Listen to this week’s show:
Anti-American sentiment is widespread in Somalia, and the presence of US troops in the country is often reported to serve as a recruiting tool for the terrorist group Al Shabaab. Now it’s helping to inspire Somali unionists fighting Somaliland secessionists in the city of Las Anod and the surrounding regions of Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn, where people get news of the conflict on the Chinese cell phones that have saturated the region. Host Ann Garrison spoke to Jamal Abdulahi, a Somali American software engineer and writer who has family in the Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn region.
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On April 18 the US Department of Justice issued indictments of African People’s Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Solidarity Committee Chair Penny Hess and Uhuru Solidarity Movement Chair Jesse Nevel and three Russian nationals. The unsealed indictment states that a federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida, levied charges of “conspiring to covertly sow discord in U.S. society, spread Russian propaganda, and quote “illegally interfere” in U.S. elections.”
The Black Alliance for Peace has issued a statement in which they unequivocally condemn and oppose the indictment, saying “While no evidence of conspiracy, propagandizing, or interference has been presented, the African People’s Socialist Party and its members have the right, as all U.S. citizens do, to freely criticize U.S. domestic and foreign policy.”
We hear from Ajamu Baraka, founder of the Black Alliance for Peace, Margaret Flowers, editor of PopularResistance.org, and Garland Nixon, host of the Critical Hour on Radio Sputnik.
For more, visit handsoffuhuru.org.
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John Fisher, the billionaire owner of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, has been trying to grab the publicly owned Howard Terminal in the Port of Oakland for years. His plan was to build a new Athletics stadium and luxury condos with over $800 million dollars in public funding. Recently, it’s been announced that Fisher would seek to build a new stadium for the Athletics in Las Vegas instead. ILWU Local 10 past president Trent Willis talked about the fight against the land grab with Pacifica’s Steve Zeltzer.
The police department of Antioch, a small California town faces a scandal over racist text exchanged by its police officers. The several officers first implicated grew until eight officers were forced to take paid leave. Within days the number grew to 16, then 22. Soon, nearly half the Antioch Police Department’s officers were under investigation by the FBI. Sixteen of the officers involved were in leadership roles. The texts included those of a police officer openly encouraging someone to shoot the current Black mayor.
However, the scandal was a disaster in the making for many years. In 2009, Antioch Police arrested and brutally beat Frank Sterling, a producer and host for Pacifica’s KPFA Radio, for defending his constitutional rights. The police knew him to advocate for the homeless and investigate police brutality. In 2021, the police attacked and detained him again while he was reporting on a legal demonstration against racist police brutality in a public park.
Mehmet Bayram reports on the scandal and its precedents, which led to the current FBI investigation.
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The Japanese government plans to release 1.3 million tons of radioactive water into the Pacific from the Fukushima nuclear plant in coming months. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, of the Liberal Democratic Party, with support of the Biden administration, has told the people of Japan and the world that this is very safe.
Pacifica’s Steve Zeltzer interviewed Caitlin Stronell from the Citizen’s Nuclear Treatment Center in Tokyo and Tsukuru Fors, with the Pacific Asian Nuclear Free Peace Alliance, about the information blockade and the real dangers of this massive release of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.
Fukushima 12 Years After Meltdowns & Radioactive Water Releases With Caitlin Stronell & Tsukuru Fors
Music
Sounds of Somalia – Traditional Music from Somalia
