Inequality

Humans are partial to bad news. Media outlets reflect and shape this preference, feeding us woe and panic. Long, slow, positive trends don’t make it to the front page or to water-cooler conversations. So we develop peculiar misperceptions, especially the idea that a preponderance of things are going wrong.

Despite significant progress against child marriage, it remains a huge challenge. Last year 320 lakh girls under 18 were married according to UNICEF estimates.

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling criminalising sex with a minor even within marriage forms part of a solid legal framework. But global experience shows that laws alone are not enough to entirely change practices and mores. New economic analysis can help speed progress.

US President Donald Trump’s steel tariffs have brought the prospect of a trade war closer to reality. The European Union warns that it has “a whole arsenal at our disposal with which to respond,” while China threatens “a justified and necessary response.”

Mass shootings such as last week’s in Florida have prompted law enforcement and the media to look for patterns, and here’s one that has emerged: A disturbing number of perpetrators have previously been accused of domestic abuse. Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control-advocacy group, analyzed FBI data on mass shootings from 2009 to 2016 and found that in 54 percent of cases, the victims included the shooter’s current or former spouse or intimate partner, or another family member — and 16 percent of attackers between 2009 and 2015 had previously been charged with domestic violence.

Once, tuberculosis was one of the world’s greatest preoccupations. Consumption, as it was known, killed indiscriminately, claiming luminaries like Franz Kafka, John Keats, and US President James Monroe. In the last two centuries, TB has claimed more lives than any other disease: an unprecedented and unsurpassed death toll of one billion.

Thanks to the advent of a vaccine and cheap drugs, TB kills very few people in the developed world nowadays. So it has quickly been forgotten in rich countries – thought of as a relic from the Victorian era.

Ontwikkelingsorganisatie Oxfam trok internationaal veel aandacht met de bewering dat er sprake is van een wereldwijde ongelijkheidscrisis. Er bestaat nu echter meer gelijkheid dan in het grootste deel van de afgelopen honderd jaar, schrijft Bjorn Lomborg, directeur van het Copenhagen Consensus Center.

Al tratar de concienciar al mundo sobre el lamentable estado de desigualdad imperante, la organización no gubernamental Oxfam ve solo algunos árboles mientras se pierde el bosque. Oxfam afirmó recientemente que existe una "crisis de desigualdad", pero ignoró por completo un punto importante: que la distribución del ingreso es hoy menos desigual en el mundo que en el siglo pasado.

Společnost Oxfam International, která bojuje proti chudobě, nedávno přitáhla značnou pozornost svým tvrzením, že začala celosvětová krize ve finanční a majetkové nerovnosti. Ale ve svém prohlášení vynechala docela důležitý bod, a to, že celosvětově je rozložení příjmů mnohem více vyvážené, než tomu bylo před 100 lety. 

Al tratar de contarle al mundo sobre el lamentable estado de desigualdad imperante, la organización no gubernamental Oxfam ve solo algunos árboles mientras se pierde el bosque. Oxfam afirmó recientemente que existe una “crisis de desigualdad”, pero ignoró por completo un punto importante: que la distribución del ingreso es menos desigual en el mundo hoy, que en el siglo pasado.

När vi tänker på energifattigdom ser vi framför oss bristande belysning i världens sämst ställda länder där 1,1 miljarder människor fortfarande saknar el. Denna enorma utmaning, som kommer att tacklas på bred front när vi fortsätter att minska fattigdomen och hjälpa dem som saknar fast el att få kontakt med elnätet, drivs till stor del av fossila bränslen.