News Releases

  • Pinochet’s Release

    JOYCE HORMAN Joyce Horman is the widow of Charles Horman. Along with another U.S. citizen, Frank Teruggi, he was detained and murdered in September 1973 in the days following Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s bloody military coup backed by the U.S. government. She has worked to uncover the facts about his murder for more than 26 years. Today she said: “With this decision to allow Pinochet to go to Chile rather than face justice in Spain, it becomes even more important to press the U.S. intelligence agencies to release the remaining documents they have on the cases of Charles Horman and Frank…


  • Religion and Politics

    REV. JIM WALLIS Editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, Rev. Wallis said: “Al Gore and George W. Bush have talked about how much Jesus influenced them. The question has been whether that’s an appropriate thing for a candidate to talk about. It is very appropriate for a candidate to speak of their personal faith — if they say what it means in relation to public policy issues. So what would Jesus say about poverty in the midst of prosperity? What would Jesus say about 44 million Americans without health insurance?…. Talking about whether Bush’s speech at Bob Jones University will affect how…


  • Bradley and McCain: Insurgents?

    MATTHEW ROTHSCHILD Editor of The Progressive, Rothschild said: “Bradley doesn’t represent a real alternative to Gore or McCain or Bush. He supports the death penalty. He favors tougher sanctions on Iraq. Along with Gore, he has been a leading proponent of NAFTA and the World Trade Organization; and he, like Gore, has carried water for the pharmaceutical companies. Bradley’s health plan is a far cry from universal care, and he leaves the insurance companies firmly in command. He voted for aiding the contras in 1986. Bradley — like Gore, McCain and Bush — is for bloated Pentagon spending and has…


  • Scientist’s Resignation Raises Questions About Nuclear Policy

    A month ago, Andreas Toupadakis held a classified position at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. But he resigned his post, voicing criticisms of U.S. nuclear policy. Interviews are available with Dr. Toupadakis and other nuclear policy analysts: ANDREAS TOUPADAKIS Prior to joining the staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s “Stockpile Stewardship” program on nuclear weapons, Toupadakis worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Shortly after resigning, he issued an open letter which reads in part: “I have seen how easy it is for nuclear contamination to occur, and how hard it is to clean it up…. Do nations possess nuclear, chemical…


  • Rising Cost of Oil… And Embargo

    WENONAH HAUTER During the last year, gasoline prices have gone up from about 90 cents a gallon to $1.36, while crude oil has gone from $12 to $30 a barrel. Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy Project, said today: “Throughout the history of the oil industry, it has been plagued with sharp peaks and valleys in oil pricing. The recent rise in oil prices is completely predictable. Most of the time, oil interests are able to collude and keep prices high. But, occasionally, like last year, their cooperative — some would say non-competitive — efforts fail and prices…


  • Still “Missing”: Truth About Chile

    A front page New York Times story reported Sunday on passages of State Department documents which show that the U.S. government knew far more than it acknowledged about the murder of two U.S. citizens in Chile. Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi, who supported the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, were detained and murdered in September 1973 in the days following Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s bloody military coup backed by the U.S. government. Their execution was the subject of the film “Missing.” The following people are available for interviews: PETER KORNBLUH National Security Archive senior analyst Kornbluh, who has led the…


  • Pharmaceutical Drugs: Mergers and Medicare

    Pfizer Inc. announced today that it plans to buy Warner-Lambert Co. for $90 billion in stock in a deal that creates the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company. Meanwhile President Clinton and others are putting out proposals on Medicare. The following analysts are available for interviews on these and other subjects related to the pharmaceutical industry: SIDNEY WOLFE, M.D. Director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, Dr. Wolfe said today: “This would be the 29th significant merger in the pharmaceutical industry in the last decade. There is no evidence that the economies of scale have resulted in price savings to consumers…


  • Major Foreign Policy Issues: Austrian Neo-Nazis, Sanctions on Iraq, NATO and War Crimes, Israeli Nukes

    MARTIN A. LEE The author of “The Beast Reawakens,” a recent book about neofascism and right-wing extremism in Europe and the U.S., Lee said today: “The inclusion of Jorg Haider’s Freedom Party, a movement with openly fascist roots, in the national governing coalition in Austria is one of the most dangerous developments in contemporary European politics. Holocaust-deniers and neofascist ideologues are influential figures within the Freedom Party, and its dramatic rise to power has coincided with a sharp increase in racist violence in Austria, where shocking levels of anti-Semitism persist. There is reason to be concerned about a spillover effect…


