2024

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Korean scientists have confirmed that walking through forest areas improved older women’s blood pressure, lung capacity and elasticity in their arteries. Walking in an urban park with trees, or an arboretum, or a rural forest reduces blood pressure, improves cardiac-pulmonary parameters, bolsters mental health, reduces negative thoughts, […]

Climate Crisis

As Climate Chaos Accelerates, Governments can’t Afford any other Priority

Stan Cox

( Tomdispatch.com ) – In December, the New York Times reported that “Earth is finishing up its warmest year in the past 174 years and very likely the past 125,000.” (Though it’s not the Times’s style, that latter figure should have had a couple of exclamation points after it!) Furthermore, according to the National Oceanic […]

Featured

From the Siege of Leningrad to the Siege of Gaza: Colonialist Mentality

Yakov M. Rabkin

Montréal (Special to Informed Comment) – Eighty years ago, on January 27, 1944, people in the street were hugging each other and weeping with joy. They were celebrating the end of a nearly 900 days brutal siege. Soviet forces lifted the siege of Leningrad after ferocious battles. Exactly a year later they liberated Auschwitz. Even […]

Israel/ Palestine

UN’s top Court orders Israel to ‘Prevent Genocide’ in Gaza

The Conversation

By Michelle Farrell, University of Liverpool | – (The Conversation) – In a landmark decision – and with the whole world watching – the International Court of Justice in The Hague has ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of acts of genocide” in Gaza and to allow desperately […]

National Security State

Ron DeSantis: Yet Another Cog in Guantanamo’s Torture Machine

Common Dreams

Roy Eidelson ( Commondreams.org ) – Recently, there have been troubling revelations about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — a leading 2024 GOP presidential aspirant — concerning his conduct as a Navy JAG officer at Guantanamo Bay. His responsibilities at the detention facility apparently included responding to claims of mistreatment from the war-on-terror prisoners there. Relatively […]

Displaced and Refugees

Israel’s Reputation forever Besmirched by UN Court Injunction to Cease Genociding Palestinians

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The International Court of Justice’s ruling on “provisional measures” regarding the allegation of genocide against Israel for its behavior in Gaza is what in the US we would call a “preliminary injunction.” That is, it finds that South Africa in its complaint has made a plausible case that Israel is […]

Houthi

Biden Must Choose Between a Ceasefire in Gaza and a Regional War

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink ) – In the topsy-turvy world of corporate media reporting on U.S. foreign policy, we have been led to believe that U.S. air strikes on Yemen, Iraq and Syria are legitimate and responsible efforts to contain the expanding war over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while the actions of the Houthi government in […]

Israel/ Palestine

Western moral Credibility is dying along with Thousands of Gaza Citizens

The Conversation

By Shaun Narine, St. Thomas University (Canada) | – The western world’s feeble response to Israel’s attack on Gaza has severely damaged the West’s already tenuous moral credibility in the Global South and undermined the foundations of the human rights regime and international law developed after the Second World War. The West claims it champions […]

Democratic Party

Israel’s Victory in Gaza turns Pyrrhic as a Majority of Youths and Democrats brand it Genocidal