In the largest corporate merger in history, America Online and Time Warner announced a $350 billion deal today. The following analysts are available for interviews: ROBERT McCHESNEY Professor at the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois and author of “Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times,” McChesney, who participated in a CNN discussion on the future of media with Time Warner head Gerald Levin a week ago, said today: “This deal culminates five years of frantic deal-making that have seen our media culture come to be dominated by less than 10 transnational media firms operating…

Vice President Al Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley repeatedly sparred in last night’s debate over health care — but some analysts are criticizing both politicians’ policy prescriptions as serving the interests of insurance companies. STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER, M.D. Director of the Center for National Health Program Studies at Harvard, Dr. Woolhandler said: “In 1993 Clinton’s managed competition proposal rejected a single-payer system, putting most Americans into private HMOs. Bradley’s plan is actually a step to the right of that. Unlike Clinton, Bradley doesn’t aim to cover everyone — he admits at most 95 percent, though it would probably be less.…

JANINE WEDEL Author of “Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe,” Wedel is associate professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and currently a fellow at the National Institute of Justice. She said Monday: “One of the very first things that the new Russian president Vladimir Putin did was to pardon Yeltsin, who is named in several investigations. The Clinton administration tends to see Putin as one of the ‘reformers,’ but these so-called reformers have been more about wealth confiscation than wealth creation. Their leader, Anatoly Chubais,…

MARY BETH BRANGAN Brangan is U.S. co-coordinator for the World Atomic Safety Holiday Campaign, an international network of 50 groups. She said: “It’s absurd that while major oil pipelines are being shut down as a precaution, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is relaxing normal safety rules in order to keep the reactors running during the rollover.” More Information LLOYD J. DUMAS Author of “Lethal Arrogance: Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies” and professor of political economy at the University of Texas at Dallas, Dumas can assess potential Y2K technical problems as well as the millennial activities of religious cults. EDWARD S.…

LLOYD J. DUMAS Author of “Lethal Arrogance: Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies” and professor of political economy at the University of Texas at Dallas, Dumas can assess potential Y2K technical problems as well as the millennial activities of religious cults. JOHN J. SIMON Albert Einstein has just been named Time magazine’s “Person of the Century.” In 1949, Einstein wrote the essay “Why Socialism?” for the premier issue of Monthly Review, a magazine on whose board Simon now serves. [Einstein’s essay is on the above web page.] Simon, a retired book publisher, said today: “Einstein was a lifelong socialist and a…

DAVID KOTZ Co-author of “Revolution from Above: The Demise of the Soviet System” and professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Kotz said Tuesday: “The war in Chechnya revived the political fortunes of pro-Yeltsin parties in the election to Russia’s relatively powerless Duma, as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s ‘strong hand’ proved popular with voters. However, the real contest will be the June-July 2000 election to select a successor to President Yeltsin… By June the war might turn into one more political liability for the power bloc behind the Yeltsin regime, in addition to the economic and social disaster inflicted…

NANCY SNOW Executive director of Common Cause in New Hampshire and assistant professor of political science at New England College, Snow was set to attend the meeting that got underway this morning in Claremont between Bill Bradley and John McCain. (Claremont is the site of the handshake between President Clinton and then-Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995, when they agreed to work for campaign finance reform.) She said: “Bradley and McCain are both going after the independent voter. In our primary, independents can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary… In the current system, ordinary citizens are reduced to whispering…

Today, the UN Security Council is scheduled to vote on a proposal regarding sanctions on Iraq. On Wednesday, talks begin between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syria’s foreign minister, Farouk al-Sharaa. These are among the analysts available for interviews: RANIA MASRI Founder of the Iraq Action Coalition, Masri said: “A year ago, UNSCOM head Richard Butler pulled the weapons inspectors — which the U.S. had used for espionage — out of Iraq just before the U.S. began Desert Fox…. The continuation of sanctions against the people of Iraq — as well as the continued U.S. bombings — further erode…

NASEER ARURI Professor at the University of Massachusetts, former board member of Amnesty International and author of “The Obstruction of Peace: The U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians,” Aruri is among over 1,000 who signed a petition against Yaser Arafat’s November 28 jailing of scores of political dissidents. Aruri commented today: “Clinton said he stood against those who are opposed to the current agreements between Yaser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Barak. That seems to be a tacit backing of the extraordinarily repressive measures taken by Arafat against those who are noting that the agreements are exceedingly unfair to the Palestinian…

ROBERT WEISSMAN Editor of Multinational Monitor and co-author of “Corporate Predators: The Hunt for Mega-Profits and the Attack on Democracy,” Weissman said: “The protests in Seattle contributed significantly to the failure of the WTO negotiations, dealing a major blow to the ambitious corporate agenda of expanding the trade agency’s reach. The challenge before public interest activists now is to develop institutions, mechanisms and rules to rein in the corporate activity that has been plundering the planet under the banner of economic globalization. The delegates from the poorer countries were emboldened by the protesters and for virtually the first time resisted…