MARTIN KHOR
Khor, director of the Third World Network, is now in Doha, Qatar for the WTO summit. He said today: “An unbalanced draft Declaration has been transmitted by the WTO General Council chair to the Doha meeting. This is another example of the untransparent, discriminatory, biased and manipulative process of decision-making at the WTO that favors a few developed countries at the expense of the many developing countries.”
ANURADHA MITTAL
Mittal, co-director of Food First, is in Doha (and will be posting updates to www.foodfirst.org).
ROBERT McCHESNEY
Co-author of The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism and research professor in the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, McChesney said today: “The U.S. government has talked about the ‘propaganda war’ abroad, the need to counter the words and images of the Taliban. But citizens at home should realize that we are a target for propaganda as well, as U.S. officials do their best to spin the news in the United States.”
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KEVIN DANAHER
Co-founder of Global Exchange and author of Globalize This, Danaher said today: “It’s been said that the invisible hand of the market can’t operate without the invisible fist that is U.S. military power. The problem is that the market’s hand isn’t invisible for the millions of parents whose children are going hungry because of the inequality built into the global economy. And the fist isn’t invisible for the victims of the so-called ‘collateral damage.’ The millions of people around the world struggling to change inhumane economic and military policies realize that these hands and fists will not bring global justice. Only a new ethic that values life over profit can do that.” Danaher is currently in New York City.
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BRIAN WILLSON
Willson, a former U.S. Air Force captain who served in Vietnam, is critical of “the pattern of U.S. overt and covert interventions.”
GERD LEIPOLD
Greenpeace international executive director, Leipold is aboard the ship Rainbow Warrior, which sailed into Doha on Thursday in an effort to get the U.S. to commit to the Kyoto Protocol. He said today: “The WTO’s own charter claims it promotes the use of the world’s resources for sustainable development. That claim is nonsense if they do not actively promote efforts to combat climate change through the Kyoto Protocol.”
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ANDREAS ZUMACH
Zumach is a correspondent for Die Tageszeitung newspaper and regularly covers the UN. He is in Doha.
MARK WEISBROT
Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot criticizes the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement at the WTO as “inconsistent with ‘free trade’ principles and — in the case of patents on essential medicines — a deadly form of protectionism.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167