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9-11: · Loved Ones · WTC and Katrina — Environmental Impacts · Dialogue with Syria and Iran

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DAVID POTORTI
COLLEEN KELLY
Potorti and Kelly are co-directors of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization founded by family members of those killed in the 9-11 attacks. Their membership numbers 4,000, with a core group of 185 family members who lost loved ones on 9-11. The group’s name is inspired by a quote from Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.” Members of the group are participating in many events the next several days including: an interfaith march in Washington, D.C.; the “Eyes Wide Open” traveling exhibit of military boots and shoes representing U.S. and Iraqi casualties, organized by the American Friends Service Committee, currently in Baltimore; and, in Italy, the People’s Assembly of the United Nations. The group is also releasing a DVD titled “Beyond Retribution.” Detailed information on various events is available at their web page.
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SUZANNE MATTEI
Mattei is head of the Sierra Club’s New York City office. Because of her extensive work in the wake of the 9-11 World Trade Center attacks, she serves as the Sierra Club’s expert on emergency preparedness. She is able to address the environmental impacts of the World Trade Center attacks and aftermath, the situation in New Orleans and environmental aspects of government emergency planning generally.
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JAMES JENNINGS
G. SIMON HARAK
President of Conscience International, Jennings is leading a delegation of the group U.S. Academics Against the War to Iran and Syria beginning Saturday. Human rights advocate Bianca Jagger will accompany the delegation. Harak is a spokesperson for the group and will be in New York City as the delegation of 14 U.S. academics from nine universities travels for the next two weeks. Jennings said today: “We will be in Tehran on Sept. 11 to hold a high-level dialogue conference on ‘Alternatives to the Clash of Civilizations.’ … The U.S. Academics Against the War organization held similar meetings in Baghdad in 2003 seeking an alternative to invasion six weeks prior to the ‘Shock and Awe’ attack on Iraq. … Time has proven that a peaceful dialogue approach, if it had been followed, would have saved $200 billion in just
two years and 2,000 U.S. soldiers’ lives, not to mention countless wounded GIs and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167