ANTONIA JUHASZ Juhasz wrote the recent article “Of Oil And Elections.” She said today: “The front-runner for the new Prime Minister of Iraq is Adel Abdul Mahdi, Iraq’s current Finance Minister who announced on Dec. 21 that his government was hoping to privatize its oil and that this would be ‘very promising to the American…

ANTONIA JUHASZ Juhasz wrote the recent article “Of Oil And Elections.” She is a scholar with Foreign Policy In Focus. More Information ABBAS KADHIM Kadhim has written several pieces on the elections, including “The Expatriate Vote,” “Hellish Elections” and “Wag the Vote.” He is originally from Najaf, where he has family. He joined in the…

Activists from Asia are addressing how to best recover from the tsunami that devastated parts of the region a month ago. Now at the World Social Forum, a global gathering of activists and non-governmental groups taking place in Porto Alegre, Brazil: LIEM SOEI LIONG Liem Soei Liong works with TAPOL, a London-based Indonesian human rights…

Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Tony Blair were among the speakers today at the World Economic Forum, a gathering of CEOs and government officials in Davos, a Swiss ski resort. They addressed issues of poverty in Africa. AP reports that the singer Bono praised Gates, saying: “He is a brainy man and he thinks extreme…

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) plans to introduce a congressional resolution today in the U.S. House of Representatives calling on President Bush to begin the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Woolsey, who is in her seventh term in the House, told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “Removing some 130,000 soldiers from Iraq immediately is…

The White House is on the defensive about global warming today in the wake of statements by Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the official U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who said he now believes the world has “already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” Pachauri’s statements — which…

REED BRODY Brody is special counsel with Human Rights Watch and author of the article “Prisoner Abuse: What About the Other Secret U.S. Prisons?” and the report “The Road to Abu Ghraib.” He said today: “It is one thing to say you are on the side of freedom, it’s quite another to be a leader…

The following will be available to comment on Bush’s speech today and underlying policies: STEPHEN ZUNES Zunes is a professor of politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, and Mideast editor of Foreign Policy in Focus. More Information SUSAN AKRAM Akram, associate professor at the Boston…

Sgt. KEVIN BENDERMAN, MONICA BENDERMAN At the Senate confirmation hearing for Condoleezza Rice today Sen. Barbara Boxer, apparently referring to members of the U.S. armed forces such as Sgt. Kevin Benderman, said: “You know, if you were rolling out a new product like a can opener, who would care about what we said? But this…

MARK ENGLER Mark Engler, a writer based in New York City, is a commentator for Foreign Policy in Focus. He said today: “Those of us in wealthy nations believe that our governments donate generously to help these people. Yet many poor countries pay out more in debt service than they receive in aid — the…