The collective wealth of the planet’s billionaires soared to a record level last year, charity Oxfam reported yesterday, warning of “highly dangerous” political consequences as the global elite gathers for the World Economic Forum.
US President Donald Trump’s policies in particular spurred the fortunes of the ultra-rich, which jumped 16.2 percent in the first year of his second term to US$18.3 trillion, the non-govermental organization said in a report released each year ahead of the Davos forum.
“Actions of the Trump presidency including the championing of deregulation and undermining agreements to increase corporate taxation have benefited the richest around the world,” Oxfam said.
Photo: Blooomberg
The world now has more than 3,000 billionaires for the first time, it added, with the top 12 — led by Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk — having “more wealth than the poorest half of humanity,” or more than 4 billion people.
Increasingly this money is buying political power, Oxfam said, pointing in particular to tycoons buying newspapers and other media, such as Musk’s takeover of X or the purchase of the Washington Post by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
“The widening gap between the rich and the rest is at the same time creating a political deficit that is highly dangerous and unsustainable,” Oxfam executive director Amitabh Behar said.
Trump was to arrive with one of the biggest US delegations ever for the Davos conference, where he is expected to dominate an agenda officially billed as “A Spirit of Dialogue.”
Trump’s participation galvanized about 300 protesters who arrived in Davos on Sunday, many wearing masks of Musk or US Vice President J.D. Vance and holding fistfuls of euros.
Nathalie Ruoss of the Swiss Young Socialists said that the most powerful people in the world make decisions at Davos that impact everyone.
“And they do it with no democratic legitimacy,” she said, calling it “unacceptable” that the forum welcomed “fascists like Donald Trump.”
For Oxfam, Washington’s decision to exempt US multinationals from an internationally agreed minimum tax rate of 15 percent was a stark example of ignoring growing inequality.
“In country after country, the super-rich have not only accumulated more wealth than could ever be spent, but have also used this wealth to secure the political power to shape the rules that define our economies and govern nations,” it said. “Such power gives billionaires a grasp over all our futures, undermining political freedom and eroding the rights of the many.”
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
Burmese President Min Aung Hlaing yesterday cut all prisoners’ sentences by one-sixth, a blanket measure that a source close to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi said would further shorten her detention. Aung San Suu Kyi has been sequestered since a 2021 military coup, but the senior member of her dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) party said that while her term had been reduced, her remaining sentence is still unclear. “We also don’t know exactly how many years she has left,” the source told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government
RSS