THE NATION– Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport. The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.

As part of its expanding counterterrorism program in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu. While the underground prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners. The existence of both facilities and the CIA role was uncovered by The Nation during an extensive on-the-ground investigation in Mogadishu. Among the sources who provided information for this story are senior Somali intelligence officials; senior members of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG); former prisoners held at the underground prison; and several well-connected Somali analysts and militia leaders, some of whom have worked with US agents, including those from the CIA. A US official, who confirmed the existence of both sites, told The Nation, “It makes complete sense to have a strong counterterrorism partnership” with the Somali government.

In the battle against the Shabab, the United States does not, in fact, appear to have cast its lot with the Somali government. The emerging US strategy on Somalia—borne out in stated policy, expanded covert presence and funding plans—is two-pronged: On the one hand, the CIA is training, paying and at times directing Somali intelligence agents who are not firmly under the control of the Somali government, while JSOC conducts unilateral strikes without the prior knowledge of the government; on the other, the Pentagon is increasing its support for and arming of the counterterrorism operations of non-Somali African military forces.

Read more about The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia.

Written by Jeremy Scahill

© 2011 The Nation

Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now discussing Somalia’s secret CIA sites (part 1/2).

Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now discussing Somalia’s secret CIA sites (part 2/2).

Photo by Flickr user Micael Carlsson

NEW JERSERY– Mary Vazquez was teaching a lesson about communities at Millburn Middle School nearly 10 years ago when another teacher rushed into her classroom with a message to give if students asked: “Two planes went into the World Trade Center. You are safe.”

When the 9/11 terror attacks occurred, schools struggled with how to handle the unthinkable news. Some locked down their buildings, others made terse announcements, and still others said nothing to students that day.

“School systems were very uncomfortable talking about it,” recalled Vazquez, now a retired teacher of Holocaust studies. “We didn’t know how many families this would affect. We didn’t know much ourselves.” 

A decade later, a detailed set of K-12 curriculum is being launched to give New Jersey educators tools for teaching about 9/11. Developed over three years and completed in time for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, the curriculum is called “Learning from the Challenges of Our Times: Global Security, Terrorism and 9/11 in the Classroom.”

The material includes lesson plans on teaching the events of that day itself, but also delves into topics ranging from the “Impact of Hateful Words,” for elementary students to “What is Terrorism?” in middle school and “Reaction to and from the Muslim and Arab Communities” for high school students.

 Also included are lessons on “acts of kindness” that occurred on 9/11, and ideas for students to help their town, community and the world.

 Created by a volunteer group called the 4 Action Initiative, made up of Families of September 11, the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education and Liberty Science Center, the effort also included former Gov. Thomas Kean and dozens of New Jersey teachers who wrote and piloted lesson plans. The curriculum is to be introduced by representatives of the group and acting State Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf at Liberty Science Center Thursday.

“This, after all, was the traumatic event of our age. It’s important children understand it, and understand it in all of its ramifications,” said Kean, who was president of Drew University when the attacks occurred. He said he was home recovering from a dental procedure that morning but after learning the news, jumped in his car and drove to campus, where he invited the entire student body to gather and talk about it.

Dr. Paul Winkler, executive director of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, said two key themes are that all people should not be condemned because of the acts of a few, and that individuals can make a difference. The guidelines are not mandated, Winkler said, but those involved say they hope educators will want to use them to teach about the attacks and the aftermath.

Read more about N.J. To Release 9/11 Curriculum to Help Teachers Educate About Terror

© 2011 New Jersey Online

Photo by Flickr user EmilyNorton

SALON– I’ve written numerous times over the last year about rapidly worsening perceptions of the U.S. in the Muslim world, including a Pew poll from April finding that Egyptians view the U.S. more unfavorably now than they did during the Bush presidency.  A new poll released today of six Arab nations — Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco — contains even worse news on this front:

Two and a half years after Obama came to office, raising expectations for change among many in the Arab world, favorable ratings of the United States have plummeted in the Middle East, according to a new poll conducted by Zogby International for the Arab American Institute Foundation.

In most countries surveyed, favorable attitudes toward the United States dropped to levels lower than they were during the last year of the Bush administration . . . Pollsters began their work shortly after a major speech Obama gave on the Middle East . . . Fewer than 10 percent of respondents described themselves as having a favorable view of Obama.

What’s striking is that none of these is among the growing list of countries we’re occupying and bombing.  Indeed, several are considered among the more moderate and U.S.-friendly nations in that region, at least relatively speaking.  Yet even in this group of nations, anti-U.S. sentiment is at dangerously (even unprecedentedly) high levels.

In one sense, this is hardly surprising, given the escalating violence and bombing the U.S. is bringing to that region, its ongoing fealty to Israel, and the dead-ender support the American government gave to that region’s besieged dictators.  Though unsurprising, it’s still remarkable.  After all, one of the central promises of an Obama presidency was a re-making of America in the eyes of that part of the world, but the opposite is taking place.  

