CAROLA REINTJES Director of international affairs for the Spanish non-governmental organization IDEAS, Reintjes said today: “The Spanish electorate punished the ruling party for participating in a war opposed by 90 percent of the people, and also for manipulating the media, lying to the public and exploiting people’s fears for electoral gain in the aftermath of the bombings. The bombings also triggered a national debate on how to prevent terrorism for the long term.” BEAU GROSSCUP Grosscup is author of the book The Newest Explosions of Terrorism and professor of international relations at California State University in Chico. AMY GOODMAN, [via…

MARK WEISBROT Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot said today: “The newly released record trade deficit numbers underline the fact that the United States cannot go on borrowing more than 5 percent of GDP each year, indefinitely, from the rest of the world. This current account (mostly trade) deficit has gotten very little attention as compared to the federal budget deficit, although it is at least as important. Some implications: (1) developing countries that are offering costly concessions (in such proposed agreements as the FTAA or CAFTA) in exchange for access to the U.S. market will…

BILL FLETCHER President of TransAfrica Forum, Fletcher said today: “Like so many people concerned about the situation in Haiti, I am perplexed by the lack of response to the de facto imprisonment of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Though the U.S. claims that President Aristide left Haiti voluntarily, this seems to fly in the face of the difficulty which he has had communicating with the outside world, his not knowing which country he was going to until 20 minutes prior to landing, and the obstacles put in the way of his supporters visiting him in the Central African Republic. It defies credibility…

HAROLD SCHAITBERGER, [contact: Jim McBride] Jeff Zack Schaitberger, the general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO, issued the following statement today after President Bush unveiled new political ads that use images of firefighters on September 11, 2001: “I’m disappointed but not surprised that the President would try to trade on the heroism of those firefighters in the September 11 attacks. The uses of 9/11 images are hypocrisy at its worst….” More Information ADELE WELTY DAVID POTORTI COLLEEN KELLY Adele Welty lost her son, Timmy, a NYC firefighter, at the World Trade Center on September 11. She, Potorti…

JEAN BELIARD LUCIEN General manager of Radio Lakay, a New York City-based radio station that serves Haitian-Americans, Jean Beliard Lucien said today: “An elected government has been overthrown by an armed rebellion under the watch of the U.S…. This year is the bicentennial of Haiti’s independence. Aristide’s asking France to pay back for money that Haiti was forced to pay for its independence is one of the leading causes of his fall; once he did that, France set out to destroy Aristide’s image…. I have been critical of Aristide, he failed to really root out corruption, but the people who…

Some news outlets have reported that Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned his democratically elected presidency in Haiti on Sunday. But TransAfrica Forum founder Randall Robinson told CNN during an interview Monday afternoon that he’d received a phone call from Aristide — and the Haitian leader said that he was “abducted by 20 American soldiers.” BILL FLETCHER Fletcher is president of TransAfrica Forum More Information LAURA FLYNN A former assistant to President Aristide from 1996 to 2000, Flynn is now with the Haiti Action Committee. More Information MARAGARITE LAURENT Laurent is founder and chair of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network ADAM HOCHSCHILD Hochschild…

Yesterday Clare Short, a former British cabinet minister, said that Britain spied on U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan during the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. Short’s revelations came the day after the British government dropped charges against Katharine Gun, a former British intelligence employee who in early 2003 leaked a U.S. National Security Agency memo describing a “surge” in U.N. spying aimed at winning authorization for war on Iraq — targeted “against” delegations from swing countries on the Security Council. Short’s charges were not denied by Tony Blair when he addressed the issue Thursday. JAMES PAUL Executive director of…

“I have no regrets, and I would do it again,” former British intelligence employee Katharine Gun said on Wednesday in London, just after the government dropped charges against her for violating the Official Secrets Act. In early March 2003, the Observer newspaper in Britain published a U.S. National Security Agency memo describing a “surge” in U.N. spying aimed at winning authorization for war on Iraq — targeted “against” delegations from swing countries on the Security Council. Katharine Gun, who leaked the memo, faced two years in prison. In Washington, the Institute for Public Accuracy issued a statement Wednesday praising Gun…

EUGENIA CHARLES-MATHURIN MALINDA MILES Co-Director of Haiti Reborn/Quixote Center, Charles-Mathurin said today: “The United States has helped create this opposition to destabilize and undermine Haiti’s nascent democracy…. The U.S. is the only party which can bring to the negotiation table these groups which include members of the CIA-linked FRAPH death squads and the former brutal army of Haiti, FAD’H, which killed over 5,000 people from 1991-1994…. President Aristide, the constitutional president, has pledged that he would step down from power when his term comes to a close. In accordance with the Haitian Constitution, he cannot run again. His commitments have…

DOUG HENWOOD Author of After the New Economy, Henwood said today: “It seems the default explanation for the weak state of the job market more than two years after the official end of the recession is outsourcing. Or, in the crude form, foreigners are stealing our jobs. Reality is a lot more complicated than that. In manufacturing, most countries — including, to almost everyone’s surprise, China — are losing jobs. And in services, jobs lost to outsourcing would be made up by two or three months of normal job growth. But we’re not getting normal job growth, and the reasons…