Health

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) — On July 30. 1965, Congress enacted Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history. President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Medicare Act into law and created two new programs, Medicare for […]

Displaced and Refugees

The World must Act to restore Funding to Syria to avert a Humanitarian Catastrophe

Middle East Monitor

By Jessica Adams | – Once again, last week, the people of northwest Syria were granted a last-minute reprieve. The aid community feared disaster had finally happened, after years of near misses, that the UN Security Council would fail to renew the last aid border crossing from Turkey into Idlib. Thankfully, days after it expired, […]

Food Security

How Morocco Could use its Solar Energy and abundant Phosphorous to Feed the World and Offset Russia

The Conversation

By Michaël Tanchum, Universidad de Navarra | – Morocco has a large fertiliser industry with huge production capacity and international reach. It is one of the world’s top four fertiliser exporters following Russia, China and Canada. Fertilisers tend to divide into three main categories; nitrogen fertilisers, phosphorus fertilisers, potassium fertilisers. In 2020 the fertiliser market […]

Health Care

Medicare still Superior at Age 57

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida — On July 30, 1965, US President Lyndon B Johnson signed the Medicare Act into law. The law created two new programs, Medicare for those who had reached the social security retirement age of 65 years, and Medicaid for those whose incomes were below specific levels. In the long history of struggles to […]

censorship

Iran: Rights Defenders Sentenced for Questioning Covid Policies: Arbitrary Arrest and Unfair Prosecution

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Iranian authorities sentenced five prominent human rights defenders to prison on June 19, 2022, for attempting to file a legal complaint against government agencies and officials for mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should quash the convictions of the human rights defenders, which […]

Feminism

Abortion: The story of Suffering and Death behind Ireland’s Ban and subsequent Legalization

The Conversation

By Gretchen E. Ely, University of Tennessee | – Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the U.S., the nation may find itself on a path similar to that trodden by the Irish people from 1983 to 2018. Abortion was first prohibited in Ireland […]

Displaced and Refugees

Starving Civilians is an ancient military Tactic, but today it’s a War Crime in Ukraine, Yemen, Tigray and elsewhere

The Conversation

By Tom Dannenbaum, Tufts University; Alex De Waal, Tufts University; and Daniel Maxwell, Tufts University | – A hideous contradiction is playing out in war-torn Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainians are starving in cities besieged by Russian forces. Meanwhile, the country’s grain stores are bursting with food, and the government is begging for international assistance to […]

Epidemics

My Pandemic in Three Acts: Dealing with the Disease that Never Seems to Leave Town

Tomdispatch

By Nina Burleigh | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – On New Years’ Eve 2019, Americans celebrated the advent of the roaring ‘20s with fireworks and champagne, amid ominous news alerts from China. Surely that virus would stay on the other side of the planet. I cringe at how entitled we felt then. Covid-19 has now wiped […]

Food Security

Food prices: how Countries are using the Global Crisis to gain Geopolitical Power

The Conversation

By Sarah Schiffling, Liverpool John Moores University; and Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos,Technological University Dublin | Twenty million tonnes of grain are currently stuck in Ukrainian silos, exacerbating the global food crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of the country. Aside from the need to get the grain onto world markets, freeing up storage space will be crucial […]