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News Releases

  • With Protests Underway, Interviews Available

    As thousands protest against the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, the following are available for interviews: QUENTIN DRISKELL An attorney with the National Conference of Black Lawyers and the National Lawyers Guild, Driskell is providing legal assistance to protesters. He said today: “There’s a complete atmosphere of repression in Washington: the illegitimate preemptive arrests, the expansion of the restricted area around the World Bank building, the storming of the Convergence Center. The authorities seem bent on not allowing peaceful protests to go forward. The tactics that they’ve resorted to almost seem as if…

  • Analysts Available on Stock Downturn

    As Wall Street ends a week of plummeting stocks, economists who have warned of a massive price bubble are available for interviews: DEAN BAKER Dean Baker has written extensively about the over-valuation in the stock market the last three years, including a recent article in Dollars and Sense entitled “The New Economy: A Millennial Myth.” In an Institute for Public Accuracy news release on March 16 of this year — as the stock market was rising — Baker, who is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, warned about elation: “The main feature of the ‘new economy’ is…

  • IMF and Debt: Analysts Available

    As thousands gather in Washington to protest the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the following analysts are available for interviews: DENNIS KUCINICH A member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Kucinich (D-Ohio) said today: “Unless debt relief is delinked from a requirement of countries to follow IMF economic policies, the main beneficiary of Congressional funding for debt relief is the IMF. That’s because the IMF will receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, while poor countries will have to follow IMF dictates about government spending, health and education policy, monetary policy, privatization. But the IMF…

  • Critics — Some Unexpected — of IMF and World Bank

    Critics of the IMF and World Bank include Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Harvard Institute for International Development and an advisor to countries around the world. Today he told “Inside Capital” that the IMF, “with the very heavy backing of the U.S. government, really tries to run countries all over the world, and they don’t do a very good job of it.” Also, the former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz, now at the Brookings Institution, has written a New Republic piece quite critical of the IMF. Here are other critics of the IMF and World Bank, available for interviews:…

  • World Bank: Helping the Poor?

    With protests set for Washington in the next few days, these analysts on the World Bank are available for interviews. BEVERLY BELL Director of the Center for Economic Justice, Bell said today: “Throughout the global South, World Bank policies are devastating communities, environments, livelihoods, human rights, women’s status…” KEVIN DANAHER Co-editor of the new book Globalize This!, Danaher said today: “The World Bank takes our taxpayer money and uses it as collateral to issue bonds from major banks; that money is then used to create leverage over Third World elites. The World Bank lends these Third World governments money—on the…

  • Elian: Some Context

    These analysts are available for interviews on context in the Elian Gonzalez case: ELENA FREYRE Executive director of the Miami office of the Cuban Committee for Democracy, Freyre said today: “The Cuban American community is not monolithic. Returning Elian is part of broader reconciliation that needs to take place between Cubans. Part of the message that’s being sent is that if you live in Cuba, you can’t raise healthy, productive children — that’s not true.” MICHAEL RATNER Attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights and a fellow at Yale Law School, Ratner said today: “That this sad soap opera is…

  • Why Challenge the IMF and World Bank?

    With protests planned in mid-April for Washington, D.C., when the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund meet in the nation’s capital, the following analysts are now available for interviews about those institutions: DENNIS BRUTUS Now professor emeritus of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, Brutus was a political prisoner with Nelson Mandela. A member of Jubilee 2000 South Africa, Brutus said today: “The record of both the World Bank and IMF over a period of more than 50 years shows that they serve the interests of the corporations rather than of people. Their policies have led to increased…

  • 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 and the Microsoft case, noted that “the verdict against Microsoft demonstrates both the vitality of antitrust law and the need for strong remedial steps to restore competition in markets threatened by Microsoft.” ELEANOR FOX Professor of Law at New York University and co-author of the…

  • 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 in mid-April in Washington, D.C. The following activists are available for interviews: REV. JAMES LAWSON A colleague of King and pastor emeritus of the Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, Lawson said: “What Clinton and others call ‘globalization,’ King would call simply another way…

  • 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 politicians argue about who is going to ‘save’ the program. From what? This latest Trustees’ report shows that Social Security could be left on automatic pilot for the next 37 years and everyone would get every dollar of their promised benefits. Of course, it’s silly…

  • Silent Spring

    Spring is a time of new relationships and new growth, writes Miles Richardson, a U.K.-based professor of nature connectedness. But over two-thirds of wildlife populations have been lost since 1970. Each year, spring grows quieter. 

  • Covid Infection Risk by Occupation and Industry

    A new study in the American Journal of Public Health, “Covid-19 Risk by Workers’ Occupation and Industry in the United States, 2020–2021,” analyzed National Health Interview Survey data to investigate workers’ risk of Covid infection. Workers in health care and the social assistance industries experienced significantly elevated rates of infection.

  • DOJ Using “Foreign Agents” Charge to Repress Black Liberation Organizers

    “The FBI surveilled these Black liberation activists and their organizations for years before finally securing a search warrant for their personal residences and other locations connected to the African People’s Socialist Party and the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement. The FBI’s search warrants were based on a federal grand jury indictment, which charged an unrelated…

  • New Child Safety Bills Nationwide

    Dozens of bills purporting to make the internet safer for children and teenagers have been introduced in several states in the last few months. The content of child safety bills varies from state to state.

  • El Niño Weather and Disease Spread

    The world’s climate has been dominated by La Niña in the past few years, but experts predict that its opposite, El Niño, will take effect sometime this year. The El Niño cycle temporarily causes warmer temperatures and increased precipitation, and will likely result in increased disease spread. 

  • Ellsberg’s Message: Truth-Telling Stops Wars

    “The public has a right to know about so much that is hidden from view, especially threats to peace. We need truth-tellers inside major institutions, especially those involved in war-making to share internal secrets. Even if this means risking security clearances, careers or even jail time to share what they know.”

  • Don’t Run Joe Campaign Responds to Biden Announcement

    “In the face of clear polling that shows he is ill-positioned to defeat a Republican nominee, Biden is moving the Democratic Party toward a likely disaster in 2024. As the Democratic standard bearer, Biden would represent the status quo at a time when ‘wrong track’ polling numbers are at an unprecedented high.”

  • Dan Ellsberg Week: Warnings of Nuclear War, “Conspiracy to Commit Omnicide”

    Ellsberg was a nuclear war planner during the 1950s and ’60s. Since then, he has spent his life writing, speaking, standing up and sitting-in against the threat of nuclear annihilation. He offers chilling clarity about “the nuclear war planners, of which I was one, who have written plans to kill billions of people, a conspiracy…

  • Diverse Medical School Admissions Seen as Vital for Physician Workforce

    A new study shows that over a four-year period, of 81,000 MCAT examinees nationwide, Black and Hispanic exam-takers were less likely to apply to medical school than white exam-takers. American Indian, Alaska Native, Black, and Hispanic exam-takers were also less likely to matriculate into medical school compared to white exam-takers.

  • Major Meetings on mRNA Transfer Technology Program

    Program meetings began this week for the mRNA Transfer Technology Hub, a center to build capacity in low- and middle-income countries to produce mRNA vaccines, located at Afrigen in Cape Town, South Africa. Advocates hope the U.S. government will help fund the center.

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