News Releases

  • Pinochet’s Release

    JOYCE HORMAN Joyce Horman is the widow of Charles Horman. Along with another U.S. citizen, Frank Teruggi, he was detained and murdered in September 1973 in the days following Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s bloody military coup backed by the U.S. government. She has worked to uncover the facts about his murder for more than 26 years. Today she said: “With this decision to allow Pinochet to go to Chile rather than face justice in Spain, it becomes even more important to press the U.S. intelligence agencies to release the remaining documents they have on the cases of Charles Horman and Frank…


  • Religion and Politics

    REV. JIM WALLIS Editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, Rev. Wallis said: “Al Gore and George W. Bush have talked about how much Jesus influenced them. The question has been whether that’s an appropriate thing for a candidate to talk about. It is very appropriate for a candidate to speak of their personal faith — if they say what it means in relation to public policy issues. So what would Jesus say about poverty in the midst of prosperity? What would Jesus say about 44 million Americans without health insurance?…. Talking about whether Bush’s speech at Bob Jones University will affect how…


  • Bradley and McCain: Insurgents?

    MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD Editor of The Progressive, Rothschild said: “Bradley doesn’t represent a real alternative to Gore or McCain or Bush. He supports the death penalty. He favors tougher sanctions on Iraq. Along with Gore, he has been a leading proponent of NAFTA and the World Trade Organization; and he, like Gore, has carried water for the pharmaceutical companies. Bradley’s health plan is a far cry from universal care, and he leaves the insurance companies firmly in command. He voted for aiding the contras in 1986. Bradley — like Gore, McCain and Bush — is for bloated Pentagon spending and has…


  • Scientist’s Resignation Raises Questions About Nuclear Policy

    A month ago, Andreas Toupadakis held a classified position at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. But he resigned his post, voicing criticisms of U.S. nuclear policy. Interviews are available with Dr. Toupadakis and other nuclear policy analysts: ANDREAS TOUPADAKIS Prior to joining the staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s “Stockpile Stewardship” program on nuclear weapons, Toupadakis worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Shortly after resigning, he issued an open letter which reads in part: “I have seen how easy it is for nuclear contamination to occur, and how hard it is to clean it up…. Do nations possess nuclear, chemical…


  • Rising Cost of Oil… And Embargo

    WENONAH HAUTER During the last year, gasoline prices have gone up from about 90 cents a gallon to $1.36, while crude oil has gone from $12 to $30 a barrel. Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy Project, said today: “Throughout the history of the oil industry, it has been plagued with sharp peaks and valleys in oil pricing. The recent rise in oil prices is completely predictable. Most of the time, oil interests are able to collude and keep prices high. But, occasionally, like last year, their cooperative — some would say non-competitive — efforts fail and prices…


  • Still “Missing”: Truth About Chile

    A front page New York Times story reported Sunday on passages of State Department documents which show that the U.S. government knew far more than it acknowledged about the murder of two U.S. citizens in Chile. Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, who supported the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, were detained and murdered in September 1973 in the days following Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s bloody military coup backed by the U.S. government. Their execution was the subject of the film “Missing.” The following people are available for interviews: PETER KORNBLUH National Security Archive senior analyst Kornbluh, who has led the…


  • Pharmaceutical Drugs: Mergers and Medicare

    Pfizer Inc. announced today that it plans to buy Warner-Lambert Co. for $90 billion in stock in a deal that creates the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company. Meanwhile President Clinton and others are putting out proposals on Medicare. The following analysts are available for interviews on these and other subjects related to the pharmaceutical industry: SIDNEY WOLFE, M.D. Director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, Dr. Wolfe said today: “This would be the 29th significant merger in the pharmaceutical industry in the last decade. There is no evidence that the economies of scale have resulted in price savings to consumers…


  • Major Foreign Policy Issues: Austrian Neo-Nazis, Sanctions on Iraq, NATO and War Crimes, Israeli Nukes

    MARTIN A. LEE The author of “The Beast Reawakens,” a recent book about neofascism and right-wing extremism in Europe and the U.S., Lee said today: “The inclusion of Jorg Haider’s Freedom Party, a movement with openly fascist roots, in the national governing coalition in Austria is one of the most dangerous developments in contemporary European politics. Holocaust-deniers and neofascist ideologues are influential figures within the Freedom Party, and its dramatic rise to power has coincided with a sharp increase in racist violence in Austria, where shocking levels of anti-Semitism persist. There is reason to be concerned about a spillover effect…


