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News Releases

  • Power Struggles in Haiti and Venezuela: Interviews Available

    BILL FLETCHER Executive director of TransAfrica, Fletcher said today: “In recent weeks, the Haitian crisis has been deepening. In addition to mass protests against President Aristide, demanding his resignation, there have been military assaults in several cities and what appears to be a move toward insurrection. The alleged rebels have been described in different ways, but they appear to be the armed wing of at least a section of the opposition…. President Aristide was duly elected by the Haitian people. In fact, he was elected twice…. We believe that there are legitimate criticisms of President Aristide…. Given the association of…

  • Scandal on Pre-War U.N. Spying by U.S. Now Mushrooming in Mexico and Chile

    Statements from Mexican and Chilean government officials in recent days are bringing renewed interest to the subject of U.S. spying at the United Nations in early 2003 prior to the Iraq war. The story first broke in March 2003 when the Observer newspaper in London published a U.S. National Security Agency memo describing a “surge” in U.N. spying aimed at winning authorization for war ­ targeted “against” delegations from swing countries on the Security Council. Former British intelligence employee Katharine Gun, who leaked the memo, now faces two years in prison. * According to last Sunday’s edition of the Observer…

  • New Support for British Whistleblower Katharine Gun

    Members of Congress today released an open letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in support of Katharine Gun, the former British intelligence employee who faces two years in prison for leaking a memo to the press that exposed a U.S. surveillance “surge” against countries on the U.N. Security Council aimed at securing authorization for war on Iraq. The Congressional letter was signed by House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI). It was initiated by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) and also signed by Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-IL) and Rep. Lynn…

  • Bush’s Nuclear Proposal: Hypocrisy Charged

    JOHN BURROUGHS Burroughs is executive director of the New York-based Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy. He said this afternoon: “While Bush proposes ad hoc measures to limit the capacity of other countries to produce nuclear materials usable in reactors or bombs, his administration has yet to agree to start negotiations on a verified treaty (the Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty) that would bar all countries, including the United States, from their production for weapons purposes. All other major countries — including China — are ready to work on establishing such a ban…. In the 2005 budget he just proposed to Congress,…

  • * Bush: A Call for Censure * Prosecuting Protestors

    TREVOR FITZGIBBON Fitzgibbon is a contact person for a campaign being launched today by MoveOn.org and the national coalition Win Without War to censure President George W. Bush for misleading the American people in the lead-up to the war in Iraq. This afternoon a news conference at the National Press Club included a father of a U.S. soldier who died in Iraq More Information JOHN C. BONIFAZ, [via Blanca Oliviery] An attorney in Boston, Bonifaz wrote the recent article “The First Lie” and the just-released book Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush. More Information More Information FRANCIS BOYLE…

  • * Bush Iraq Deceptions — Then and Now * Skull vs. Bones?

    JOHN R. MACARTHUR, [via] Author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, MacArthur repeatedly scrutinized Bush’s claims during the buildup to the Iraq invasion, writing the article “Sounds Fishy, Mr. President” in October 2002 [See: www.commondreams.org/views02/1028-09.htm]. In December 2002 he was quoted on an IPA news release: “Recently, Bush cited an IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] report that Iraq was ‘six months away from developing a [nuclear] weapon. I don’t know what more evidence we need.’ The IAEA responded that not only was there no new report, ‘there’s never been a report’ asserting that Iraq was six…

  • * Cheney Scandal * Tauzin/PHARMA * Candidates and War Powers

    PRATAP CHATTERJEE Chatterjee, recently back from Iraq, is program director at Corpwatch. He said today: “Newsweek reported Wednesday that the Justice Department has opened up an inquiry into whether Halliburton paid $180 million in bribes to win a contract in Nigeria when Dick Cheney was chairman of the company…. Last year Cheney received two dollars from Halliburton for every dollar he earns as vice president by taking advantage of loopholes in the tax code while the company made $8 billion from military contracts in Iraq…. Meanwhile, on my recent trip to investigate Halliburton in Iraq, we found that Halliburton was…

  • “Intelligence Failure”?

