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China pushes lifting of Zero-COVID after anti-lockdown protests
In the aftermath of last weekend’s protests in several Chinese cities, the country’s National Health Commission (NHC) held a press conference Tuesday calling for speeding up the implementation of the 20 measures announced on November 11 which initiated the lifting of the country’s Zero-COVID policy that has suppressed numerous outbreaks over the past three years.
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Zero-Covid and the China protests: look at the bigger picture
Ever since the world’s first Covid outbreak in Wuhan, the virus has been used as a stick to beat China.
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“I was screaming and he was smiling”: DeSantis ran Guantanamo torture
There is more to than what meets the eye on DeSantis’ military past beyond a mere involvement in Guantanamo Bay.
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Why is AARP boosting Medicare privatization?
The advocacy organization is welcoming the for-profit takeover of its members’ national health insurance program—because it earns hundreds of millions as part of the deal.
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In a soybean game dominated by capital, no one wins
China was once the world’s highest producer of soybeans, accounting for about 90% of the total. Currently, 60 percent of global soybean exports are destined for the Chinese market.
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Fossil Drugs: Antibiotics as the fossil fuels of medicine
Though now one of the most famous and ubiquitous antibiotics, penicillin was once so scarce that doctors had to recycle it from their patients’ urine for reinjection. But once mass production was possible, such restraint ended. Today, antibiotic use is astonishingly inefficient.
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COP27 fiddling as world warms
The latest annual climate conference has begun in the face of a worsening climate crisis and further retreats by rich nations following the energy crisis induced by NATO sanctions after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Millions suffer as junk food industry rakes in profit
Increased consumption of ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) was associated with more than 10% of all-cause premature, preventable deaths in Brazil in 2019. That is the finding of a new peer-reviewed study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
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Economics and dishonesty
In 1973-74 the Planning Commission in India had defined poverty as the inability to access 2400 calories per person per day in rural India (in practice however it applied a lower 2200 calories norm), and 2100 calories per person per day in urban India.
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Abortion: A pillar of a broad pro-democracy and human rights coalition
Mabel Bellucci was integrally involved in the Argentinian abortion movement from the 1980s until the early 2000s—an era of struggle that set the stage for the recent liberalization of the country’s abortion law.
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Limits to growth: Inconvenient truth of our times
Ahead of the first United Nations environmental summit in Stockholm in 1972, a group of scientists prepared The Limits to Growth report for the Club of Rome. It showed planet Earth’s finite natural resources cannot support ever-growing human consumption.
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Private companies helped ruin Jackson’s water
As Mississippi considers privatizing Jackson’s water, parts of the city system already run by private companies have been left in ruins.
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Hunger and poverty
THE Global Hunger Index (GHI) for 2022 has just come out, which shows India occupying the 107th position among the 121 countries for which the index is prepared (countries where hunger is not a noteworthy problem are left out of the index).
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Cuba in the eye of Washington’s hurricane
Since the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959, the United States has been at odds with the island’s independent path.
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Health insurers get government cash, then jack up prices
Despite the Affordable Care Act’s promises, publicly subsidized insurers are jacking up prices while Americans lose coverage.
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Press coverage of declining U.S. life expectancy evades the truth about class
Mainstream media takes on the bad news on life expectancy barely mention international comparisons — notably ignoring China and Cuba — and neglect the political and economic context of the drop, writes WT WHITNEY Jr.
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How Wall Street profits off of the sick and elderly
As Congress helps out its private equity donors, new research shows what happens when those firms take over nursing homes and medical offices.
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Cuba’s families code a bold step forward for LGBTQ+ rights in the hemisphere
Passed in a referendum with 67% of the vote, the law expands women’s, children’s, and gay and lesbian legal rights.
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How Ashish Jha and Rochelle Walensky of Newton, MA protect their children from Covid (but not yours)
Built on seven hills, Newton was one of America’s earliest commuter suburbs.
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A food crisis not of their making
The crisis in low, middle-income nations is driven by speculation, falling purchasing power and depreciating currencies.