News Releases

  • Interviews Available: * Mideast * Venezuela

    SARAH ANNE MINKIN JOSHUA RUEBNER A member of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel, Minkin will attend the National Rally in Solidarity with Israel today in Washington at the Capitol. She said today: “There is a growing Jewish movement in this country and around the world working for justice and peace for Israelis and Palestinians.” Ruebner, co-founder of the group, said today: “As Jews who love justice and peace, it’s offensive to us that, in our name, Israel is pursuing policies completely out of line with the truths of Judaism.” More Information KATHY KELLY, JEFF GUNTZEL Members of Voices…


  • Taxation Without Representation — and Representation Without Taxation

    BILL ALLISON Co-author of The Cheating of America: How Tax Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing the Country Billions — and What You Can Do About It, Allison is managing editor at the Center for Public Integrity. More Information SCOTT KLINGER (via Betsy Leondar-Wright) Co-director of Responsible Wealth and a chartered financial analyst, Klinger is the author of United for a Fair Economy’s new report “Titans of the Enron Economy: The 10 Habits of Highly Defective Corporations.” He said today: “Enron’s profits in the five years ending in 2000 were $1.8 billion, which would mean $625 million…


  • Interviews Available: Mideast Crisis

    DIAA HADID Hadid, an Australian citizen, is assisting Ittijah, a Haifa-based network of Arab associations. With many phone lines in the West Bank cut, Ittijah is connecting media to Palestinian civilians in the West Bank. More Information NAJEH JARRAR Professor of sociology at An-Najah National University, which is in Nablus, Jarrar is currently in Jenin. He said today: “For 10 days, we’ve been under curfew, no electricity, no water, a shortage of food. The Israelis conquered the city four days ago and searched the houses one by one. Today they forced out the residents of the refugee camp. Some of…


  • Israeli Palestinian Conflict: Voices

    ALI ABUNIMAH Abunimah is vice president of the Arab-American Action Network More Information MARC ELLIS Ellis is director of the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University. He is author of Practicing Exile: The Religious Odyssey of a American Jew and a recent essay about this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (which is Tuesday) entitled “A Revolutionary Coincidence.” EMAD FRAITEKH Internet director for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Fraitekh is from Nablus. Two of his cousins were killed in Nablus when a missile from an Apache helicopter hit their home late last week. He is in contact…


  • Crisis in Middle East: Interviews Available

    JOEL CAMPAGNA Program coordinator on the Middle East and North Africa for the Committee to Protect Journalists, Campagna said today: “We are outraged by the Israeli army’s continuing attacks against journalists. Today’s incident in Ramallah, in which the army fired stun grenades and rubber bullets at reporters, is reprehensible. On several occasions in recent days, the Israel Defense Forces have opened fire on, or in the direction of, working journalists, in a clear effort to intimidate journalists reporting in the West Bank. These actions must cease and we call on the IDF to lift the restrictions now in place on…


  • U.S. and Israeli Policies: The Road Ahead

    SIMONA SHARONI Sharoni is professor of peace and conflict studies and Middle East politics at Evergreen State College and executive director of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development. An Israeli Jew who served in the Israeli army, she said today: “Sharon will probably do as much damage as he can before Powell gets to Israel next week, the same way he did before Zinni’s trip. Israel’s leaders have proven that they can go into the West Bank towns anytime they want. There should be an inquiry commission to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by Israel in the…


  • Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Interviews Available

    CHRIS TOENSING Editor of Middle East Report, Toensing talked this morning with Boston Globe reporter Anthony Shadid, who was shot yesterday. Shadid has written for Middle East Report. Toensing said today: “The bullet missed Anthony’s spinal cord by a centimeter. The talk of him being ‘caught in the crossfire’ is misleading. The circumstantial evidence is that an Israeli sharpshooter hit him. His jacket clearly said ‘TV’ on both the front and back. The Israelis slowed his treatment by trying to prevent his Palestinian translator from leaving Ramallah with him. Israel has demanded that all journalists get out of Ramallah. This…


  • Interviews Available on McCain-Feingold Law

    JOHN MOYERS Editor and publisher of TomPaine.com, Moyers wrote the recent article “Measuring the First Step: Campaign Finance Reform and the ‘Fannie Lou Hamer Standard.’” He said today: “At best, McCain-Feingold is a first step. It does nothing to get at the heart of the problem, which is that we have privately financed public servants. That’s oxymoronic. He who pays the piper calls the tune — we need to give candidates a clean money option.” More Information SPENCER OVERTON An acting professor of law at the University of California at Davis specializing in voting rights, campaign finance and property law,…


