(2023-01-07). [Perspectives] Unhealthy histories: sports and addictive sponsorship. thelancet.com Professional sport has been criticised for its role as a vehicle to market addictive products or services. Despite the harmful health effects on society, football audiences are inured to seeing sponsors of such products not only on pitch-side hoardings and shirts, but also embedded in television rights, competition names, prematch build-up, corporate hospitality, and social media. Tobacco's successful movement into sports sponsorship established the template on which other addictive sponsors, notably the alcohol and gambling industries, built their strategies.
(2023-01-06). The Chris Hedges Report: Mickey Huff & Nolan Higden on the Disappearance of Democratic Debate and Dialogue in America. scheerpost.com 
By Chris Hedges Democratic debate and dialogue have all but vanished in the United States. There is widespread censorship imposed by social media platforms, private corporations about which we know nothing, while they know everything about us. Mainstream news outlets champion censorship and deplatforming in the name of democracy. Brian Seltzer, for example, on CNN …
(2023-01-06). Oral COVID-19 therapeutics available for most at risk. ecns.cn Two major oral antiviral pills, Pfizer's Paxlovid and the domestically-developed Azvudine, are now available for COVID-19 treatment at community clinics in several districts in Shanghai and Beijing.
(2023-01-05). Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa. wsws.org Airline and airport workers in Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal hold strikes throughout the Christmas period over pay and conditions; French GPs organised in Facebook group outside the unions extend indefinite strike for more health funding; New Year begins with week of strikes by UK rail workers over jobs, pay and conditions, but unions keep drivers' and conductors' disputes separate; protests in Iran continue over death of Mahsa Amini, joined by protests and strikes against cost of living crisis…
(2023-01-05). Ukraine's Glorification of Stepan Bandera Draws Criticism Even from Key Ally. libya360.wordpress.com Peoples Dispatch A collage of a photo of a right-wing rally in honor of Stepan Bandera and the tweet from the Ukrainian parliament on January 1, 2023. (Photo: via Labor Heartlands) Since 2014,…
(2023-01-05). Nation to continue monitoring viral mutations of COVID-19. ecns.cn China will continue to monitor the mutation, transmissibility and virulence of the COVID-19 virus to optimize future epidemic prevention and control measures, according to a document released by the National Health Commission.