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Four months after Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. raid in Pakistan, one of the al-Qaida leader's sons requested a death certificate for his father in a letter to the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia, according to documents released by Wikileaks.

The reply, dated Sept. 9, 2011, comes from the consul general at the U.S. embassy in Riyadh and says that no certificate of death was issued. "This is consistent with regular practice for individuals killed in the course of military operations," the letter, from embassy Consul General Glen Keiser, reads.

According to Wikileaks release, Keiser wrote that instead Abdullah bin Laden could rely on a document requesting the dismissal of a criminal indictment against his father in U.S. federal court "in light of his death."

"I am providing a copy of the original English-language request to the court," the letter reads, ending: "I hope that these U.S. Government documents are of assistance to you and your family."

The letter is part of a release of 500,000 documents related to Saudi Arabia that Wikileaks is in the process of publishing. Some 60,000 – most in Arabic — have already been published, according to a statement by the website.

Pakistan

Saudi Arabia

Al-Qaida

Osama bin Laden

HBO's new comedy The Brink refers to a world on the brink of nuclear warfare — possibly one of the least-funny premises imaginable. But the two brothers who created the show cut their teeth on a particular kind of political scripted satire that had its heyday in the 1960s and '70s. Think Dr. Strangelove, M*A*S*H and Network and other films by Paddy Chayefsky.

"All movies that had a lot on their mind," says Roberto Benabib. He's the older brother, best-known for writing and producing the TV show Weeds. His younger brother, Kim Benabib, is also a writer. Their show is something of a response to the workplace and family-based sitcoms that seem so prevalent now and to the notion that sitcoms have generally ceded political satire to fake news programs, like The Daily Show, and sketch comedy. They wanted to put the situation room back in situation comedy.

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"The show is about geopolitics," Roberto explains, "but it's also about nuclear proliferation."

The Brink tackles three main threads: the goings-on in a U.S. government filled with clueless ideologues, the struggles of fighter pilots living on a military carrier in the middle of the Red Sea, and the life of a Pakistani family coping with ongoing political turmoil.

Kim says, "I think that was very important to us — just knowing that there's this vast middle class that's educated and professional and moderate. That's not something you see on American television."

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Aasif Mandvi plays a Pakistani driver and son of an educated, middle-class family in HBO's The Brink. Merie W. Wallace/HBO hide caption

itoggle caption Merie W. Wallace/HBO

Aasif Mandvi plays a Pakistani driver and son of an educated, middle-class family in HBO's The Brink.

Merie W. Wallace/HBO

The Brink relied on numerous consultants — including uncredited ones — who, the Benabibs say, delivered off-the-record details like what really happens in the situation room when everyone gets hangry.

"We did an enormous amount of research," Roberto says. "We knew that this show wouldn't play unless the backdrop of it was accurate."

NPR turned to another expert to see just how accurately The Brink captured Washington, the military and Pakistani people and politics: Moeed Yusuf, the director of South Asia programs at the United States Institute of Peace. While he found the show "hilarious," he believes the fundamental premise is fanciful, especially the idea that a nuclear weapon could fall into the wrong hands.

"I mean, at least the way they present it, it's almost like, you know, it's a cupcake that somebody's going to run away with," he says. Still, much of the show rang true for Yusuf — from family conversations to the political sausage-making. "A lot of this, quite honestly, probably happens in the real world."

A real world overripe for old-school scripted satire.

Locally Sourced Vegetarian Citrus Fizz? $5.99. Grass Fed Himalayan Tuna Salad? That'll be $9.99. Taking gentrification and a rent hike into your own hands? Priceless.

That's how the neighbors at Jesse's Deli in Brooklyn's Boerum Hill neighborhood are trying to save their local convenience store.

Owner Jesse Itayim opened his doors in 1984 at the corner of Bergen and Bonds Avenue, spending time in that location and another before moving to his current location, 402 Atlantic Ave., in 1989.

The fate of the family business was threatened recently by a hike in the monthly rent — from $4,000 to $10,000. Itayim could not afford it, and he prepared to close after more than 25 years in business.

When customers and neighbors asked about the bare shelves at Jesse's Deli, they found out it was closing by July 31.

