GARETH PORTER Porter recently wrote the piece “U.S. Story on Iran Nuke Facility Doesn’t Add Up,” which states: “The story line that dominated media coverage of the second Iranian uranium enrichment facility last week was the official assertion that U.S. intelligence had caught Iran trying to conceal a ‘secret’ nuclear facility. “But an analysis of…

DAVE ZIRIN Sportswriter Zirin just wrote the piece “Obama’s Olympic Error,” which states: “To greater or lesser degrees, the Olympics bring gentrification, graft and police violence wherever they nest. … It’s also difficult for Chicago residents to see how this will help their pocketbooks, given that [Chicago Mayor Richard] Daley pledged to the International Olympic…

ADRIENNE PINE Pine is assistant professor of anthropology at American University, has done extensive research on Honduras and has been blogging about recent events. She said today: “The coup regime is imposing a horrific crackdown on democracy and the Honduran people — on freedom of assembly, on freedom of speech, on the few remaining independent…

Dr. BARBARA BLAYLOCK, Dr. MICHAEL HUNTINGTON, via Fiori Cippoletti Blaylock and Huntington are part of the “Mad as Hell Doctors” who left Oregon in early September in a “Care-A-Van” traveling across the U.S. They will be holding a rally in Washington’s Lafayette Park from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, September 30. A retired…

For updates and links to the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, see here. PAIGE CRAM Cram is communications coordinator for the National Lawyers Guild, which just put out the statement “NLG Observes Improper Use of Force by Law Enforcement at the G-20.” SOREN AMBROSE Ambrose is development finance coordinator of ActionAid International (based in Nairobi, Kenya).…

On Thursday, President Obama is chairing the United Nations Security Council meeting on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. ALICE SLATER New York director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Slater said: “On nuclear proliferation, Obama singles out North Korea and Iran, but he doesn’t acknowledge that under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the U.S. is not just…

ANN WRIGHT Wright, a former State Department diplomat and retired Army colonel, is going to Afghanistan with a delegation on Friday. Among her numerous assignments, Wright helped re-open the U.S. embassy in Kabul in 2001. She resigned from the State Department in protest of the Iraq invasion in March of 2003. GARETH PORTER Porter recently…

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…