News Releases

  • Death Penalty

    Gary Graham is scheduled to be executed at 7 P.M. Eastern Time. The following analysts and critics of the death penalty are available for interviews: WILLIAM HARRELL Executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Harrell said today: “We are outraged by the board’s failure to halt this execution. The judicial system has failed us, the Board of Pardons and Paroles has failed us and the governor has failed us. This is the greatest proof that the time for a moratorium on executions in Texas is now.” The president of the board of the ACLU of Texas, Greg…


  • “Prosperity and Progress”?

    Inequalities, Health-Care Coverage, Estate Tax CHARLES ANDREWS The author of the forthcoming From Capitalism to Equality, Andrews said today: “Before we celebrate the economy’s alleged prosperity and progress, we should tally the exhaustion it is causing. The average husband-and-wife family works six hours today for every five hours worked in 1979. The percentage of employees who work 49 hours a week or more rose from 13 percent in 1976 to 20 percent today. If there is a bit of prosperity today in our role as consumers, the deeper truth is that today’s economy consumes people’s lives.” SARA NICHOLS National spokesperson…


  • Interviews Available: Father’s Day

    WILL GLENNON Glennon is author of Fathering: Strengthening Connection with Your Children No Matter Where They Are, for which he interviewed 180 fathers, aged 15 to 87, almost all of whom cried during their interviews. He said today: “Fathers need to get deeply engaged in the upbringing of their children. Fathers don’t want to be isolated, children don’t want them to be disconnected and mothers don’t want them to be absent — physically or emotionally. But we have patterns of how we raise our children which keep fathers distant, cost them emotionally, cause pain in their relationships, making boys more…


  • Arafat’s Visit to U.S.

    The following analysts are available for interviews about the U.S. visit by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat scheduled to begin on Wednesday: NASEER ARURI Professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, former board member of Amnesty International and author of The Obstruction of Peace: The U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians, Aruri said today: “The approach of Syria’s Hafez Assad toward Israel was based on equality, land for peace, an international framework, and normalization with Israel after it fully withdraws from occupied territory. By contrast, Arafat’s approach — despite lip service to the contrary — is open-ended. It would…


  • Study Finds Conservative Think Tanks Predominant

    Brookings Leads; Left-of-Center Think Tanks Decrease WASHINGTON — A study released today found that conservative think tanks and the centrist Brookings Institution dominated much of the national media debate last year. Of the 25 leading think tanks studied, Brookings had the most citations (2,883), twice as many media mentions as the next-ranked conservative/libertarian Cato Institute (1,428 cites). The conservative Heritage Foundation, which had rivaled Brookings in prominence a few years ago, has fallen to third place (1,419 cites), while the conservative American Enterprise Institute (1,263 cites) is the fourth most cited think tank in the U.S. media. These four think…


  • Analysts Available on Microsoft Decision

    The following analysts are available to comment on the Microsoft decision: NORMAN HAWKER Hawker is a law professor at Western Michigan University specializing in antitrust issues. JUDY SLOAN Sloan is a professor at Southwestern University Law School in Los Angeles. ROBERT LANDE Lande is senior research scholar at the American Antitrust Institute and professor of law at the University of Baltimore. More Information For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 More Information More Information


  • Interviews Available on Germany and Russia

    MARTIN A. LEE Author of The Beast Reawakens, a book on neofascism, Lee said today: “President Clinton’s visit to Germany comes at a time when that country is mired in a major political scandal, involving secret slush funds and illegal influence-peddling by big business. The scandal has resulted in the fall from grace of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl and several other leaders of the Christian Democratic Union, now the main opposition party in Germany. Thus far, U.S. officials have yet to acknowledge the role that the U.S. government played in setting the stage for this scandal. For years, Washington turned…


  • Interviews on “Missile Defense”

    WILLIAM HARTUNG Senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute and co-author of the recent report “Tangled Web: The Marketing of Missile Defense, 1994-2000,” Hartung said today: “In its ongoing effort to ‘triangulate’ by co-opting Republican issues, the Clinton administration has met right-wing missile defense boosters more than half way. Meanwhile, Republicans have stepped up their calls for an elaborate, multi-tiered system akin to Ronald Reagan’s ill-fated Star Wars scheme. The nation’s four major missile contractors — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and TRW — are looking to missile defense to revive them from mismanagement and technical problems that have slashed…


