News Releases

  • Analysis of Trump’s Claim That Christianity Is “Under Attack”

    At the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville last month, Donald Trump told the audience that Christianity is “under attack.”


  • Harris’ Non-“Ceasefire”

    Kimberley added: “Is Harris calling for a ceasefire or is the president? She says this proposal is now on the table. So it isn’t new. … The word ceasefire has been co-opted. We must say end funding and weapons to Israel and no to displacing Palestinians in Gaza.” Journalist Laila Al-Arian writes: “She’s not calling for a ceasefire. She’s calling for a six week pause to release the hostages. The people of Gaza have called for a permanent ceasefire. Giving them a break only to resume killing them is not a ceasefire.” Abed A. Ayoub of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee…


  • Israel: Atrocities, Fabrications and Complicities

    “Civil society organisations around the world are demanding political leaders listen to the voice of the public. They want action to end the genocide now. To turn a blind eye is to be complicit. Signatories to the Genocide Convention are doing worse: in abrogation of their responsibilities under international law, many are continuing to enable the supply of arms or arms parts to Israel. This is criminal state behaviour. …”


  • Vets on Aaron Bushnell’s Self-Immolation

    See images of a vigil from Monday night for Aaron Bushnell who immolated himself in front of the Israeli embassy, shouting “Free Palestine!” over and over again. MIKE FERNER, [email protected], @VFPNational Ferner is national director of Veterans For Peace, which just put out a statement: “Aaron’s motivation is strikingly similar to that of Norman Morrison, a 35-year-old, Quaker activist who set himself ablaze in the Pentagon parking lot below Secretary of War McNamara’s office, November 2, 1965. … “We could call our policymakers ‘madmen arsonists’ because they go around the globe setting fires much faster than we can extinguish them.”…


  • Political Journalism in 2024

    “If you have one political party in a two-party system that has built lying, cheating, and stealing into its DNA, and the media treats [both parties] as equal actors, then the media is biased toward the party willing to lie, cheat, and steal. The Republicans get a booster seat from mainstream journalism.”


  • * Self-Immolation * NYT Credibility

    “While Self-immolation became well-known in the West after Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc’s self-immolation in what was formerly known as Saigon (currently Ho Chi Minh City) on June, 11 1963, this practice has been described in ancient Hindu and Buddhist literature. In one of the earliest tales of the Jataka-Mala, they recount a story of a Bodhisattva (an enlightened being), who jumps into a wood fire to provide food for a hungry Brahmin. In the ancient literature, they always describe an enlightened man who makes a calculated self-sacrifice on behalf of a larger group or community.”


  • Anti-Zionist Jews Take on AIPAC

    Jewish Voice for Peace states: “Over 5,000 Jews and allies, including rabbis and descendants of Holocaust survivors, shut down the AIPAC headquarters in New York City on Thursday, protesting the organization’s involvement in U.S. politics that threatens to undermine democracy by funneling millions of dollars into swaying members of Congress to oppose a ceasefire in Gaza, which is favored by the vast majority of Americans. “Down the block from AIPAC’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, police arrested 18 protesters inside the offices of AIPAC-supported Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, who oppose a ceasefire and voted last week to send $14.1 billion in military funding to Israel.”…


  • Doctors Without Borders: Israel Is Attacking Our Convoys

    Israeli forces have attacked our convoys, detained our staff, and bulldozed our vehicles, and hospitals have been bombed and raided. Now, for a second time, one of our staff shelters has been hit. Our colleagues in Gaza are fearful that, as I speak to you today, they will be punished tomorrow. Madame President, every day we witness unimaginable horror. … There is no health system to speak of left in Gaza. Israel’s military has dismantled hospital after hospital. What remains is so little in the face of such carnage. It is preposterous. The excuse given is that medical facilities have been…


  • Myths About Israel and International Law

    Regarding the ongoing International Court of Justice hearings on the legality of Israel’s 56-year occupation of Palestinian land, he noted: “This is the largest case in history — more than 50 countries are taking part in this, and the U.S. is virtually alone (but for Fiji) in defending the legality of Israel’s occupation. Most states are affirming its illegality and cataloging Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other gross violations of international law. This includes central tenets of international law (‘jus cogens norms’) from which there is no escape: the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, the violation of…


  • Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Plans and the Ignored Barghouti Factor

    Silverstein continued: “Given the close security relationship between Israel and Egypt, the latter would certainly permit Israeli troops to enter the camps at will. Isn’t that convenient? Prest-0 change-o, Israel solves its Gaza problem. It gets to destroy Hamas (and Gaza along with it), unloads 80 percent of Gaza’s population on others, and Bibi Netanyahu gets to run a victory lap in Jerusalem. … There is one course events could take that would solve everyone’s problem, including the Palestinians. In the prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, it could free Marwan Barghouti, the most charismatic leader in Palestine. All factions respect…


  • Globalization Without Representation?

    The following analysts, many in Seattle, are available for comment on the World Trade Organization: LORI WALLACH Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, Wallach said: “President Clinton’s PR stunt on the child labor treaty is the height of hypocrisy, given he knows that absent major WTO changes – which he has refused to demand…

  • Clinton and Protests in Seattle

    JUDITH BARISH An editor of the World Trade Observer and former communications director for the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, Barish said: “In 1994, Clinton promised not to support the establishment of the World Trade Organization unless it addressed labor standards, but that was forgotten. Now the administration is again talking up labor standards. But their…

  • WTO vs. Democracy?

    REP. DENNIS KUCINICH A letter to President Clinton initiated by Rep. Kucinich (D-Ohio) and signed by 113 House Democrats says: “The WTO infringes on the sovereignty of nations to enforce worker rights. A proposed bill to ban products made with child labor is WTO-illegal…” Speaking to World Trade Watch, a daily national radio program co-produced…

  • WTO Rules: The Record

    SEATTLE – Since its founding five years ago, the World Trade Organization has consistently settled trade disputes in favor of corporate interests, frequently deeming labor and environmental regulations “non-tariff trade barriers.” Conflicts between countries are decided by three unelected WTO officials in Geneva in secretive proceedings. With each nation challenging or threatening to challenge each…

  • Road to Seattle: Key Battles on WTO

    WASHINGTON — In the lead-up to the World Trade Organization ministerial summit in Seattle next week, U.S. trade representative Charlene Barshefsky spoke at the National Press Club today. But critics charge that she is speaking on behalf of discredited U.S. trade policies. SCOTT NOVA Director of the Citizens Trade Campaign, Nova said Tuesday afternoon: “Barshefsky…

  • Road to WTO Summit in Seattle: Why the Protests?

    JUDITH BARISH An editor of the World Trade Observer and former communications director for the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, Barish said: “There will be thousands of people protesting in the streets in Seattle, but not because we oppose trade and economic globalization. We want to see the rules written to protect workers and citizens as…

  • Budget Debate: Public Vs. Politicians

    STEVEN KULL Director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes and co-author of Misreading the Public: The Myth of a New Isolationism, Kull said: “When pollsters ask Americans how they feel about spending — on, for example, defense and foreign aid — they say to keep defense where it is and cut foreign aid. However,…

  • Human Rights, Trade and Foreign Policy

    While President Clinton visits Turkey and tries to bring China into the World Trade Organization, the following analysts are available for comment: BAMA ATHREYA Director of Asia Programs for the International Labor Rights Fund, Athreya said: “The U.S.-China negotiations on China’s entry into the WTO are certainly a boon for U.S. business, but will it…

  • Battles on Campaign Finance

    Mass. Legislature Tries to Loophole Reform; Judge Upholds Maine Initiative DAVID DONNELLY Campaign manager for Mass Voters for Clean Elections, Donnelly commented: “For years the legislature would not pass public funding of campaigns even though that’s what most people wanted. We put it on the ballot and it won by two-to-one a year ago. On…

  • Berlin Wall Anniversary

    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: “Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany is a deeply troubled nation, vexed by high unemployment, a stagnant economy, acrimonious relations between eastern and western residents, a charged…

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