A neighbor started a petition and sent 1,200 signatures in support of Itayim to the landlord, Karina Bilger. Bilger returned it unopened, with a note saying there would be no renewal on the lease, and declaring all past offers rescinded.

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Jesse's Deli in Brooklyn, NY, where neighborhood supporters are looking for a way to keep the corner store in business after a rent increase. Jesse Itayim hide caption

itoggle caption Jesse Itayim

Jesse's Deli in Brooklyn, NY, where neighborhood supporters are looking for a way to keep the corner store in business after a rent increase.

Jesse Itayim

Bilger has not responded to NPR requests for comment, but she told dnainfo.com that she tried to come to an agreement with the owner two years ago.

The community showed support for Jesse's by making mock posters that advertise prices increased two and a half times and "gentrified" products. They called the campaign an "Artisanal Rent Price Hike Sale," and displayed the bright posters inside the store and in the front window. A social media campaign used the hashtag #jessespricedout on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Organizers also appealed to Mayor Bill de Blasio and local Councilman Stephen Levin to support Jesse's and other small businesses by getting behind the Small Business Jobs Survival Act. The measure would require, among other things, a minimum 10 year lease.

The bill and the protest campaign for Jesse's Deli, a neighborhood staple for the working class, middle class, and creative class in the area, may be too late. The family is looking for a new location, preferably in the same area.

Mohenad Itayim, Jesse Itayim's son, is still confident in the business his father started over 30 years ago. "We are fighting to the end," he said.

"We do not know where we'll end up."

Jesse's Deli

jesse itayim

gentrification

Brooklyn

In a decision that could have major implications for the entire sharing economy, the California Labor Commission has ruled that a San Francisco Uber driver is a company employee, not a contractor. In that decision, the commission awarded Uber driver Barbara Ann Berwick $4,152.20 in employee expenses, including mileage reimbursements, toll charges and interest.

The ruling was made public when Uber filed an appeal Tuesday in a state court in San Francisco.

The Associated Press says Uber claims the ruling is nonbinding, and only applies to one driver. And in a statement sent to NPR, Uber claimed the ruling in favor of Berwick actually contradicts a previous ruling from the same commission.

Uber says that classifying drivers as contractors is part of giving them the freedom they want. "It's important to remember that the No. 1 reason drivers choose to use Uber is because they have complete flexibility and control," spokeswoman Jessica Santillo said. "The majority of them can and do choose to earn their living from multiple sources, including other ride-sharing companies."

But Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer working on a class-action suit of drivers against Uber, told NPR that the company owes its drivers more than it's currently giving them. "Uber's obviously been wildly successful because it developed a concept that caught on," Liss-Riordan said. "But that gives it no excuse to ignore labor laws that have been put into place over decades that protect workers' rights. Uber is a $50 billion company, it says. And the idea that it somehow can't afford to pay for what employers are required to pay for is just a little bit beyond belief."

In Berwick's case, Uber argued that it is just a "technological platform" for private vehicle drivers to facilitate private transactions, that drivers are independent contractors, that Uber has no control over the hours drivers work, and that the company does not have to reimburse drivers for any "expenses related to operating their personal vehicles."

But the labor commission disagreed and found that Berwick is in fact an employee of Uber, saying, "Without passengers such as Plaintiff [Berwick], Defendant's [Uber's] business would not exist." Relying on precedent that applied to cabdrivers and pizza delivery employees, the commission ordered Uber to reimburse Berwick for 6,468 miles she drove while working as an Uber driver, at a rate of $0.56 per mile. Berwick was also awarded toll charges of $256.00, and $274.12 in interest.

Berwick also asked for wages for 470.7 hours she worked as an Uber driver, but she was not awarded that payment, in part because she failed to provide some payment documentation the court asked for.

Jonathan Handel, a law professor at the University of Southern California who has been following the sharing economy, said of the ruling, "Uber should be worried about this." He says it has the potential not just to increase the company's expenses, but also increase its liability. "It really could represent a major roadblock for the sharing economy model that Uber and other companies like Lyft and Airbnb, even, are dependent on."

"If not a surprise. It certainly illustrates the tension between a new economy model," Handel told NPR, "where Uber and others say, 'look, we're just information providers; we hook people up,' and an older model."