More significantly, as democracy slowly but inexorably takes hold, consider the type of leaders that will be elected in light of this pervasive anti-American hostility.  When the U.S. propped up dictators to suppress those populations, public opinion was irrelevant; now that that scheme is collapsing, public opinion will become far more consequential, and it does not bode well either for U.S. interests (as defined by the American government) or the U.S.’s ability to extract itself from its posture of Endless War in that region.  Given that it is anti-American sentiment that, more than anything else, fuels Terrorism (as the Pentagon itself has long acknowledged), we yet again find the obvious truth: the very policies justified in the name of combating Terrorism are the same ones that do the most to sustain and perpetuate it.

Read more about US More Unpopular in the Arab World Than Under Bush

Written by Glenn Greenwald

© 2011 Salon

Photo by Flickr user

DAILY MAIL– Factories making sought-after Apple iPads and iPhones in China are forcing staff to sign pledges not to commit suicide, an investigation has revealed.

At least 14 workers at Foxconn factories in China have killed themselves in the last 16 months as a result of horrendous working conditions.

Many more are believed to have either survived attempts or been stopped before trying at the Apple supplier’s plants in Chengdu or Shenzen.

After a spate of suicides last year, managers at the factories ordered new staff to sign pledges that they would not attempt to kill themselves, according to researchers.

And they were made to promise that if they did, their families would only seek the legal minimum in damages.

An investigation of the 500,000 workers by the Centre for Research on Multinational Companies and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom) found appalling conditions in the factories.

They claimed that:

• *Excessive overtime was rife, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip showed a worker did 98 hours  of overtime in one month, the Observer reported.

• *During peak periods of demand for the iPad, workers were made to take only one day off in 13.

• *Badly performing workers were humiliated in front of colleagues.

• *Workers are banned from talking and are made to stand up for their 12-hour shifts.

• The ‘anti-suicide pledge’ was brought in after sociologists wrote an open letter to the media calling for an end to restrictive working practices. But the investigation revealed many of the workers still lived in dismal conditions, with some only going home to see family once a year.

One worker told the newspaper: ‘Sometimes my roommates cry when they arrive in the dormitory after a long day.’

She said they were made to work illegally long hours for a basic daily wage, as little as £5.20, and that workers were housed in dormitories of up to 24 people a room. In Chengdu, working between 60 and 80 hours overtime a month was normal, with many breaching Apple’s own code of conduct with the length of their shifts.

And the investigation found that employees claimed they were not allowed to speak to each other. Foxconn admits that it breaks overtime laws, but claims all the overtime is voluntary.

Some officials within the company even accused workers of committing suicide to secure large compensation payments for their families. Anti-suicide nets were put up around the dormitory buildings on the advice of psychologists.

Read more about You Are NOT Allowed to Commit Suicide: Workers in Chinese IPad Factories Forced to Sign Pledges

© 2011 Daily Mail

Photo by Flickr user fialan

GUARDIAN– Worried about the influence of money in American politics, the huge cash payouts that the US supreme court waved through by its Citizens United decision – the decision that lifted most limits on election campaign spending? Corporations are having their way with American elections just as they’ve already had their way with our media.

But at least we have the courts, right?

Wrong. The third branch of government’s in trouble, too. In fact, access to justice – like access to elected office, let alone a pundit’s perch – is becoming a perk just for the rich and powerful.

Take the young woman now testifying in court in Texas. Jamie Leigh Jones claims she was drugged and gang-raped while working for military contractor KBR in Iraq (at the time, a division of Halliburton). Jones, now 26, was on her fourth day in post in Baghdad in 2005 when she says she was assaulted by seven contractors and held captive, under armed guard by two KBR police, in a shipping container.

When the criminal courts failed to act, her lawyers filed a civil suit, only to be met with Halliburton’s response that all her claims were to be decided in arbitration – because she’d signed away her rights to bring the company to court when she signed her employment contract. As Leigh testified before Congress, in October 2009, “I had signed away my right to a jury trial at the age of 20 and without the advice of counsel.” It was a matter of sign or resign. “I had no idea that the clause was part of the contract, what the clause actually meant,” testified Jones.

You’ve probably done the very same thing without even knowing it. When it comes to consumer claims, mandatory arbitration is the new normal. According to research by Public Citizen and others, corporations are inserting “forced arbitration” clauses into the fine print of contracts for work, for cell phone service, for credit cards, even nursing home contracts, requiring clients to give up their right to sue if they are harmed. Arbitration is a no-judge, no-jury, no-appeal world, where arbitrators are (often by contract) selected by the company and all decisions are private – and final. 

They don’t pay fair wages; they don’t pay their fare share of taxes. They evade liability. What gives? Says Saladoff: “When corporations harm, there should be some way to hold them accountable.”

Read more about How Corporations Award Themselves Legal Immunity

Written by Laura Flanders

© 2011 Guardian

Photo by Flickr user tommyajohansson