News Releases

  • 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…


  • Interviews Available on China PNTR

    ROBERT E. SCOTT An international trade economist with the Economic Policy Institute and author of the recently released report “China and the States,” Scott said today: “In April, the Clinton administration published several hundred pages of state-by-state ‘opportunity reports’ purporting to show that ‘the passage of PNTR [Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China]…would open new export and employment opportunities in all 50 states.’ These reports were issued in an attempt to persuade Congress to approve the recently negotiated trade deal with China to ease its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, these reports not only fail to provide…


  • Social Security Politics

    Today, George W. Bush is expected to outline a Social Security plan that moves toward privatizing the program. The following policy analysts are available for interviews: DIANA ZUCKERMAN Executive director of the National Center for Policy Research for Women and Families, Zuckerman said today: “Allowing workers to divert some Social Security payroll taxes for personal investment, as George W. Bush proposes, would be a bad idea for most people, especially women. Private Social Security accounts, like checking accounts or any other accounts, would have fees. Low earners, many of whom are women, would put very little money in these individual…


  • Dr. King: Beyond the Dreamer

    Quotes from speeches and sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr. (full texts available at www.stanford.edu/group/King) From “The Drum Major Instinct”: Nations are caught up with the drum major instinct. “I must be first.” “I must be supreme.” “Our nation must rule the world.” And I am sad to say that the nation in which we…

  • 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…

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