  • New Hampshire: Battle of the Big Bucks

    On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, some analysts argue that money has largely determined the front runners. GEORGE W. BUSH Raised in this race: $57,120,597. Top career patrons: Enron Corporation (natural gas), $555,275; Sanchez family (banking, oil and gas), $322,400; Vinson & Elkins (law firm), $316,950; Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst (a leverage buyout firm; its founder bought the Texas Rangers from Bush and his partners in 1998), $305,150; Bass family (financed Harken Energy’s drilling in Bahrain in 1990 when Bush was a Harken director), $273,927; The Sterling Group (merchant bank), $259,000; MBNA Corporation, $244,416; Pilgrim’s Pride (poultry),…


  • State of the Issues

    The following analysts are available to comment on President Clinton’s policies and his State of the Union address: KAREN DOLAN Coordinator of the Progressive Challenge project, Dolan said: “The economic boom has bypassed millions of Americans; there’s been a widening of the gap between rich and poor. We need more progressive taxation… Clinton has missed an incredible historic opportunity to reduce the military budget and shift spending to pressing human needs.” More Information EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON Author of “The Crisis in Black and Black,” Hutchinson said: “The government has not lived up to its promises in ’empowerment zones.’ You see…


  • Trump’s Threats to Iran: What’s the Record of “Humanitarian Intervention”?

    “President Donald Trump is threatening military intervention against Iran, based on reports that the Iranian government has massacred thousands of innocent demonstrators. However, we should not forget that previous U.S. interventions have also been justified by reports of mass atrocities, which later proved greatly exaggerated or fabricated altogether.”

  • Israel and ICE

    “Silicon Valley firms supplied the software and computing infrastructure that enabled Trump’s policies. Companies like Babel and Palantir entered into contracts with ICE in 2015, becoming the bread and butter of ICE’s surveillance capacities by mining personal data from thousands of sources for government authorities, converting it into searchable databases, and mapping connections between individuals…

  • Attack on Venezuela: Illegal, Based on Lies

    “ After months of propaganda claiming Maduro is the head of the dangerous drug-smuggling cartel, the U.S. government has admitted it was all a ruse in order to kidnap a sitting head of state.”

  • “Dismal” Democratic Leadership Boosts GOP’s Midterm Prospects

    Writing in The Guardian last week, Solomon asserted that the party’s governing body, the Democratic National Committee, “is now replicating the kind of tacit disdain for rank-and-file Democrats that fueled the 2024 catastrophe. … A party unable to publicly examine its own failings is unlikely to climb out of the rut that proved so helpful…

  • Venezuela

    GABRIEL AGUIRRE, [in Venezuela], [email protected], @WorldBeyondWar    Aguirre is Latin America Organizer for World BEYOND War.  STEVE ELLNER, [email protected], @sellner74    Ellner is a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela. He is now an associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives. DAVID SWANSON, [email protected], @davidcnswanson    In 2023, Swanson wrote the book The Monroe Doctrine at 200 and What to Replace it With. His articles…

  • U.S. Strikes Venezuela

        “U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims about the illegal drug trade regarding both Venezuela and over 100 people thus far killed in boats with U.S. missiles from drones are without evidence and widely considered not even plausible.” See full statement and link to more resources.

  • Israel Suspends Aid Groups: “Suffering Easier to Overlook”

    In testimony at the U.N. Security Council last year, a Doctors Without Borders representative said the group is afraid Israel will punish his colleagues as a result of his talking about Israeli war crimes.

  • Netanyahu Meets Trump for Fifth Time this Year

    “Benjamin Netanyahu is arriving in the United States with a familiar list of demands. As NBC News has reported, Netanyahu plans to press Donald Trump for U.S. backing for another round of war with Iran, now framed around Iran’s ballistic missile program. This comes after Trump has repeatedly declared Iran’s nuclear program destroyed, a claim…

  • Grant Terminations at the American Academy of Pediatrics

    According to the Washington Post, the Trump administration has “terminated seven grants totaling millions of dollars to the American Academy of Pediatrics, including for initiatives on reducing sudden infant deaths, improving adolescent health, preventing fetal alcohol syndrome and identifying autism early.” The Department of Health and Human Services is trying to justify  these cuts based…

  • “Five Demands to Stop the Genocide Against the Palestinian People”

    Drop Site News reports: “At least three killed in continued Israeli attacks on Gaza. A report from The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) finds Gaza still facing starvation. UN warns impacts of Israeli restrictions on NGOs working in Palestine will be ‘immediate and catastrophic.'” Today marks deadline for release of “Epstein files” — the outlet has…

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