News Releases

  • Bombing of Yugoslavia: One Year Later

    JAN HARTSOUGH Shortly after the bombing of Yugoslavia started a year ago today, Hartsough traveled to the Balkans with a social-change organization called Crabgrass. She also attended the Women in Black international conference in October 1999 in Montenegro. She said today: “A police force that can establish law and justice in Kosovo still has not been established. I’m concerned about the prospects of another outbreak of war in the Balkans, this time in Montenegro.” More Information JEREMY SCAHILL Pacifica Radio’s “Democracy Now” program. He reported from Yugoslavia during the bombing last spring. Today he said: “One year after the initiation…


  • While Senate Holds DOE Hearing Today, Nuclear Victims Blast Narrow Scope

    WASHINGTON — While the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee holds a hearing today to focus on health and safety issues at two Department of Energy atomic plants, representatives of workers and others subjected to radiation exposure say that the Senate panel is dodging a wide array of serious problems at DOE nuclear facilities across the country. Reporters and producers are invited to directly contact the following people for interviews: TRISHA PRITIKIN The daughter of nuclear workers at the Hanford facility near Richland, Wash., Pritikin has serious thyroid ills. Both her parents died of cancer. “My brother died shortly after birth, in…


  • Foreign Policy Issues: India, Taiwan and Russia

    NEIL TANGRI Field director for the Multinationals Resource Center, Tangri has worked in India on development issues. He said today: “The past 10 years have seen dramatic changes in the Indian economy. Frustrated by corruption and a sense of losing the economic race to China and the ‘tiger’ economies, Indian politicians on both the right and left have thrown their support behind economic reform policies of privatization, deregulation, and increased international commerce. These policies have buoyed the fortunes of the wealthy to an unprecedented degree, but also increased poverty. Clinton’s trip to India will attempt to ensure a firm U.S.…


  • “New Economy” or Stock Bubble?

    As the stock market continues to rise, many analysts are proclaiming a “New Economy.” They argue that computer technologies have created a market not bound by the physical constraints of the old industrial economy. But are we becoming increasingly unprepared for a downturn? Among the critics of the New Economy available for interviews are: ELLEN FRANK Professor of economics at Emmanuel College in Boston, Frank said today: “Market economies have long periods of growth and then recessions. Since World War II, we’ve had an infrastructure in place to deal with a recession: full employment budgeting, a welfare system, food stamps…


  • Congressional Commission Slams IMF; Analysts Available for Interviews

    The new report from the International Financial Institutions Advisory Commission, created by Congress in 1998, is adding to calls for drastic reform of the International Monetary Fund. The “Meltzer Commission” report urges full cancellation of the debts owed by poor countries to the IMF and the World Bank as well as significant reduction of the role of these institutions. Congressional hearings on these issues begin this week. The following analysts are available for interviews: MARIE CLARKE Co-director of the Quixote Center, Clarke said: “A Congressional Commission with members across the political spectrum came together with the common message of 100…


  • Beyond “Super Tuesday”

    LEONARD WILLIAMS Professor of political science at Manchester College and co-author of the recent Campaigns and Elections article “‘Moderates Win’ and Other Political Myths,” Williams said today: “In part the election fits the standard scenario of the more established candidates winning after a bit of trouble. But up to this point in the campaign there’s been more of a progressive ideological center of gravity than in years. There’s an emphasis on promoting education, protecting Social Security, having a Patients Bill of Rights and campaign finance reform. If you’d said all these things 10 years ago, you’d be laughed off the…


  • 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…


  • FTAA: Crossroads at Miami Summit

    JOSEFINA HERNANDEZ PONCE and PEDRO EUSSE and SEVERINA RIVERA, Hernandez Ponce is a sewing machine operator and president of SITEMEX, the only union in the sweatshop garment industry in Mexico. The union was founded last year after two years of efforts which began when Hernandez Ponce and four other workers refused to eat the factory…

  • Behind the “Special Relationship”

    GREG PALAST Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His investigative reports appear on BBC Television and in the Guardian Newspapers of Britain. He said today: “Blair, like Margaret Thatcher before him, faces revolt within his own party. They believe he lied to get Britain into Bush’s…

  • Mr. Bush Goes to London

    MILAN RAI The British author of Regime Unchanged, a just-released book on the invasion of Iraq, Rai is in the U.S. until November 25. He said today: “President Bush recently said in an interview with the BBC of the war on Iraq: ‘War is my last choice, not my first choice.’ In March 2002, a…

  • * Iraq * Israel * WTO — Interviews Available

    MEDEA BENJAMIN Benjamin, the founding director of the international human rights group Global Exchange, is also co-founder of the Occupation Watch Center in Iraq. Paul Bremer, in Washington mid-week, repeatedly cited the Iraqi Governing Council in his remarks. Benjamin said today: “The Bush administration wants the Iraqi Governing Council to rubber-stamp policies coming from Washington…

  • * Medicare Profiteers * Jobs * Mutual Funds * HealthSouth

    ALAN SAGER DEBORAH SOCOLAR Sager and Socolar are co-directors of the Health Reform Program at Boston University’s School of Public Health. They have recently released a report entitled “New Medicare Rx Benefit Means Big Profits for Drug Makers.” The report finds that “an estimated 61.1 percent of the Medicare dollars that will be spent to…

  • Interviews Available: Families of Military and 9/11 Victims

    JARI SHEESE Sheese owns a small business in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her husband is stationed in Iraq. She said this afternoon: “He had just dropped me a line telling me that he’d be getting around by helicopter and that made me feel better — then a helicopter gets downed killing 16. We find some way to…

  • Interviews Available on Iraq: * Invasion Fatalities * Visitors in the U.S. * More Attacks? * Like Vietnam?

    CARL CONETTA Co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, Conetta wrote the just-released report “The Wages of War: Iraqi Combatant and Noncombatant Fatalities in the 2003 Conflict.” Conetta said today”Reviewing U.S. combat data, battlefield press reports, and Iraqi hospital surveys, we have found that approximately 13,000 Iraqis (plus or minus 16.5 percent or 2,150) were…

  • Interviews Available: Bush vs. Facts

    Analysts are available to scrutinize some of President Bush’s claims, including those from Tuesday’s news conference, focusing on Iraq and the recent attacks there: BUSH: “I would assume that they’re [the suicide bombers] either, or, and probably both Ba’athists and foreign terrorists.” FACT: “There are a growing number of interviews with Iraqi resistance fighters that…

  • Welfare Policy: Interviews Available

    With welfare legislation for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families reauthorization making its way through the House and Senate, interviews with the following are available: LIZ ACCLES Accles is with the Welfare Made a Difference National Campaign, which is organizing with a host of other groups the “Shirts Off Our Backs Day” in Washington, D.C. —…

  • Bush’s Asia Trip: Interviews Available

    MARGO OKAZAWA-REY Director of the Women’s Leadership Institute and a visiting professor at Mills College in California, Okazawa-Rey has authored a number of papers about U.S. bases in East Asia. She said today: “Many activists in South Korea, the Philippines and Okinawa/Japan are opposing their governments that support U.S. policies, largely due to political and…

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