News Releases

  • Has “the Two-State Solution” Become a Disingenuous Fantasy?

    Every Democrat and most Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee say they support a “two-state solution.” At the same time, “ending Israeli control over Palestinians in the territories occupied since 1967 is not on the table,” Norman Solomon wrote last week. “For politicians it has become a box to check,” while at this point “the two-state scenario is far-fetched to the point of delusion if not evasion.”


  • Lebanese President Meeting with Trump to Surrender Sovereignty?

    Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and is scheduled to meet with President Trump on Tuesday.


  • Why There’s a Call for Boycotting “The Odyssey”

    Calls for an international boycott of Christopher Nolan’s recently released version of “The Odyssey” are based on his decision to shoot a segment of the film in the occupied nation of Western Sahara. 


  • What the Public Still Doesn’t Know About PFAS

    Earthjustice and a coalition of environmental organizations are challenging the approval of a new PFAS fluid, Chemours’ Opteon 2P50, that would be used in data centers.


  • Netanyahu and Perpetual War

    Trita Parsi writes: “Tehran believes Washington brokered the Lebanese-Israeli agreement — which contradicts the U.S.-Iran MOU by conditioning Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon on Hezbollah’s disarmament — to enable Israel to retain key positions that would weaken Hezbollah’s ability to support Iran in the next war. … What is clear is that the outlook of Iranian strategists has hardened markedly in recent weeks as they have become increasingly convinced that Trump intends to restart the war.”


  • Why 12 States Are Challenging Huge Hollywood Merger

    In a piece for The American Prospect, David Dayen reports that a group of states sued to block the $110 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. These states argue that the merger, approved last month by the federal government, will lead to lower revenues for theater owners and cable distributors and higher prices for moviegoers and cable subscribers. The combined company would consolidate Hollywood into four major studios controlling 85 percent of wide-release films. The company would have a 27 percent market share of box office revenue and a 27 percent market share of basic cable. “One out of…


  • Is the Iran War Restarting the Yemen War? * Drone Operators: “Refuse to Fly”

    “A truce that ended nearly a decade of war in Yemen has mostly held since 2022. It is being severely tested four years later, as tensions tied to the war in Iran risk spilling over.”


  • Lessons on Iran from JFK: “A Blockade Is an Act of War”

    “During the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK ordered a ‘quarantine’ of only offensive weapons to Cuba and sought Organization of American States agreement; all other ships were allowed to continue through. When a member of the media was goading JFK into aggressive action, he responded: ‘A blockade is an act of ag[ression], war.’


  • Lebanon “Walks into Israel’s Trap”: The Next Rafah?

    “Mass demolition in the southernmost parts of Lebanon is an ongoing problem, with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz quoted as saying the country was ‘applying the Rafah Model’ on Lebanon, and that southern Lebanon would ultimately turn into Gaza, citing the mass level of destruction inflicted on the Gaza Strip in recent years.”


  • Plans to End Aid to Israel — and Replace it with Something Worse: Interviews Available

    “What top Israeli officials — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — are quietly backing is not a reduction in American support, but a reorganization of it: shifting billions in resources from State Department-administered foreign aid grants into general Pentagon procurement accounts, industrial partnerships, and sustainment pipelines. The shift will strip away the political and diplomatic oversight mechanisms that make the relationship publicly accountable, moving it from a visible annual aid vote into the opaque machinery of defense acquisition, where oversight is limited and political accountability is minimal. The result would be a defense relationship that is simultaneously deeper and less transparent.”


  • Enron: Interviews Available

    WENONAH HAUTER Director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy & Environment Program and co-author of the report “Blind Faith: How Deregulation and Enron’s Influence Over Government Looted Billions from Americans,” Hauter said today: “The Bush administration should immediately release all communications it has had with Enron because its selective disclosure of Enron contacts so far…

  • * Colombia * Haiti * Turkey

    SANDRA ALVAREZ, via Jason Mark The peace talks in Colombia, which seemed on the verge of collapse, have been extended until Jan. 20. Today the Washington Post reports that, according to administration officials, the “Bush administration is considering expanding U.S. counternarcotics assistance to Colombia to give more aid to that country’s counterinsurgency war against leftist…

  • * U.S. vs. Iran? * Otto Reich

    KAVEH EHSANI A contributing editor for Middle East Report and for Goft-o-Gu (“Dialogue” in Farsi), Ehsani — who is writing a book on Iran — said today: “A stable Afghanistan is in Iran’s interest. Obviously, Iran is concerned about undue influence that other powers like the U.S., Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Russians, may exercise over…

  • Too Early to Declare Hunger Crisis Averted in Afghanistan

    The Associated Press reported yesterday that Afghan villagers in Bonavash are starving while attempting to survive by eating grass. The following statement, released today (Jan. 9) by the Institute for Public Accuracy, is from James Jennings, president of the humanitarian aid organization Conscience International. Jennings will return to Afghanistan on Jan. 16 for the group’s…

  • The Economy: Bush vs. Daschle?

    DOUG HENWOOD Author of Wall Street, Henwood said today: “It’s nice to see the Democrats doing something other than rolling over. It’s too bad, though, that Daschle is spending so much time on the importance of fiscal discipline — an obsession of Wall Street, but not any broader constituency — when 2.6 million workers have…

  • * India-Pakistan * Israel-Palestine * Argentina

    ANITA WEISS Co-editor of Power and Civil Society in Pakistan (Oxford University Press, 2001) and professor of international studies at the University of Oregon, Weiss said today: “If this situation is not diffused and tensions escalate further between India and Pakistan, it will play into the hands of extremist and sectarian groups in Pakistan. Many…

  • * Just Back from Afghanistan * Legal Status of Walker * Otto Reich: Backer of Terrorist? * Argentina Meltdown

    JIM JENNINGS President of Conscience International, a humanitarian aid organization, Jennings has just returned from his third trip to Afghanistan. He said today: “The public is being shielded from the extent of civilian casualties; if people saw the war close up, they would not be so enthusiastic about it. I witnessed this ‘collateral damage’ in…

  • Dissenting Voices At a Time of War and Faith

    SISTER EVELYN MATTERN Program associate at the North Carolina Council of Churches, Mattern said today: “Christians have a ‘just war’ teaching that in theory can be used to judge any war. In practice, the teaching serves to bless rather than judge wars. For example, the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops recently invoked the ‘just war’ teaching…

  • * ABM * Bin Laden * Israel * Tribunals

    ALICE SLATER Director of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, Slater said today: “The Rumsfeld report on space [www.defenselink.mil/pubs/space20010111.html] and the Pentagon’s ‘Visions for 2020’ report [PDF: www.peterson.af.mil/usspacecom/visbook.pdf] show that the government plans to militarize space and to dominate and control that military high ground for economic interests. The ABM Treaty stands in…

  • Interviews Available: Stimulus or War Profiteering?

    MICAH SIFRY A senior analyst with Public Campaign, Sifry said today: “It’s obscene that some of corporate America thinks this is the moment to cash in on all their access and influence in Congress with unwarranted tax rebates and unnecessary bailouts. By a margin of 56 to 32 percent, the public chooses increased government spending…

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