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Calif. Academic Praises Stimulus Package
The stimulus package helped save thousands of jobs at the educational institutions at California State University, its chancellor, Charles B. Reed, said at aNewsmaker press conference on March 2. He said CSU is grappling with massive budge cuts, adding, “some call it melt-down,” and “we have lost 20% of our state support (to the tune of) $625 million.” “We had been forced to raise student fees, cut enrollment by 40,000 students and furlough almost all of our employees two days a month,” he said. Without the stimulus package, he said, job cuts would have been more widespread. “Current…
Type: News
NPC Protests Abuse of Journalists in Iran; Bjerga Asks Members to Sign Petition
The National Press Club joined with other media organizations on Tuesday, March 2, in condemning the abusive treatment of journalists, writers and bloggers in Iran, where it is estimated that more media professionals are imprisoned for merely doing their jobs than in any other nation. Club President Alan Bjerga encouraged members of the Club and visitors to its web site to sign an online petition expressing support for journalists in Iran. And he strongly urged the Iranian regime to release those in jail. "Iran's repression of press freedom is unconscionable," said Bjerga. "The regime must…
Type: News
America Needs to Reclaim Founding Values, Romney Says
America has many things in common with the people who started Wal-Mart, The Washington Post, Boston Globe and Disneyland: Their values are a reflection of their founders, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the National Press Club March 5. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who may make another White House bid in 2012, told a sold-out Luncheon crowd that America’s greatness comes from those people who built the country. “America reflects the vision and the character and the culture of the people who founded it,” Romney said. But Romney, who is seen as a frontrunner for the…
Type: News
EPA Administrator Jackson Blasts Industry Lobbyists
Lobbyists battling the Environmental Protection Agency's clean-up efforts are committing "an act of breathtaking negligence," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said at a March 8 Luncheon. "Once again, alarmists are claiming that (these efforts) will be the death knell of our economy. Once again they are telling us we have to choose the economy or environment," she said. Jackson said alarmists are going against the overhwhelming desire of the American people for a cleaner environment now rather than continue to subject their children to the dirty air and other climate hazards that endanger…
Type: News
Killing Fields Survivor Says Khmer Rouge Trial 'Breaking Legal Ground'
The trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders is limited as a court of law for legal accountability but has great potential as a "court of public opinion," Theary Seng, a Cambodia-born U.S.-trained lawyer, said at a March 5 Newsmaker. The trial, she said, is breaking legal ground by having victims of the Khmer Rouge participate as civil parties in a criminal proceeding. She was the first such party to recognized by the ECCC, and in 2008 testified against the most senior surviving Khmer Rouge leader, Nuon Chea, known as "Brother No. 2." Seng lost her father and mother during the 1975-79 Killing…
Type: News
Study Finds 13 of 128 Nations 'Highly Developed' Politically, Economically
Political and economic transformation is "highly developed" in 13 of 128 those countries, according to a study that measures progress -- or lack of -- in the developing and "transition" countries. Project managers of the 2010 Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index released the English-language edition of the index at a March 9 Newsmaker. The 13 "hjighly developed" states are eight EU countries (the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland and Latvia), two Asian states (Taiwan and South Korea) and three in Latin America (Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay). All…
Type: News
War Reporting is Journalism in the Midst of Humanity, Correspondents Say
War correspondents are a breed apart in journalism – people who are willing to risk their lives in the most dangerous situations to bring back a story to the American people. At a March 8 Kalb Report, four leading war correspondents said they do it because it's the only way to get the story. “You can’t write credibly about what the United States is doing in Afghanistan without being there,” Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a senior correspondent and associate editor of the Washington Post, told host Marvin Kalb. Chandrasekaran, who has written extensively about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said…
Type: News
Trade Rep. Kirk Pushes Obama's Free Trade Agenda
Expanding international trade, especially with growing markets in the Pacific and East Asia, will help revive the U.S. economy and should be embraced by the American people, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told the Club March 9. “In the last quarter of 2009, some economists believe that exports alone accounted for more than half of all U.S. economic growth,” Kirk said at a Luncheon. In the last quarter, the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent, he said, but U.S. exports “grew at a clip of 18 percent.” But he acknowledged that selling the American public on new free trade…
Type: News
Former GOP Leader Chides Republicans as Straying from Conservatism
Activists in the conservative Tea Party movement are not wedded to the Republican Party but view it as their best hope for restoring fiscal restraint, smaller government and free market principles in Washington, FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey told a Luncheon audience March 15. Armey, who holds a doctorate degree in economics and spent 18 years as a Republican in Congress until retiring in 2003, had some harsh words for the GOP and a few kind ones for Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He chided Republicans for having strayed from conservative principles to the point where Tea Party…
Type: News
Hoyer warns economy may hurt Dems in Nov. elections
The economic pain and fear of many across America may translate into political pain for Democrats, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said at an NPC news conference Jan. 26. "That's what we saw in Massachusetts," he said, referring to the special election in whcih a Republican was elected to fill a Senate seat held by Democrats for 50 years. "If Democrats didn't share America's economic urgency, we would deserve to lose more seats." Hoyer said Democrats knew things weren't right for Americans when they took their oaths of office last year. It could be easily seen in the lives of the…
Type: News