass the SOFA agreement next week, there will be opposition. Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is solidly opposed to the SOFA agreement and the Sunni Arab parliamentary bloc, The Accordance Front, says that it should be put to the public through a national referendum.

GUEST: Phyllis Bennis, fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Her newest books include Ending the Iraq War: A Primer and Understanding the US-Iran Crisis: A Primer

Black Agenda Report: Lawless Capital, Rushing to Armageddon

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is called “Lawless Capital, Rushing to Armageddon.”

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Waxman Appointed to Influential Post Signalling Green Future Under Obama

Earlier in the week, California Democrat Henry Waxman ousted his fellow Democrat John Dingell from the influential post of House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair. Dingell, who represents Michigan and is a staunch supporter of the auto industry played a leading role for two decades as chairman in staving off environmental adaptations for American vehicles such as fuel efficiency and lower green-house gas emissions. In appointing Waxman to the post by a 137-122 vote, Democrats are empowering a Congressman with hefty green-friendly credentials. While environmental groups are celebrating the change, stock prices of the big-three automakers, GM, Ford, and Chrysler, fell in response to the news.

Steven Biel, Global Warming Campaign Director with Greenpeace. For more information, visit www.greenpeace.org.

Empire Notes on the Nader Campaign

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is about the Nader Campaign.

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

Visit www.empirenotes.org for more information.

“Separate is Never Equal”: Stories of Apartheid from South Africa and Palestine

The siege of Gaza in the Palestinian territories continues with Israeli tanks moving into the area and further threatening to break a cease-fire with Hamas earlier this summer. The tanks “leveled lands” in Gaza according to one news report. Further, the Israeli military has announced it will continue to keep Gaza borders closed because of rocket fire coming from the area toward Israel. Strong international reaction to the isolation of Gazans has not fazed the Israeli government or caused any visible change in policy. This has served to give more impetus to a growing international effort to brand the state of Israel as an apartheid state, similar to the system of systemic oppression of white South Africans against Blacks.

Palestinian rights activist Diana Buttu, and General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, Rev. Eddie Makue are currently on a national tour in the US to draw this comparison and call for an organized effort to boycott, divest, and sanction the Israeli state.

Diana Buttu was born to Palestinian citizens of Israel who moved to Canada to protect their family from the discrimination they faced in their homeland. She has lived in Palestine since 2000 where she worked with the Negotiations Support Unit of the PLO. Rev. Eddie Makue helped to found the Independent Forum on Electoral Education in 1992, the Democracy Education and Lobbying Forum in 1994, and the South African Civil Society Election Observation Coalition in 1998. In 2005, he was a member of an election monitoring delegation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

For more information, visit www.endtheoccupation.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” — Edward Abbey