Illustration: Andy Carter

What if...

We banned billionaires? Kathryn Zacharek muses on a world without the super-rich.

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NI 549 - Debt: which way out? - May, 2024
A study of 10,000 young people across 10 countries found 45 per cent said climate change ‘negatively affected their daily life and functioning’. The impact was significantly higher in the four Global South countries surveyed: Brazil, Nigeria, the Philippines and India.Photo: Media Lens King/shutterstock

A world to win

We don’t just need solutions – we need the courage to imagine they will succeed. Conrad Landin makes the case for collective action to secure a just future.

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NI 542 - A world to win - March, 2023
A local art group, art360, painted this mural dedicated to the fight against the virus in the settlement of Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya.Photo: Gordwin Odhiambo/AFP/Getty

A silver lining

Despite the challenges of ensuring equal access, health expert Christopher Morgan is hopeful that the Covid-19 vaccine push is helping to shape a better future for global immunology. He speaks to Amy Hall.

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NI 531 - Vaccine equality - May, 2021
Making a point: Bill Gates addresses the media after his address to the World Health Assembly at the UN in Geneva.Photo: Reuters/Alamy

The Gates factor

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has a key role in shaping the global response to the pandemic. And it’s not good news for health equality. Nick Dowson investigates why.

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NI 531 - Vaccine equality - May, 2021
Illustration: James Thew/Alamy

The nuts and bolts

Covid-19 vaccines explained by Thomas Abraham.

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NI 531 - Vaccine equality - May, 2021
Illustration: Andy Carter

What if…

We abolished landlords? fantasizes Amy Hall.

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NI 527 - Covid-19 lessons from the pandemic - September, 2020
Young Rio favela residents, part of the grassroots Marcha das Favelas group, organize mutual aid to make up for the absence of the Brazilian state in tackling the crisis.Photo: Ellan Lustosa / Zuma / Alamy

Lessons from the pandemic

How can we transform the calamity that has befallen us and create healing? Vanessa Baird on the change we can be.

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NI 527 - Covid-19 lessons from the pandemic - September, 2020
Photo: David Mercado/Reuters

A living wage for the world?

Dinyar Godrej ponders what a global minimum wage might look like.

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NI 524 - How we make poverty - March, 2020
Illustration: Marco Melgrati

Progress and its discontents

The world has never been better. From global poverty to inequality between nations, all the indicators are showing progress. This is a comforting narrative – popularized by the likes of Bill Gates and Steven Pinker. But is it true? Jason Hickel examines the rise of this so-called ‘New Optimism’, with its ‘battle cry for the status quo’.

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NI 520 - The right to the city - July, 2019
Illustrations: Emma Peer

The merit trap

Politicians of both Left and Right continue to march behind the banners of meritocracy and equality of opportunity as if this were all that is needed to achieve a fair society. But rewarding people for their ‘merit’ may be creating a new class system based on arrogant, insensitive winners and angry, desperate losers, writes Peter Adamson.

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NI 515 - Making peace in a world at war - September, 2018
Clockwise from top left: Students at the University of Botswana in the capital, Gaborone; Nthompe Rosinah Mothata selling her snacks in Gaborone’s bus station; looking out over the main pit of the Jwaneng mine in the Kalahari – the richest diamond mine in the world; and the Three Dikgosi (Chiefs) Monument depicting the leaders of the Bangwato, Bakwena and Bangwaketse ethnic groups – a set of bronze figures cast by a North Korean company and located in Gaborone’s Central Business District.All photos by Marc Shoul / Panos Pictures.

Country Profile: Botswana

Wame Molefhe profiles Botswana, where prosperity has morphed into corruption and inequality. But will the country’s future see it regain the sparkle its diamonds offer to the rich?

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NI 514 - The next financial crisis - July, 2018
Julius sits on the porch of his house in Trenton, New Jersey, looking north at Ewing Township where foreclosure rates are drastically lower.Photo: Jack Crosbie

Home sweet home

Ten years ago the world focused on the US foreclosure crisis as thousands lost their homes in dodgy mortgage deals. Today, the crisis is still a reality for many. Jack Crosbie reports.

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NI 514 - The next financial crisis - July, 2018
Photo: Richard Holder

Calypso Rose

With a career spanning six decades, Tobago’s Calypso Rose has written more than 800 songs focusing on gender discrimination and social injustice. The 78-year-old, who has survived cancer and two heart attacks, spoke to Sian Griffiths.

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NI 512 - Public ownership rises again - May, 2018
Clockwise from top left: Smallholders forced off their land who have taken refuge in makeshift roadside huts; a street scene on Calle Mallorquín in Encarnación; giant otters on the Paraguay River; the Panteón de los Héroes at dusk in the capital, Asunción; a Mbya-Guaraní woman in her herb garden. All photos by Alamy Stock Photos: imageBroker; Thomas Cockrem; Barry Chapman; robertharding; Westend61GmbH.

Country Profile: Paraguay

Paraguayan democracy may have come a long way since the end of dictatorship, but terror is sweeping its agricultural heartlands where farmers and indigenous communities are resisting attempts to take away what little land they have left.

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NI 510 - Black Lives Matter - March, 2018
Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

The obscenity of extreme wealth

Some people have so much money they don’t know what to do with it – while most of us scrimp and save just to get by. Mark Engler reflects on the vulgar reality of extreme wealth.

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NI 509 - What's left for the young? - January, 2018
Photo: Thomas Lewton

Get up, stand up!

Meet the Rastafarian lawyer fighting for cannabis freedom in South Africa. Interview by Alice McCool.

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NI 507 - Humans vs robots - November, 2017
All that glistens: Silicon Valley lights up as night descends.Photo: Alamy

Plutocrats and paupers

If job-killing robots will play a big role in our future, inequality could get turbo-charged. The counter-proposals on the table barely scratch the surface, argues Nick Dowson.

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NI 507 - Humans vs robots - November, 2017
Robocop for real, a police robot makes its debut in Dubai, May 2017. It will help citizens report crimes and answer parking ticket queries, rather than make arrests. 25 per cent of the Dubai police force will be robotic by 2030. Photo: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images

The age of disruption

Technology is changing society at breakneck speed but considerations of human impacts lag far behind. Dinyar Godrej sketches out some of the key political battles ahead.

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NI 507 - Humans vs robots - November, 2017
The flag of equality has many colours: a scene from the March of Equality, organized by LGBT and human rights activists in Kiev, Ukraine, in June 2016.Photo: Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters

Firing up the change

The advantages of greater equality are clear – the more so as the negative effects of widening inequality in some countries become apparent. But how can we help turn the tide?

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NI 504 - The Equality Effect - July, 2017

The rich, the poor and the earth

While it is clear that equality matters in terms of health and happiness, surprising new data reveals that it is also better for the environment – in the more equal rich countries, people on average consume less, produce less waste and emit less carbon.

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NI 504 - The Equality Effect - July, 2017

Articles in this category displayed as a table:

Article title From magazine Publication date
Debt: which way out? May, 2024
A world to win March, 2023
Vaccine equality May, 2021
Vaccine equality May, 2021
Vaccine equality May, 2021
Covid-19 lessons from the pandemic September, 2020
Covid-19 lessons from the pandemic September, 2020
How we make poverty March, 2020
The right to the city July, 2019
Making peace in a world at war September, 2018
The next financial crisis July, 2018
The next financial crisis July, 2018
Public ownership rises again May, 2018
Black Lives Matter March, 2018
What's left for the young? January, 2018
Humans vs robots November, 2017
Humans vs robots November, 2017
Humans vs robots November, 2017
The Equality Effect July, 2017
The Equality Effect July, 2017
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