News Releases

  • UN General Assembly: Deploy International Protection Force to Gaza

    “Now that Palestine has formally requested protection forces, the UN General Assembly should move urgently to mandate such a force under a Uniting for Peace resolution. Israel has made clear for the past two years that no amount of pleading, pressure or negotiation will end its atrocities and deliberate starvation in Gaza; only international peacekeeping forces can achieve that.”


  • Israel Targets Journalists in Gaza Ahead of Planned Invasion

    Just minutes before he was killed, al-Sharif said in a post on X that Israel was escalating its bombing of Gaza City. “Relentless bombardment,” he wrote. “For two hours, the Israeli aggression has intensified on Gaza City.” After the killing, a message was posted on his account: “This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.” Abed has been highly critical of reporting on the killing.


  • Satirizing the “Environmental Pollution Agency”

    At a satirical press conference in Washington, D.C. this week, activists unveiled a new name and logo for the Environmental Protection Agency, which they called “the Environmental Pollution Agency.” On the new logo, buildings are swallowed up by rising sea levels. The event included a spokesperson from the Environmental Pollution Agency, “Joe Gasfracker” from the “American Petroleum Institute,” and a spokesperson from the “Energy Villains for Increased Leakage.” Participants in the action leaned into the satire and held signs with slogans such as “we support the freedom to pollute.”


  • Doctors Against Genocide

    The Guardian reports in “‘No one should act surprised,’ says UN expert who warned of starvation in Gaza last year.” The piece quotes Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food: “Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine. So while it’s always shocking to see people being starved, no one should act surprised. All the information has been out in the open since early 2024.” The Guardian also reports: “Fakhri argues that in light of the US persistent vetoing of ceasefire resolutions at the UN Security Council, it is incumbent on the UN General Assembly…


  • “Historic” $100K Settlement from University of Maryland for Unlawfully Suppressing Pro-Palestinian Student Speech

    The group has just announced a “historic victory. … The university has now agreed to a $100K settlement, the largest ever for pro-Palestine student speech known in the U.S. But this isn’t just about the money. It’s about forcing institutions to recognize that Palestinian voices cannot and will not be silenced.”


  • Palestinian Women on Hunger Strike to Demand Israel Return Body of Peace Activist Killed by Israeli Settler

    “More than 60 Palestinian women have launched a hunger strike to demand Israel return the body of a peace activist killed by an Israeli settler last week in the occupied West Bank. The body of Awda Hathaleen, who was shot and killed on Monday as Israeli settlers moved in to bulldoze his village, is still being held by Israeli authorities. “Meanwhile, his killer — Yinon Levi, a notorious settler who has been sanctioned by several governments, at one point including the United States before President Donald Trump lifted the sanctions — has been set free after a brief period of…


  • Preventing Criticism of Israel by Defining It as Antisemitic

    “In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), a group of 35 mostly European countries, drafted what it called a working definition of antisemitism. The Alliance had been founded in 1998 to promote Holocaust education and, in its own words, to ‘strengthen governmental cooperation to work towards a world without genocide.’ All too sadly, right now, its definition is being used to do the opposite: it’s helping to criminalize opposition to genocide.”


  • Nuclear Threats 80 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    “While we have succeeded in preventing the direct use of nuclear bombs since World War II, Daniel Ellsberg and others have highlighted that the U.S. government has used nuclear weapons repeatedly since 1945, like a thief uses a gun. It doesn’t have to detonate the weapon over a city, simply threatening to do so achieves a strategic purpose.”


  • ​LGBTQI+ Communities at Greater Risk of Losing Healthcare Access 

    While anti-trans and anti-DEI legislation is making it harder for a wide range of Americans to access healthcare, new survey findings show that LGBTQI+ people are at greater risk of losing access to healthcare under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”


  • Two-State Rhetoric Used as “Cover” for Israel’s Genocide and Continuing the Occupation?

    Many media outlets have been reporting on Saudi Arabia and France holding a conference at the UN for “recognising Palestinian statehood.” This narrative is scrutinized in an in-depth video with Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada: “UK, France, Canada ‘recognizing Palestine’ to cover up support for Israel’s genocide.” 


  • “Covering the Uninsured”: Remedy or Placebo?

    In recent days, a coalition of 13 groups has begun a $10 million ad campaign, “Covering the Uninsured.” The coalition released data showing that 2001 witnessed the largest one-year increase in the number of uninsured Americans in nearly a decade. Participants include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AFL-CIO, AARP, the Business Roundtable, American Medical Association,…

  • The Olympics: Some Downsides

    HELEN LENSKYJ Lenskyj is author of Inside the Olympic Industry: Power, Politics, and Activism and the forthcoming The Best Olympics Ever? Social Impacts of Sydney 2000.She is professor of sociology at the University of Toronto. Lenskyj said this afternoon: “How much do the Olympics really cost and who ends up paying? The International Olympic Committee…

  • Enron: Interviews Available

    ANDREW WHEAT Wheat is the research director for Texans for Public Justice, a non-profit policy and research organization which tracks the influence of money in politics. Wheat said today: “President Bush’s explanation of his relationship to Enron is at best a half truth. He was in bed with Enron before he ever held a political…

  • Visions of Global Democracy

    VAN JONES The World Economic Forum, meeting in New York City, has named Jones as one of the “100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow.” Jones, who founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996, said today: “I think it is a grudging admission on their part that the growing movements against corporate-led globalization and…

  • A Tale of Two Summits

    WALDEN BELLO JOY CHAVEZ Bello is the executive director and Chavez is a research associate for Focus on the Global South. Bello said today: “Porto Alegre, site of the World Social Forum [WSF] last year and again this year, has become the byword for the spirit of the burgeoning movement against corporate-driven globalization. Galvanized by…

  • An Enron Model for the World?

    GREG PALAST Palast is an internationally recognized expert on regulation of power markets and author of Regulation and Democracy, an upcoming U.N. study. On a Jan. 24, 2001 news release by the Institute for Public Accuracy, he said: “The California blackouts are a simple case of greed run amok…. The big winners in this monstrosity…

  • Interviews Available: Welfare Reauthorization

    GWENDOLYN MINK Author of the newly-revised Welfare’s End and a political scientist at Smith College, Mink said today: “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families reauthorization is Congress’s opportunity to undo some of the damage of the 1996 welfare law. The first step toward TANF reform must be to repeal TANF’s current goal of abolishing single motherhood,…

  • Interviews Available on Major Legal Issues

    MATT ROTHSCHILD Editor of The Progressive, Rothschild recently wrote the article “The New McCarthyism.” The Progressive is offering a regular feature called “McCarthyism Watch.” More Information SARAH HOGARTH Director of the National Lawyers Guild Post 9-11 Project, Hogarth said today: “The government is talking out of both sides of its mouth about the detainees. It…

  • From Manhattan to Brazil: Major Economic Summits

    On Jan. 31, the annual World Economic Forum — a gathering of the “1,000 most powerful corporations in the world” which has been held in Davos, Switzerland for three decades — will get underway in New York City. Meanwhile, the World Social Forum, bringing together tens of thousands of activists from human rights, environmental, labor…

  • High-Profile Summits Will Take On

    For several days beginning Jan. 31, two global summits — one in Manhattan, one in Porto Alegre, Brazil — will offer dramatically different visions for the future of the world economy. The World Economic Forum in New York City: According to its website (www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Annual+Meeting+2002%5CAbout+the+Annual+Meeting), the WEF was established in 1971 as a “member-based institution comprised…

Mastodon