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News Releases

  • Patriotism: Interviews Available

    MICHAEL PARENTI Author of The Terrorism Trap and Democracy For the Few, Parenti said today: “July 4th celebrates that moment in history, over 225 years ago, when American colonials launched a revolutionary fight for independence from the British empire. In their campaign they were assisted by people from various countries. Today all over the world peoples are struggling for independence from the power of global corporatism. Let’s celebrate this July 4 with an expression of support and solidarity for people who want to use their land, labor, natural resources, and markets for self-development and popular well-being rather than for the…

  • Interviews Available on Bush’s Mideast Plan

    STEPHEN ZUNES Associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, Zunes is the Middle East editor at the Foreign Policy in Focus Project. He said today: “It is remarkable how President Bush insists on democratic governance and an end to violence and corruption as a prerequisite for Palestinian self-determination when his administration, as well as many administrations before him, have strongly supported a series of violent, corrupt and autocratic regimes throughout the Middle East and beyond. It should be apparent that Bush’s criticisms of Arafat’s regime, however valid, are…

  • Huge Pay Gaps: Enron and Beyond

    Enron disclosed in court documents on Tuesday that before collapsing last year it paid out $744 million in salary, bonuses and stock grants to the company’s 140 senior officers — an average of $5.3 million each. The following analysts are available for interviews about such practices: DEAN BAKER Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Baker said today: “There have been a wide range of government policies facilitating the rise in executive compensation over the last two decades, which were supported by both parties. For example, when the Financial Accounting Standards Board wanted to require that firms list…

  • $10,000 Fine for Taking Medicine to Children

    While the administration signals it is moving toward an all-out attack on Iraq, it has fined a Seattle resident, Bert Sacks, $10,000 for his admission that he took medicines to Iraq. Sacks decided to respond today [Monday] at a 10 a.m. news conference at the National Press Club. HOWARD ZINN A widely read historian who has authored numerous books including A People’s History of the United States and Terrorism and War, Zinn said today: “The punishment of a citizen for engaging in a humanitarian act — bringing medicine to people in desperate need — should not be accepted in a…

  • Earth First! and the FBI: What the Verdict Means

    Twelve years after Darryl Cherney and Judi Bari were arrested for the bombing of their own car, a jury awarded them $4.4 million Tuesday in their suit against the FBI and the Oakland Police for framing them. DARRYL CHERNEY, DENNIS CUNNINGHAM In 1990, Cherney was injured in a car bombing along with fellow Earth First! activist Judi Bari. The two were arrested when the FBI claimed that they had planted the bomb. All charges against Bari and Cherney were later dropped. Cherney sued the FBI. So did Bari, who later died of cancer. Dennis Cunningham, the lead counsel in Bari…

  • Sharon’s Settlement Policy

    President Bush has indicated that he would like to delay any Mideast conference. The following analysts are available for interviews on Israel’s continued building of settlements in occupied territory: JESSICA MONTELL; YEHEZKEL LEIN The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has released a new report titled “Land Grab: Israel’s Settlement Policy in the West Bank.” Montell is the executive director and Lein is a researcher for B’Tselem, while Felner is a former director. Montell said today: “The research reveals that while the built-up areas of the settlements constitute only 1.7 percent of the land in the West Bank, the municipal boundaries…

  • Interviews Available on Alleged Nuclear Plot

    JAY TRUMAN Director of the Downwinders organization, a group made up of people exposed to nuclear tests, Truman is one of the nation’s foremost analysts of the effects of nuclear weapons testing. He said today: “A radiological warfare agent is not a nuclear bomb, rather it uses a conventional explosion to spread radioactive material. There would be severe panic and chaos and possibly long-term cancer problems, depending on what isotope was used. ‘Dirty bomb’ is a misleading label — the U.S. government’s nuclear tests with ‘clean bombs’ have done far more massive damage than a ‘dirty bomb’ could…. The U.S.…

  • Corporate Crime: A Major Law Enforcement Role?

    RUSSELL MOKHIBER Editor of Corporate Crime Reporter, Mokhiber said today: “Henry Paulson, the chairman of Goldman Sachs, is quoted on the front page of The New York Times today: ‘I cannot think of a time when business over all has been held in less repute.’ Why is that? Because corporate and white-collar crime inflict far more damage on society today than all street crime combined. With a jury about to decide whether Andersen will become the nation’s most recent corporate criminal, it’s time to take stock.” Mokhiber, who produced a list of the Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s,…

  • Interviews Available: Families from Some Ground Zeros

    YITZHAK FRANKENTHAL, IBRAHIM BUSHNAQ Frankenthal and Bushnaq head a delegation of the Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families Forum. They will be in Washington, D.C. from June 5 to June 7. Frankenthal, who founded the group which is made up of members of Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost loved ones in the conflict, said today: “The continuing violence highlights the relevance of our message. The majority of both peoples support peace. A recent poll found that, even after the recent Israeli military incursions, 75 percent of Palestinians support peace and security for both sides. Likewise, in Israel, polls consistently find that…

  • Interviews Available: India and Pakistan

    PERVEZ HOODBHOY Professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, Hoodbhoy said today: “Nuclear affairs are now being guided by wishful, delusional thinking. The most frightening delusion is India’s trivialization of Pakistan’s nuclear capability…. Lacking any desire for political settlement … jihadists in Kashmir [are attempting to] provoke full-scale war between India and Pakistan, destabilize Musharraf, and settle scores with the U.S…. Many observers have noted that attacks on Indian civilians coincided with the visits of high officials from Western countries. Could the upcoming visits by Richard Armitage and Rumsfeld provide a trigger for the next atrocity and a…

  • 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.” 

  • “Madman Theory” in War

    Thomas Reifer contends that we are drifting into an uncontained and potentially global war in which world leaders are deliberately acting mad. This “madman” approach is particularly dangerous in the nuclear age. Today, the number of armed conflicts around the world are higher than at any time since World War II.

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