Handel says rulings like that of the commission could mean higher prices for Uber rides down the road. It sets up companies like Uber to be responsible for things like Social Security, health care and other benefits. The Los Angeles Times reports that just in California, if Uber drivers were classified as employees, they'd have to be reimbursed for gas, tolls, insurance, unemployment benefits, workers' compensation and Social Security.

Whatever happens with Uber's appeal of the commission's ruling, more challenges are on the way. A site for drivers involved in legal challenges against the company says a hearing for a class certification of one lawsuit will come in August.

Uber

sharing economy

Noisy trolleys roll bales of tobacco on and off the auction floors in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. Here they call it "green gold." Some of the country's estimated 100,000 small-scale tobacco farmers look on, hoping for profitable sales.

Auctioneers, quoting prices at high speed, pace up and down rows of extra-large jute-covered bundles, with yellow tobacco leaves spilling out.

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Closely behind the auctioneers follow the tobacco buyers. They indicate interest with a wink, a nod, two fingers up, eyes closed and all manner of gestures.
Celani Sithole is an auctioneer and floor manager at TSF — Tobacco Sales Floor — in Harare.

"Our standard sale speed is supposed to be five seconds per bale," she says.

Sithole says they're pushing through 7,000 to 8,000 bales a day. Farmers get their money the day their tobacco is sold.

"As soon as the bales are sold, before arbitration, the farmer has the right to cancel the bale or accept the price," says Sithole.

What we're witnessing on the auction floor is a far cry from just a few years ago. Output of most crops, including tobacco, dropped dramatically when President Robert Mugabe's followers violently drove white farmers, the backbone of the economy, from their industrial-sized farms, starting in 2000.

The government handed the annexed land to black farmers, many of whom had little or no experience. The result was disastrous and the economy collapsed in a spiral of hyperinflation.

Once the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe began importing food.

Tobacco production also suffered. Export earnings fell from $600 million in 2000 to $175 million in 2009.

But tobacco output jumped 235 percent last year, compared with 2009.

The CEO of the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board, Andrew Matibiri, says production has rebounded.

"It's back to normal almost," he says. "In terms of world production, we're nowhere near the top — but we're probably at number two or number three, after Brazil and the United States."

Matibiri says farming was especially hard-hit, in part because unlike the industrial white farmers who were landowners, Zimbabwe's new black farmers are leaseholders and couldn't get credit or bank loans without title deeds. So the tobacco sector and private companies stepped in with a new scheme. They contract with tobacco growers to produce the crop, providing fertilizers and chemicals.

Taizivei Chitaunhike is one of those farmers. The mother of four received her five-hectare farm from the government in 2003. She smiles shyly as she describes how her fortunes changed when she became a contract farmer two years ago.

"If you grow with contractors, you will manage to do all the things that you like on your farm," she says. "The amount of capital that they give me helps me. For sure, I'm now much better for farming production. Tobacco is much better, because I manage to do all my budgets on my farm, we manage to pay school fees, labor, get food and other things."

Chitaunhike says she has been up to the auction floors three times this selling season, with almost 25 bales of tobacco, and is getting good prices.

Sitting close by, under a young jacaranda tree, and listening attentively to Chitaunhike, is another tobacco farmer, Milca Matimbe. She's 53 and got her 27-hectare farm ten years ago. Matimbe has been growing tobacco for five years but does not have a contract with a company. She sells independently and is disappointed with sales this season.

"The prices are not so good for us," she says. "Last year it was better than this year, because the prices are not going up, they're going down. Ah but we have got good tobacco. We don't know if we can go back to the fields this coming season, because we've got no money."

Zimbabwe consumes only a fraction of its tobacco output. Tobacco marketing board CEO Matibiri says the flue-cured tobacco is top quality, much prized and expensive. Forty percent of exports go to China, followed by the European Union and South Africa.

"We produce a premium product, which is in demand the world over," he says. "It is said to have very good blending properties. In other words, it mixes very well with lower quality tobaccos produced in other parts of the world, producing nice, very pleasant cigarettes to smoke, if you're a smoker – yeah."

Back on the auction floor, brisk tobacco selling continues. It appears the banks are listening. The Bankers Association of Zimbabwe looks set to lend a billion dollars to agriculture this year — the lion's share going to tobacco farming.

tobacco

Zimbabwe