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News Items

  • Election Reforms: Falling short

    WASHINGTON — Proponents of progressive election reform gave cautious approval to the recent report issued by a commission assigned to investigate the improvement of federal elections. Many critics, however, point to several obstacles that remain in the way of free and fair elections throughout the United States. The report, issued by the National Commission on Federal Election Reform headed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, was presented to President Bush. Among its recommendations are provisions regarding increases in equipment standards and stepped-up federal funding for the administration of elections.

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  • Son of Star Wars: Another arms race?

    WASHINGTON — Reports emerging from the Pentagon about plans to test a “Space Bomber” are drawing accusations that the U.S. government is attempting to engage in another arms race. The bomber, a spacecraft reportedly capable of destroying targets on the other side of the globe within 30 minutes, is a key component of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s plan to modernize U.S. weaponry. The satellite is currently under production by NASA and Lockheed Martin, a leading military contractor. Pentagon claims that the bomber can cause greater and deeper ground damage from a virtually unassailable height have many critics questioning it as…

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  • ExxonMobil: Facing a boycott

    ExxonMobil, one of the biggest corporations on the planet, is now facing a boycott spearheaded by activist groups protesting the company’s policies at home and abroad. The boycott was launched by PressurePoint, a grassroots organization looking to “take real action on climate change and corporate influence,” according to Chris Doran, campaigns director for the group. “The U.S. government’s climate change policy is the ExxonMobil policy,” Doran says. “What sort of democracy do we have when one company can buy off our political process for its own gains?” ExxonMobil is a charter member of the Global Climate Coalition, an influential industry…

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  • Beyond the Ford-Firestone Uproar: Critics blast lack of regulation, accountability in SUV safety

    WASHINGTON – Recent congressional hearings probed the accountability of Ford and Firestone in many incidents where car or tire malfunctioned, causing injury or death. The hearings also questioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal government’s chief regulator of automobile safety, and its role in providing the public with adequate information. While the blame-placing among corporate executives and congressional subcommittees occurred on Capitol Hill, several analysts decried the lack of accountability being demanded of the corporations involved. Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, pointed to a lack of regulation of sport utility vehicles and rollover standards.

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  • NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM

    Questions from IPA appear below in bold HEADLINE: NEWS BRIEFING WITH LAWRENCE SUMMERS, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY RAYMOND OFFENHEISER, PRESIDENT, OXFAM DEBT RELIEF TO POOR COUNTRIES AND OXFAM EDUCATION NOW AWARD INTRODUCTION: MARTA ARIAS LOCATION: NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, WASHINGTON D.C. BODY:

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  • Ten Real Reasons To Impeach Clinton

    We all seem to have lost our sense of proportion. Why are the political leaders of the United States and the major media talking of impeaching Bill Clinton for lies about sex, surely not the most important sins of his administration? If Clinton is to be impeached, why do it for frivolous reasons? I can think of at least ten reasons to impeach him, for acts far more serious than his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky or his lies to Kenneth Starr. I am speaking of matters of life and death for large numbers of people. 1. Clinton approved, very early…

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  • Autopsy Of A Disaster: The U.S. Sanctions Policy On Iraq

    For a shorter version of this timeline, click here. Myth: The Sanctions Will be Lifted When Iraq Complies with the U.N. Inspections April 3, 1991: U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 687 which states that upon “the completion by Iraq of all actions contemplated in” specific paragraphs of the resolution, “the prohibitions against financial transactions … shall have no further force or effect.” The paragraphs cited have to do with weapons inspections. Other paragraphs in the resolution have to do with “return of all Kuwaiti property seized by Iraq” and Iraqi liability for losses and damage resulting from Iraq’s occupation of…

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  • Trump, Iran: New Path to War?

    “We have repeatedly warned that President Trump’s beating of the war drum with Iran, even if confined to rhetoric, in addition to new Congressional sanctions and zero diplomatic outreach, could only produce negative consequences. Iran’s parliament has now voted to increase spending on its ballistic missile program and the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] in…

  • NAFTA Renegotiation: Will Working People Continue to Get Shafted?

    “The corporate lobby and Republican congressional leaders oppose the changes to NAFTA necessary to stop job offshoring, create good jobs and raise wages. Instead, they seek to double down on the old trade model and revive the TPP by adding to NAFTA elements of the TPP deal that Trump opposed.”

  • Misconceptions about Charlottesville

    “The racists who have begun coming to Charlottesville to campaign for governor, garner attention, threaten violence, engage in violence, and commit murder are almost all from outside Charlottesville, and extremely unwelcome here. Charlottesville is a slightly left-of-center, Democratic Party area. Most people don’t rally for good causes or against bad ones. Most people don’t want…

  • Korea Crisis

    “Guam is called the ‘tip of the spear’ which says a lot about its purpose.”

  • Media Advisory: Could U.S. and Russia Clash Over Syria?

    News conference speakers will include: * CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou * Former State Department official Matthew Hoh * Christie Edwards, Chair of the ASIL Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict and an advisor to the Center for Civilians in Conflict on international humanitarian, human rights, and gender issues. * David Swanson, World Beyond…

  • Sessions “Wrongly Targets National Security Whistleblowers”

    “The Justice Department’s crackdown on leaks wrongly targets and punishes national security whistleblowers, who have no meaningful internal channels for dissent or meaningful protection from retaliation. The crackdown is a backdoor way of attacking journalists on whom the public relies to be informed about government misconduct.”

  • Russia Sanctions: A Dangerous Political Football

    “By voting in new sanctions against Russia, Congress torpedoed the White House’s dream of rapprochement with the Kremlin. Yet its real target was not a foreign foe but an unpopular Republican president threatened by impeachment over alleged electoral manipulation. With the commander in chief dogged by perceived softness on Moscow and crippled by plummeting approval…

  • Enough About Russia? U.S. Openly Interfering in Venezuela, Violating OAS Charter

    “Under U.S. law, the president’s executive order has to state an obvious falsehood, that there is ‘a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security’ of the United States caused by Venezuela.”

  • Venezuela: Demonization of Government, Glamorization of Opposition

    “The critical thing to understand is that Venezuela is a democracy — has as much right to be called that as any other country on earth, certainly as much as the U.S. and its allies in the region like Colombia and Mexico. Saying otherwise is part of a strategy deployed for the last 15 years…

  • Pakistan’s Sharif Out: A New Independence?

    “Geopolitically, the establishment in Pakistan has been distancing itself from Washington and moving toward China. Hence, this would seem to be a setback for the U.S.-India-Saudi block, which was increasingly seeing Nawaz Sharif as a pliant lackey with whom they could do business.”

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