  • New Hampshire: Battle of the Big Bucks

    On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, some analysts argue that money has largely determined the front runners. GEORGE W. BUSH Raised in this race: $57,120,597. Top career patrons: Enron Corporation (natural gas), $555,275; Sanchez family (banking, oil and gas), $322,400; Vinson & Elkins (law firm), $316,950; Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst (a leverage buyout firm; its founder bought the Texas Rangers from Bush and his partners in 1998), $305,150; Bass family (financed Harken Energy’s drilling in Bahrain in 1990 when Bush was a Harken director), $273,927; The Sterling Group (merchant bank), $259,000; MBNA Corporation, $244,416; Pilgrim’s Pride (poultry),…


  • State of the Issues

    The following analysts are available to comment on President Clinton’s policies and his State of the Union address: KAREN DOLAN Coordinator of the Progressive Challenge project, Dolan said: “The economic boom has bypassed millions of Americans; there’s been a widening of the gap between rich and poor. We need more progressive taxation… Clinton has missed an incredible historic opportunity to reduce the military budget and shift spending to pressing human needs.” More Information EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON Author of “The Crisis in Black and Black,” Hutchinson said: “The government has not lived up to its promises in ’empowerment zones.’ You see…


  • Microsoft Decision

    Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled on Monday evening that Microsoft has violated antitrust law. The following analysts are available for interviews beginning Tuesday: NORMAN HAWKER A law professor at Western Michigan University, Hawker said: “Judge Jackson crossed the Rubicon in the antitrust case against Microsoft.” Hawker, who has published numerous articles on antitrust law…

  • Martin Luther King — and “Globalization”

    A year to the day before his assassination on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a landmark speech in which he denounced the Vietnam War — and challenged global economic relations. Now, 32 years later, hundreds of organizations are preparing to protest the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund…

  • Trustees’ Report Shows Social Security Rock Solid

    The following analysts are available for interviews about the just-released Trustees’ report on Social Security and Medicare: MARK WEISBROT Co-author of Social Security: The Phony Crisis and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot said today: “Social Security is financially rock solid — something that one would never know from listening to…

  • Police Brutality

    New occurrences of misconduct by police officers are in the national news. The following critics of abuses are available for interviews: RON DANIELS Daniels is executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of the essay “The Crisis of Police Brutality and Misconduct in America: The Causes and the Cure” in the forthcoming…

  • Bombing of Yugoslavia: One Year Later

    JAN HARTSOUGH Shortly after the bombing of Yugoslavia started a year ago today, Hartsough traveled to the Balkans with a social-change organization called Crabgrass. She also attended the Women in Black international conference in October 1999 in Montenegro. She said today: “A police force that can establish law and justice in Kosovo still has not…

  • While Senate Holds DOE Hearing Today, Nuclear Victims Blast Narrow Scope

    WASHINGTON — While the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee holds a hearing today to focus on health and safety issues at two Department of Energy atomic plants, representatives of workers and others subjected to radiation exposure say that the Senate panel is dodging a wide array of serious problems at DOE nuclear facilities across the country.…

  • Foreign Policy Issues: India, Taiwan and Russia

    NEIL TANGRI Field director for the Multinationals Resource Center, Tangri has worked in India on development issues. He said today: “The past 10 years have seen dramatic changes in the Indian economy. Frustrated by corruption and a sense of losing the economic race to China and the ‘tiger’ economies, Indian politicians on both the right…

  • “New Economy” or Stock Bubble?

    As the stock market continues to rise, many analysts are proclaiming a “New Economy.” They argue that computer technologies have created a market not bound by the physical constraints of the old industrial economy. But are we becoming increasingly unprepared for a downturn? Among the critics of the New Economy available for interviews are: ELLEN…

  • Congressional Commission Slams IMF; Analysts Available for Interviews

    The new report from the International Financial Institutions Advisory Commission, created by Congress in 1998, is adding to calls for drastic reform of the International Monetary Fund. The “Meltzer Commission” report urges full cancellation of the debts owed by poor countries to the IMF and the World Bank as well as significant reduction of the…

  • Beyond “Super Tuesday”

    LEONARD WILLIAMS Professor of political science at Manchester College and co-author of the recent Campaigns and Elections article “‘Moderates Win’ and Other Political Myths,” Williams said today: “In part the election fits the standard scenario of the more established candidates winning after a bit of trouble. But up to this point in the campaign there’s…

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