  • Interviews Available: Perspectives on Arab Summit

    AS’AD ABUKHALIL Associate professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and research fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, AbuKhalil is author of the just-released book Bin Laden, Islam, and America’s New “War on Terrorism” and The Historical Dictionary of Lebanon. He said today: “The Arab people are not holding their breath over the results of this summit. Twenty-five Arab summits have been held in the name of ‘liberating Palestine’ while the plight of Palestinians continued to worsen and while Israeli occupation expanded. The U.S. government may be holding its…


  • Bush’s Latin America Trip: Interviews Available

    LARRY BIRNS and ALEX VOLBERDING Birns is director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and Volberding is a research fellow there. Birns said today: “Bush’s trip is more about ginning up enthusiasm for the ‘war on terrorism’ and the ‘drug war’ than aimed at promoting meaningful progress at democratization and human rights. Bush’s heralded $5 billion in aid carries stiff conditions mandating that recipient countries accept the Treasury Department’s economic game plan and is almost insignificant given the magnitude of world poverty — over 40 percent of the population of Latin America lives below the poverty line…. Bush’s call to…


  • Welfare Policy

    Congressional hearings are being held today on President Bush’s nomination of Wade Horn, the founder of the Fatherhood Initiative, to become Assistant Secretary for Family Support at the Department of Health and Human Services. On Friday, the National Council of Women’s Organizations will hold a briefing on “welfare reform” reauthorization. The following analysts are available…

  • A War Chest Against AIDS in Africa?

    This morning, President Bush, joined by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, announced $200 million for a new global “war chest” to fight AIDS around the world. Many activists and analysts familiar with the situation were immediately critical; some have been protesting in front of the White House this afternoon. Among…

  • Judicial Nominees: Implications as Federalist Society Supplants ABA

    As President Bush makes appointments to federal courts, the following analysts are available for interviews: JULIE GERCHIK Assistant director of the Institute for Democracy Studies and co-author of the recently-released report “The Federalist Society and the Challenge to a Democratic Jurisprudence,” Gerchik said today: “Behind the tidal wave of new judicial nominees are key organizations…

  • Rumsfeld: Lost in Space?

    This afternoon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is announcing plans for a major boost in the importance of space for U.S. military strategy. The following analysts are available for interviews: KARL GROSSMAN Author of the forthcoming Weapons in Space, Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York. He has just completed…

  • Energy Policy

    WENONAH HAUTER Director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, Hauter said today: “The Bush administration’s proposal to urge federal agencies to conserve electricity is a sham, because Bush’s previous commitments to slash energy efficiency and conservation efforts in the private sector will overwhelm any gains made in the public sector…. The year…

  • Social Security Panel

    Today, President Bush named members of a new White House panel aimed at overhauling Social Security. Among those on the commission are individuals associated with AOL Time Warner, Reliant Equity Investors, Fidelity Investments, the World Bank and the American Enterprise Institute. The following analysts are available for interviews: DIANA ZUCKERMAN President of the National Center…

  • Major Military Issues: Bombing Vieques, National Missile Defense, Terrorism Report

    ROBERTO RABIN Director of Vieques Historic Archives and a spokesperson for the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, Rabin said today: “The people of Vieques, with the wide support of the Puerto Rican community, have mounted an intense campaign to end 60 years of U.S. Navy presence, exercises and destruction of the island…

  • Interviews Available: What Kind of Globalization?

    The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are holding their spring meetings in Washington. The following critics of those institutions are available for interviews: NJOKI NJOROGE NJEHU Director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network, a coalition of over 200 U.S. grassroots groups dedicated to transforming the World Bank and the IMF, Njehu testified before…

  • On Bob Kerrey and Vietnam

    Former Sen. Bob Kerrey’s public statements during the last day — prompted by revelations about to be reported by the New York Times and “60 Minutes II” about a raid he led that killed unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War — have raised important issues. This afternoon, the following statement comes from Brian Willson, a…

  • Peru Plane Downing: Broader Issues

    A front-page article in today’s Washington Post reports that the CIA was late in warning the Peruvian military not to fire on the civilian airplane carrying missionaries. The following analysts are available for interviews on broader U.S. policy questions: CECILIA ZARATE-LAUN Co-founder and director of the Colombia Support Network, Zarate-Laun said today: “The downing of…

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