  • United – U.S. Airways

    United Airlines said today it intends to buy U.S. Airways. The following analysts are available for interviews: PAUL HUDSON Executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, Hudson said today: “If this merger is approved without major divesting of routes and other restrictions, the ‘Big Six’ will quickly become the ‘Big Three’ and U.S. airline passengers will be the major losers. No airline should control more than 25 percent to 30 percent of the nation’s airline seats or over 40 percent of seats in a particular region. This merger would give United dominant control of most routes in the Northeast…


  • Interviews Available on International Issues

    SIMONA SHARONI Author of Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Sharoni is currently a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She said today: “If there is any relationship between the recent mini-intifada and the negotiations, it is that the two issues that have been central to the protests — the Palestinian refugees and the release of political prisoners — have not been seriously addressed. Those who are familiar with the Oslo Accords, its supplements and its rocky implementation should not be surprised that Palestinians have once again taken to the streets…. If Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon is designed to…


  • Claims of Democracy

    “You won’t have any problem with Saddam. We’ll be rid of the bastard soon enough. And in his place we’ll install a pro-Western dictator, who will be good for us and for you.” — U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos, quoted in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, 9/30/02 [Lantos denies saying this, but Ha’aretz, a respected Israeli daily,…

  • Coalition of the Coerced?

    Yesterday, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer insisted that “the President is not offering quid pro quos” to other countries for their tacit support to invade Iraq. The following analysts take issue with such claims: SARAH ANDERSON, PHYLLIS BENNIS, JOHN CAVANAGH The Institute for Policy Studies is releasing a report today — “Coalition of the Willing…

  • Turkey, Israel and International Law

    KANI XULAM Director of the American Kurdish Information Network, Xulam said today: “Basically, the Kurds have been handed over to the Turkish government. It is being reported that the U.S. has approved some 80,000 Turkish troops in northern Iraq. The gains of autonomy that the Kurds have made in northern Iraq could well be lost.…

  • Weapons Inspectors Going to Work in America

    A group of Canadian, British, American, Italian and Danish parliamentarians, scientists, academics, and religious and union leaders have informed the Pentagon that they intend to inspect the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland this Sunday. Among the parliamentary members in the delegation are: Alan Simpson from the U.K., Libby Davies from Canada, Senator Francesco Martone…

  • Showdown at the United Nations: Interviews Available on

    SIMONA SHARONI Sharoni is 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. She said today: “The recent global protests represent an unprecedented development by the world community to confront those in the seats of power to change…

  • Crisis at a Crossroads: * Blix at the UN * Global Protests

    IMAD KHADDURI Khadduri worked with the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission from 1968 until 1998. He was able to leave Iraq in late 1998 with his family. Now in Canada, he was recently interviewed by UNMOVIC. More Information DANIEL ELLSBERG Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, warns of the government using deceit to drive the nation…

  • * Turkey * NATO * Bin Ladin Tape

    SANAR YURDATAPAN Yurdatapan was recently awarded the Global Rights Defenders award by Human Rights Watch. He said today: “Turkey is boiling. Ninety percent of the people are against an attack on Iraq. We are shocked at the depictions we see of the situation in the U.S. media. People here are not unhappy with NATO. No…

  • U.S. Credibility Problems

    GLEN RANGWALA Rangwala, a lecturer in politics at Cambridge University, exposed the British government’s plagiarism in its recent dossier which Secretary of State Colin Powell praised before the Security Council last week. Britain’s government has admitted that Rangwala is correct. He said today: “Powell’s citation of the plagiarized paper is merely a symptom of the…

  • Powell Cited Sham “Fine Paper”

    “My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence… “I would call my colleagues’ attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed yesterday which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities.”…

  • Some Analysis of Powell’s Speech

    PHYLLIS BENNIS A fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis is author of the book Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis and the article “Powell’s Dubious Case for War.” Bennis said today: “Contrary to Powell’s pronouncements, Hans Blix said the UNMOVIC inspectors have seen ‘no evidence’ of mobile biological…

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