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News Releases

  • Big Oil Greasing Politics?

    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…

  • Internet: Major Issues

    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…

  • Camp David: Deadline?

    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…

  • Police Brutality; Welfare “Reform”

    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…

  • Mideast Talks at Camp David

    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…

  • Global Conference Getting Underway: AIDS and Drugs

    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…

  • Interviews Available: Israeli-Palestinian Summit, Clashes in Northern Ireland

    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…

  • Interviews Available: Nazi Link to German Scandal, Elian and the Cuba Embargo, Sunday’s Mexican Election

    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…

  • Interviews Available: Genome and Philip Morris / Nabisco

    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…

  • 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…

  • Women’s Equality Day: Interviews Available

    This Monday is Women’s Equality Day — the anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing women the right to vote. The following analysts are available for interviews: YIFAT SUSSKIND Susskind, associate director of MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization, said: “Women’s Equality Day provides an opportunity for us all to reflect…

  • Interviews Available: Critical Voices on Iraq

    STEPHEN ZUNES Associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project, Zunes said today: “Claims of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda appear to be little more than a desperate effort by administration officials to convince the American public to…

  • Iraq’s Use of Chemical Weapons: A Reason for Invasion?

    Bush administration officials have cited the Iraqi government’s use of chemical weapons as a key reason for launching an overwhelming attack on Iraq. Condoleezza Rice said last week: “He [Saddam Hussein] has used chemical weapons against his own people and against his neighbors…” On Sunday, a front-page New York Times article reported: “A covert American…

  • Reparations: Interviews Available

    On Saturday (August 17) in Washington, D.C., there will be a march calling for reparations for African Americans. The following commentators are available for interviews: JOE FEAGIN Graduate research professor at the University of Florida and author of numerous books on racism in the United States, Feagin said today: “Reparations for the enslavement and later…

  • Interviews Available: * Colombia * Mideast

    ADAM ISACSON Director of the Colombia program at the Center for International Policy, Isacson said today: “At a time when a new hardline president is declaring a state of emergency in Colombia, the U.S. government is broadening its military mission from counter-narcotics to counter-terrorism. This could lead just about anyplace. Those two trends are worrying…

  • Bush Economic Forum: Beyond the Photo-Ops

    JOHN MILLER Professor of economics at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and contributing editor for Dollars & Sense magazine, Miller said today: “The Bush administration is rounding up the usual suspects — conservative politicians, economists, business types, and even large donors — for a forum on why that pesky economy refuses to respond to Bush tax…

  • Interviews Available on Weapons of Mass Destruction: * Iraq * Hiroshima

    SCOTT RITTER Ritter, who was a chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, is available for limited interviews. When asked by the Institute for Public Accuracy if he would be willing to go to Iraq with members of Congress, Ritter said he would consider such an option. He said today: “The offer by Iraq for members…

  • Interviews Available on Major Economic Stories

    MARK WEISBROT Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot wrote the article “Economists in Denial” in today’s Washington Post. He said this afternoon: “[Treasury Secretary Paul] O’Neill is visiting countries in the grip of serious economic and financial crisis: Argentina’s economy has collapsed, and Brazil is headed toward default on its debt.…

  • War and the U.S. Congress: Responsibilities and Evasions

    MIKE GRAVEL Gravel, currently president of Direct Democracy and sponsor of the National Initiative for Democracy, was a noted critic of the Vietnam War while in the Senate. He entered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. He said today: “This is a déjà vu of Tonkin and the evidence seems to be as flimsy.…

  • Iraq: What’s Missing From the Hearings?

    As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee continues to hear testimony from the individuals it has selected, the following analysts are available for interviews: PHYLLIS BENNIS Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-editor of Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader. Her testimony was put in the Congressional Record on Wednesday;…

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