NASEER ARURI Aruri is chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and author of the book Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine. He said today: “Virtually every one of the nearly 100 Hamas officials and lawmakers that Israel has taken prisoner has called for the release…

JAMES ABOUREZK A former U.S. Senator from South Dakota, Abourezk said today: “Bush clearly wants to have images of U.S. troops coming home before the election. During the Vietnam War, when Nixon felt the pressure to pull troops out, he resorted to increased bombing, putting civilian lives at high risk. Nixon wanted to ‘turn things…

MARC GARLASCO Garlasco is senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch and has recently returned from Gaza, where he investigated the June 9 shelling deaths of a Palestinian family on a beach there. The Israeli military inquiry disavowed responsibility for the bombing. Garlasco said: “An investigation that refuses to look at contradictory evidence can hardly…

The Senate is considering telecommunications legislation which would end “network neutrality” and give the telecom industry additional powers. The New York Times reports today that AT&T “has revised its privacy policy for its television and Internet customers, asserting that the personal information it collects is owned by the company.” Full article The following analysts are…

WILLIAM D. HARTUNG In the June 20 article “Tanker Inquiry Finds Rumsfeld’s Attention Was Elsewhere,” the Washington Post reported: “A series of reports … indicate that five years into the Bush administration, the department’s system of buying new weapons is broken and dysfunctional… ‘DOD is simply not positioned to deliver high-quality products in a timely…

Congress is deliberating on the minimum wage. The following analysts are available for interviews: HOLLY SKLAR Co-author of the report “A Just Minimum Wage: Good For Workers, Business and Our Future” and the book Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work For All Of Us, Sklar said today: “Childcare workers and security guards struggle…

Reuters is reporting: “Helicopters flew over the Iraqi town of Ramadi and warplanes could be heard screaming overhead as U.S. troops hunted down insurgents in the rebel stronghold on Monday, a Reuters witness said.” The following specialists are available for interviews: DAHR JAMAIL Jamail, who was in Fallujah while it was under siege in 2004,…

Sunday’s Financial Times story “Iran ‘Ready To Limit Nuclear Programme’” reports that “Iran’s leadership is ready to limit its nuclear programme but will not suspend uranium enrichment as a precondition for talks, two regime insiders have told the Financial Times.” Full article Also on Sunday, the Washington Post reported — under the headline “In 2003,…

EHREN WATADA Available for a limited number of interviews, First Lt. Watada is the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to the war in Iraq. He said today: “I am wholeheartedly opposed to the continued war in Iraq, the deception used to wage this war, and the lawlessness that has pervaded every aspect…

The Senate has been hearing testimony about Network neutrality on the Internet and is expected to take up the subject in telecommunications legislation next week. MARK COOPER Director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, Cooper said today: “Network neutrality has existed throughout the history of the Internet and created the most dynamic environment…