News Releases

  • * Tax Cuts * Greenspan * Jobs

    ELLEN FRANK Professor of economics at Emmanuel College in Boston and author of the forthcoming book Money Illusions, Frank said today: “Bush’s economic plan is unlikely to create jobs or growth as he claims. His plan centers on giving more money to wealthy investors with the supposition that they will invest this excess windfall in projects which will create jobs and growth. The reality is that wealthy investors are already swimming in money and unable to find sustainable growth avenues for their excess cash…. The terrible job market may squeeze wages, and with proposed tax cuts and federal spending increases…


  • U.S. Bases: Interviews Available

    JOSEPH GERSON Editor of The Sun Never Sets, a book about U.S. military bases worldwide, Gerson is director of the Peace and Economic Security Program at the American Friends Service Committee. He said today: “Behind the rhetoric of ‘liberation’ and not staying ‘a day’ longer than needed, the Bush administration is clearly working to create a client government which will allow the U.S. to maintain military bases for the long term, as it has recently done in Central Asia. The U.S. government, in effect, will be transforming Iraq into an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier for the United States.’ The U.S. government…


  • * Humanitarian Crisis * Lifting the Sanctions

    On Thursday, less than 24 hours after issuing a press release highlighting the apparent failures of the U.S. military’s humanitarian operations in Iraq, the international group Voices in the Wilderness was banned from meeting with the U.S. Civil Military Operations Center or with international journalists at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. The group asks: “If the freedom to critique U.S. policies in Iraq regarding humanitarian issues is being curtailed already, then exactly what does this mean for building ‘democracy’ there?” A photo of the military’s listing of which groups are allowed into the hotel (noting in capital letters that Voices…


  • “NASA’s Strategic Plan”

    Today, NASA administrator and former Secretary of the Navy Sean O’Keefe addressed the National Press Club about “NASA’s Strategic Plan.” The following analysts are available for interviews: ALICE SLATER Director of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, Slater said today: “NASA’s strategic plan involves the acceleration of militarizing space. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers was head of U.S. Space Command when it published its 1998 ‘Visions for 2020’ report which talked of ‘dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment.’ In January 2001 the space commission chaired by Donald…


  • * Syria * Iraq * Antiquities * Terrorist Groups

    JAMES ABOUREZK A former U.S. senator, Abourezk has met with high-ranking Syrian officials, including President Bashar Assad. He said today: “The proposal that Syria is reportedly putting forward at the U.N. for a Mideast free of weapons of mass destruction is a very good one.” Abourezk is in D.C. on Wednesday and Thursday. More Information SCOTT C. DAVIS Author of the new book The Road from Damascus: A Journey Through Syria, Davis recently returned from Syria; he spent the first several days of the invasion of Iraq in Syria. He has visited Syria repeatedly over the last 15 years and…


  • * Why War? * WMD * Oil * IMF — World Bank

    BILL FLETCHER President of TransAfrica Forum and co-chair of United for Peace and Justice, Fletcher said today: “The military action against Iraq is not just about controlling oil and not even just about empire. It’s about economic competition with other powers; about the Bush administration framing global capitalism in an image that it wants with its ‘new international economic architecture’ via the IMF and World Bank…. This will exacerbate the increasing economic polarization of the last 20 years, further impoverish much of the globe and send a message to all: displays of resistance will be met with force.” More Information…


  • Iraq: From Tyranny to What?

    AS’AD ABUKHALIL AbuKhalil, professor of political science at California State University at Stanislaus, is closely following events in the Arabic-language as well as English-language media and can address changes in Iraq and the region. He is author of the book Bin Ladin, Islam and America’s New “War on Terrorism.” LAMIS ANDONI An independent journalist and analyst who has covered the Mideast for over two decades, Andoni is also monitoring the Arabic-language media. She knew Tareq Ayub, the Al Jazeera correspondent who was killed yesterday by the U.S. military. [The web page http://english.aljazeera.net is back up after being hacked.] Andoni said…


