Global Inequality
Forbes reports bonanza for world’s billionaires
By Simon Whelan, May 9, 2005
Business magazine Forbes introduced its yearly world rich list with the understatement, “The rich had a very good year.”
UNICEF study shows child poverty increasing in advanced countries
By Elizabeth Zimmermann, April 1, 2005
At the beginning of March, the United Nations child welfare organisation UNICEF presented a new study showing a rise in child poverty in advanced capitalist countries. Child Poverty in Rich Countries ...
One billion children worldwide suffering deprivation
By Barry Mason, December 24, 2004
One billion children are suffering from one or more forms of deprivation according to the latest UNICEF report.
Merrill-Lynch report: concentration of wealth at the top resumed upward spiral in 2003
By Jamie Chapman, June 22, 2004
As hundreds of millions around the globe struggle to survive on a dollar or two a day, the ranks of the rich and the ultra-rich continue to grow.
World Bank chief admits United Nations development goals cannot be met
By Barry Mason, May 18, 2004
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund issued a report on April 16 that accepts the millennium development goals (MDGs) will not be achieved. The MDGs were established at the United Nations Ge...
Forbes report: Billionaires’ wealth grew by 36 percent in last year
By Jamie Chapman, March 9, 2004
While at least a billion people on the planet subsist on the equivalent of a dollar a day or less, the concentration of wealth among a handful of people at the top has set new records. In its current ...
Women workers face super-exploitation by global corporations
By Barry Mason, February 25, 2004
An Oxfam report, Trading Away Our Rights: Women working in global supply chains, highlights the plight of women working in garment and food production supplying goods to major Western retail companies...
One third of the world’s urban population lives in a slum
By Simon Whelan, February 17, 2004
Late in 2003 the United Nations reported that one billion people—approximately one third of the world’s urban dwellers and a sixth of all humanity, live in slums. And it predicted that wit...
World Health Report: Life expectancy falls in poorest countries
By Barry Mason, January 12, 2004
Stark global inequalities in health are revealed in the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) report. World Health Report 2003 highlights “the slowing of gains and the widening of health gaps.&...
Why are retirement pensions under attack?
By Jean Shaoul, November 17, 2003
Under the guise of reform, pensions are under attack in virtually every industrialised country in the world. As a result, millions of workers face appalling poverty and isolation in their last years a...
OECD study shows growing gulf between rich and poor
By Dietmar Henning, September 12, 2002
Differences in income in the developed industrial countries increased greatly between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s. This is the result of a study undertaken by the Organisation for Economic Coopera...
Sri Lankan family alleges woman victim of human organ theft
By Joanne Laurier, August 30, 2002
One of the most gruesome expressions of international social inequality is the trade in human organs and, more particularly, the murder and dismemberment of poor and defenseless people for their organ...
