The Republican Party convention has a price tag of more than $50 million. The Democratic Party plans to spend about $35 million on its convention. Federal funds will cover $13.3 million for each of those two conventions. Large corporations will cover the rest, many with major issues pending before the government. Among the GOP’s top donors: Motorola, Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic) and Comcast Corp ($1 million each), Philip Morris ($250,000), Enron ($250,000) and Blue Cross/Blue Shield ($100,000). Among the Democrats’ top donors: SBC Communications ($1 million), United Parcel Service ($1 million) and Boeing ($100,000). Some companies have contributed to…

WENONAH HAUTER Director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy Project, Hauter said today: “High prices at the gas pump have translated into windfalls for oil companies, which saw first-quarter profits in 2000 rise nearly 500 percent over the same period in 1999. Oil companies are ripping off the public and picking consumers’ pocketbooks clean… After the Gulf War, Dick Cheney turned around and joined the major energy service provider Halliburton Co., the company that got the contract to clean up the mess in Kuwait after the war. No doubt the oil industry, which has already given George W. Bush $1.5…

Privatization, Open Access, Privacy, Copyright RONDA HAUBEN Co-author of Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet, Hauben said today: “While the Internet’s infrastructure grew up under public administration and funding, the U.S. government has set out to give away vital Internet functions to a private corporation called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Congress requested that the General Accounting Office do an investigation of the creation and development of ICANN and its contracts with the Commerce Department. The GAO report (which was ‘corrected’ by the Commerce Department before being issued on July 7) acknowledges…

FRANCIS BOYLE Boyle, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, served as legal advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace negotiations from 1991 to 1993. He said today: “The Palestinians have a very strong case they should take to the UN and the World Court. Everything that they are asking for — and then some — is contained in UN Resolution 181 and Resolution 194, both of which Israel accepted as a condition for its joining the UN. If Israel continues to refuse to let the refugees go home, or to share…

JILL NELSON Editor of the recently released book Police Brutality: An Anthology, Nelson said today: “On the day President Clinton addressed the NAACP, the mayor of Philadelphia was not present because a dozen or more of his officers were caught on video beating and kicking a suspect. Clearly there is a problem when it comes to policing citizens of color and respecting our constitutional rights… In the last decade we have seen millions of dollars go into beefing up police forces nationally and at this moment we have this much-lauded drop in street crime. It is time we look at…

LAMIS ANDONI An independent analyst and journalist who has covered the Mideast for nearly two decades, Andoni said today: “U.S. officials are apparently presenting a package to the Israelis and Palestinians, hoping that will become the basis for negotiations instead of international law. U.S. officials have been making references to achieving an agreement that will address the Israeli desire to end all Palestinian claims. Arafat is certainly the weak party, but he cannot accept something that prevents Palestinians from acquiring their rights in the future, especially since Palestinians are very disillusioned with the Oslo Accords.” More Information SUSAN AKRAM Associate…

The 13th International Conference on AIDS will be held in Durban, South Africa from July 9 to 14. The following analysts are available for interviews: ROBERT WEISSMAN Co-director of Essential Action, Weissman said today: “While Africa is experiencing an epidemic that ranks among the worst in world history, the multinational drug companies — which produce the drugs that can treat and extend the lives of those with HIV/AIDS — are focusing not on the humanitarian tragedy but on their bottom lines. There’s plenty of blame to go around for the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but certainly high up on the list are…

SIMONA SHARONI Co-chair of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development, Sharoni — a long-time professor of conflict resolution and peace studies — has traveled with students to Northern Ireland and the Mideast several times. Some of her students are currently international observers in Northern Ireland. She said today: “There are a few striking similarities between the situation in Israel/Palestine and the North of Ireland, and the prospects for long-lasting peace in both regions. In both cases, albeit for different reasons, the United States has positioned itself as a key player. Yet, the Clinton administration and the State Department…

MARTIN A. LEE Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is scheduled to testify before a parliamentary inquiry on Thursday. In the Los Angeles Times on June 25, free-lance investigative journalist Martin A. Lee exposed the Nazi link to the current slush fund and influence-peddling scandal in Germany involving Kohl. Lee traces the roots of the corruption scandal to Kohl’s close relationship with Fritz Ries, an influential German industrialist who made a fortune during the Third Reich from expropriating “Aryanized” Jewish property and from slave labor in factories near Auschwitz. After the war, Ries became Kohl’s principal patron within the West German…

JONATHAN KING Professor of molecular biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, King is on the board of the Council for Responsible Genetics. He said today: “The determination of human gene sequences represents the outcome of 50 years of public investment in basic biomedical research. The publicly released gene sequence data provide important inputs into understanding the biological basis of human health and disease…. Our genes were inherited from our parents through their parents and previous generations; their sequences are not inventions of corporate or any other scientists. The patenting of human genes by Celera, Human Genome Sciences and other…