  • * After Saddam * Garner and Chaliabi * Rachel Corrie’s Legacy

    ANDY SHALLAL Founder of Iraqi-Americans for Peaceful Alternatives, Shallal said today: “People are happy not just because Saddam is out, but also because they anticipate the end of 12 years of economic sanctions and the bombing…. When I was a kid in Iraq, we had coups and I would go out and jump in the street because it was the coolest thing. It’s like D.C. when the Redskins win the Super Bowl. The problem is what comes after.” RICK McDOWELL Working with American Friends Service Committee, McDowell is in contact with many relief organizations in Jordan trying to get humanitarian…


  • Bush and Blair in Belfast

    SIMONA SHARONI Sharoni has specialized in Northern Ireland as well as the Middle East and can compare and analyze the two. She is a professor of peace and conflict studies and Middle East politics at Evergreen State College and executive director of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development. MAIREAD CORRIGAN McGUIRE A Nobel Peace Prize laureate for her work in Northern Ireland and co-founder of the Peace People, Mairead Corrigan McGuire has been on a liquid fast since the invasion of Iraq began. She is holding a silent vigil in front of the White House every day from…


  • War Crimes?

    “To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” — International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1946 [ www.zmag.org/crisescurevts/nurletter.htm] “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…” — U.N. Charter (Chapter I, Article 2) [www.un.org/aboutun/charter] “It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as…


  • Did Baerbock Coverup Germany’s Role in the Gaza Genocide at the ICJ?

    “Journalists should ask Annalena Baerbock if German diplomats — under her leadership as foreign minister — lied to the ICJ about Germany’s active military support at Israel’s request. A @DropSiteNews report suggests as as much.” 

  • Deception About Medicare for All

    A new report from corporate-oriented Democrats called “Deciding to Win” declares that Medicare for All is an “unpopular economic policy”––but advocates say the claim is false.

  • Trump’s Big Caribbean War Lie

    “The evidence that the U.S. Navy’s buildup in the Caribbean is not about combating drugs but rather regime change in Venezuela is overwhelming. Perhaps the most obvious is that the U.S. is obliterating small boats and their crews, rather than capturing the men and forcing a confession from them. No names are released.“

  • Trump and Nuclear Threats

    “The U.S. government has withdrawn from various nuclear weapons treaties, including the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty during the George W. Bush administration and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in Trump’s first administration. It has been in violation of its disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Biden administration made U.S. nuclear policy more aggressive in…

  • U.S. “Ceasefire” a “Ploy to Sabotage the Rule of Law” — Again

    Mokhiber added: “We are indeed seeing another ploy by the U.S. government working in collusion with the secretariat of the U.N. to sabotage the rule of law as well as the work of many in the U.N. system who are trying desperately to uphold the U.N. Charter.”

  • The Long History of Long Covid

    Writing for Truthout, Jesse Hagopian, a longtime educator with long Covid, details how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has harmed Americans with long Covid by shutting down the Office of Long Covid Research and Practice, gutting funding, and derailing trials and studies. Hagopian did extensive research to “situate this moment of disability caused by Covid, contextualized…

  • MIT, Palestinian Grandmother Among Targets of “Lawfare” Regarding Israel

    “There are differences, but the MIT case involves many of the same concepts as Ali’s case. In both, the plaintiffs are trying to use the courts to weaponize the law to attack protected speech. They are trying to prohibit protests against Israel’s actions using civil rights law. They are using different statutes, but both rely on much the same type…

  • Rabbis Are Not a Monolith in New York City Mayoral Campaign

    An open letter from rabbis across the country recently called State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani a threat to the “safety and dignity of Jews in every city.” But rabbis––and New York City-based rabbis in particular––are not a monolith, and many openly support Mamdani and his campaign for mayor. 

  • “Occupy Wall Street: An American Dream”

    Michelle Fawcett’s new documentary, “Occupy Wall Street: An American Dream,” examines how a populist upsurge swept the nation, put oligarchs on their back foot, and revived working-class politics. 

  • U.N.: Gaza “Proxy Occupation Force” or Protection Force?

    “The colonial powers that carved up Palestine for their European settler colony, granted the colony full impunity as it carried out its bloody 100-year project of ethnic cleansing, and then supported it in two years of open genocide, are now plotting to finish the job with a U.S. and Western directed proxy occupation force manned…

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