    RAY McGOVERN McGovern worked as a CIA analyst for 27 years. Before the invasion of Iraq he co-authored the article “Cooking Intelligence for War” with other members of the steering group for Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He said today: “The ‘investigation’ is slated to go past the election. Members will be picked by the president, and the scope is unconscionably wider than is necessary. They can investigate the space shuttle disaster in nine months; there’s no reason why they need longer for this, especially since so much work has already been done.” More Information More Information JOHN QUIGLEY Quigley…

  • The Economy: Nine Months Before Election Day * Budget * Job Training * The Deficit

    CHRIS HARTMAN, [via Christina Kasica] Research director for United for a Fair Economy, Hartman said today: “Tax cuts by the current administration have shifted the tax burden to the middle class and widened the wealth gap into a chasm…. The annual deficit is of historic proportions, over half a trillion for this year alone. With its tax cuts for the wealthy, the administration is engineering a fiscal train wreck that will damage the economy and limit the ability of the government to provide important services for years to come.” More Information MIRIAM PEMBERTON Pemberton is the peace and security editor…

  • Prominent Americans Support British Whistleblower

    An array of high-profile Americans — including Rev. Jesse Jackson, feminist Gloria Steinem, Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, leaders of the ACLU and the Newspaper Guild, and artists such as Sean Penn, Bonnie Raitt and Martin Sheen — released a joint statement Thursday (Jan. 29) in support of Katharine Gun, a British whistleblower. Ms. Gun faces two years in prison in England for alerting the public about U.S. spying on United Nations diplomats aimed at securing U.N. approval for war against Iraq. The initiator of the statement is Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers exposing decades of deception…

  • Rubio-Trump “Starving the Cuban People,” Creating “Ludicrous Pretext” for Invasion

    “’Cuba is the country under attack,’ said the Cuban embassy in a statement, months into a ramped-up oil blockade by the U.S. that has left the island’s electric grid in a ‘critical state’ and forced frequent rolling blackouts as well as causing a healthcare crisis, with tens of thousands of people waiting for surgeries.”

  • What the West Can Learn from Islamic Environmental Thought

    A new book, The Cambridge Handbook of Islam and Environmental Law, brings together 24 authors across 14 countries––including Egypt, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Qatar––to map out the history and promises of Islamic environmental thought. Dan Danielsen writes in the text’s foreword that the book “doesn’t add Islamic perspectives to existing frameworks” but “exposes…

  • Fertilizer Crisis: An Argument for Organic Farming

    “It’s not true that crops can’t be grown without synthetic, fossil fuel derived fertilizers as some claim. Organic farms don’t use these, but it is true that U.S. industrial farms rely on them. Many industrial farms using the most synthetic fertilizer don’t grow food. They grow field corn that is inedible and is used primarily…

  • Rape and Torture in Palestine: What Nicholas Kristof Left Out of The New York Times

    “The documentation of this is clear. This existed before October 7th. I think that’s one thing I’m upset with Kristof about, Kristof did not make that clear in his column. You could read it almost as if this is a recent development. It’s not. The systematic torture, including rape and sexual assault on Palestinian prisoners,…

  • Netanyahu Complains About Outlets Which Hire Israeli Operatives

    Adam Johnson writes about the CBS “60 Minutes” interview with Netanyahu on Sunday night: “It’s even more softball than you can imagine: No mention of Netanyahu’s ICC warrant, no mention of the 20,000+ dead children, no mention of 200+ journalists killed, 60 Mins props up conspiracy theory outrage over Gaza is driven by foreign bots;…

  • “Patent Thickets” Continue to Drive Up Global Drug Prices

    In a new article, Swiss pharmaceutical industry and healthcare reporter Jessica Davis Plüss argues that an under-discussed driver of high drug prices worldwide––including the cancer drug Keytruda––is the industry’s use of “patent thickets” that extend monopolies long after original patents should expire.  TAHIR AMIN; [email protected]      Amin is the founder and CEO of the Initiative for…

  • Rubio Claims U.S. Only Defensive, Then U.S. Attacks Civilian Ship, Violating International Law

    “The incident marks at least the second time the U.S. military fired on a civilian ship in the Gulf of Oman while enforcing the blockade.”

  • Washington Post Quotes Official About “Fresh Scrutiny” Over Israel’s Nuclear Threat

    He wrote the in-depth article “The Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program,” which makes numerous points including: “During the 1973 war, Israel used nuclear blackmail to force Kissinger and Nixon to airlift massive amounts of military hardware to Israel.” He stresses that Israel’s nuclear weapons program should not be compared with the North Korean, Indian or Pakistani programs.…

  • Israeli Targeting of Flotilla Part of Continued Attack on Gaza

    Al Jazeera reports: “Two activists from a Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla have been presented before an Israeli court days after they were abducted following their detention with 175 other campaigners by Israel in international waters near Greece.”

  • The Role of Democrats in Iran Policy

    Some experts say that Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration missed key opportunities to shift course on Iran, with the result of a deepening crisis shaped by a longstanding reluctance or refusal to prioritize diplomacy. In 2024, Sina Toossi wrote that President Biden’s approach to Iran was “particularly self-defeating.” 

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