ANDRES CONTERIS Conteris is in the Brazilian embassy in Honduras, where Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has taken refuge. Conteris is the director of the Program on the Americas for Nonviolence International. He worked as a human rights advocate in Honduras from 1994 to 1999 and is a co-producer of “Hidden in Plain Sight,” a documentary…

As the United Nations meets this week, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed in June, has reportedly returned to Honduras where he took refuge in the Brazilian embassy from the coup government. MARK WEISBROT, via Dan Beeton Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot said today: “This could be the moment…

Climate change is expected to play a central role in meetings of the United Nations and G-20 this week. ANASTASIA PINTO, ORIN LANGELLE HALLIE BOAS In Pittsburgh until Wednesday, Pinto is executive director of the Center for Organizing, Research and Education in India. She said today: “We’re already seeing climate devastation in India. Scientists are…

CHARLES McCOLLESTER McCollester, author of The Point of Pittsburgh: Production and Struggle at the Forks of the Ohio, just wrote the piece “There are plenty of reasons to protest the G-20: The global economic system has deindustrialized America, despoiled the Earth and marginalized working people everywhere” for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. McCollester writes: “When the announcement…

The Independent in Britain reports that “Israel targeted ‘the people of Gaza as a whole’ in the three-week military operation which is estimated to have killed more than 1,300 Palestinians at the beginning of this year, according to a UN-commissioned report published yesterday. “A UN fact-finding mission led by the Jewish South African former Supreme…

NOMI PRINS, via Celeste Balducci Prins, a former investment banker turned journalist, is author of the just-released It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street. Her latest article is titled “Obama Banking Too Much on Banks,” which states: “Under both the Bush and Obama administrations, the government,…

New census numbers show “the share of people living in poverty rose to 13.2 percent in 2008 from 12.5 percent in 2007. That’s the highest poverty rate since 1997,” reports USA Today in an article headlined “Census: Income fell sharply last year.” ALICE O’CONNOR Author of Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy and the Poor…

NORMAN SOLOMON Executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Norman Solomon — recently back from Kabul — appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” on Sunday. Video is posted here. Questioned about administration policy in Afghanistan, Solomon stated: “We have to compare the rhetoric, where [President Obama] spoke a few weeks ago about development, about governance,…

Official estimates released Thursday by the Census Bureau showing a marginal increase in the number of Americans without health insurance in 2008 — now estimated at 46.3 million, up from 45.7 million in 2007 — mask the true dimensions of the problem, a national doctors’ group said. Physicians for a National Health Program, a membership…

ROBERT WEISSMAN, CRAIG HOLMAN, via Angela Bradbery President of Public Citizen, Weissman wrote the piece “Tightening the Corporate Grip: The Stakes at the Supreme Court” about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a case the Supreme Court heard Wednesday that could have far-reaching effects on corporate power. Holman is government ethics lobbyist for Public Citizen.…