DENIS HALLIDAY Halliday is a former UN Assistant Secretary General and ex-head of the UN oil-for-food program. He said today: “The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors were in Iraq just two weeks ago. Those types of monitoring programs could be expanded to include chemical and biological weapons capability, but re-starting an Iraq-specific regime like UNMOVIC…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…