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	We must tackle structural inequality both between and within nations by Bernie Sanders Independent US senator for Vermont   Jan. 2018   Here is where we are as a planet in 2018: after all of the wars, revolutions and international summits of the past 100 years, we live in a world where a tiny handful of incredibly wealthy individuals exercise disproportionate levels of control over the economic and political life of the global community.   Difficult as it is to comprehend, the fact is that the six richest people on Earth now own more wealth than the bottom half of the world’s population – 3.7 billion people. Further, the top 1% now have more money than the bottom 99%. Meanwhile, as the billionaires flaunt their opulence, nearly one in seven people struggle to survive on less than $1.25 (90p) a day and – horrifyingly – some 29,000 children die daily from entirely preventable causes such as diarrhoea, malaria and pneumonia.   At the same time, all over the world corrupt elites, oligarchs and anachronistic monarchies spend billions on the most absurd extravagances. The Sultan of Brunei owns some 500 Rolls-Royces and lives in one of the world’s largest palaces, a building with 1,788 rooms once valued at $350m. In the Middle East, which boasts five of the world’s 10 richest monarchs, young royals jet-set around the globe while the region suffers from the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, and at least 29 million children are living in poverty without access to decent housing, safe water or nutritious food. Moreover, while hundreds of millions of people live in abysmal conditions, the arms merchants of the world grow increasingly rich as governments spend trillions of dollars on weapons.   In the United States, Jeff Bezos – founder of Amazon, and currently the world’s wealthiest person – has a net worth of more than $100bn. He owns at least four mansions, together worth many tens of millions of dollars. As if that weren’t enough, he is spending $42m on the construction of a clock inside a mountain in Texas that will supposedly run for 10,000 years. But, in Amazon warehouses across the country, his employees often work long, gruelling hours and earn wages so low they rely on Medicaid, food stamps and public housing paid for by US taxpayers.   Not only that, but at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, people all over the world are losing their faith in democracy – government by the people, for the people and of the people. They increasingly recognise that the global economy has been rigged to reward those at the top at the expense of everyone else, and they are angry.   Millions of people are working longer hours for lower wages than they did 40 years ago, in both the United States and many other countries. They look on, feeling helpless in the face of a powerful few who buy elections, and a political and economic elite that grows wealthier, even as their own children’s future grows dimmer.   In the midst of all of this economic disparity, the world is witnessing an alarming rise in authoritarianism and rightwing extremism – which feeds off, exploits and amplifies the resentments of those left behind, and fans the flames of ethnic and racial hatred.   Now, more than ever, those of us who believe in democracy and progressive government must bring low-income and working people all over the world together behind an agenda that reflects their needs. Instead of hate and divisiveness, we must offer a message of hope and solidarity. We must develop an international movement that takes on the greed and ideology of the billionaire class and leads us to a world of economic, social and environmental justice. Will this be an easy struggle? Certainly not. But it is a fight that we cannot avoid. The stakes are just too high.   As Pope Francis correctly noted in a speech at the Vatican in 2013: “We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.”   He continued: “Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalised: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.”   A new and international progressive movement must commit itself to tackling structural inequality both between and within nations. Such a movement must overcome “the cult of money” and “survival of the fittest” mentalities that the pope warned against. It must support national and international policies aimed at raising standards of living for poor and working-class people – from full employment and a living wage to universal higher education, healthcare and fair trade agreements. In addition, we must rein in corporate power and prevent the environmental destruction of our planet as a result of climate change.   Here is just one example of what we have to do. Just a few years ago, the Tax Justice Network estimated that the wealthiest people and largest corporations throughout the world have been stashing at least $21tn-$32tn in offshore tax havens in order to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.   If we work together to eliminate offshore tax abuse, the new revenue that would be generated could put an end to global hunger, create hundreds of millions of new jobs, and substantially reduce extreme income and wealth inequality. It could be used to move us aggressively toward sustainable agriculture and to accelerate the transformation of our energy system away from fossil fuels and towards renewable sources of power.   Taking on the greed of Wall Street, the power of gigantic multinational corporations and the influence of the global billionaire class is not only the moral thing to do – it is a strategic geopolitical imperative.   Research by the United Nations development programme has shown that citizens’ perceptions of inequality, corruption and exclusion are among the most consistent predictors of whether communities will support rightwing extremism and violent groups. When people feel that the cards are stacked against them and see no way forward for legitimate recourse, they are more likely to turn to damaging solutions that only exacerbate the problem.   This is a pivotal moment in world history. With the explosion in advanced technology and the breakthroughs this has brought, we now have the capability to substantially increase global wealth fairly. The means are at our disposal to eliminate poverty, increase life expectancy and create an inexpensive and non-polluting global energy system.   This is what we can do if we have the courage to stand together and take on the powerful special interests who simply want more and more for themselves. This is what we must do for the sake of our children, grandchildren and the future of our planet. Visit the related web page
	Least-Developed Countries, a status that many nations can�t leave behind by Bill Buchanan Pass Blue   Since 1971, the United Nations has recognized least-developed countries as those deemed highly disadvantaged in their development strides because of structural, historical and geographical reasons. The aim has been, and still is, to support these countries to graduate to higher levels of self-sufficiency and economic independence, not in the sense for a privileged minority but for the wide majority of the country's population.   Equatorial Guinea is the fifth country to graduate in the last 46 years from this status, leaving 47 countries classified as least developed, so it is not a fast record. Previously, Botswana (1994), Cape Verde (2007), Maldives (2011) and Samoa (2014) graduated. Vanuatu and Angola are scheduled to graduate in 2020 and 2021, respectively.   In a report from the UN Conference on Trade and Development titled 'Poverty Trap Leaves Least Developed Countries Further Behind', published in December 2016, the following points were made, among others:   The proportion of the global poor in the 48 least-developed countries (LDCs) has more than doubled since 1990, to well above 40 percent, while those countries without access to water has also doubled to 43.5 percent in the same period. These countries now account for the majority (53.4 percent) of the 1.1 billion people worldwide who do not have access to electricity, representing an increase of two-thirds.   How a country graduates is just as important as when it graduates. (This has particular relevance regarding Equatorial Guinea.)   Countries graduate from the LDC category by satisfying a complex set of economic and social criteria. But only four countries, as noted above, have graduated in the 45 years since this classification was established.   In 2011, prompted by this glacial rate of progress, the international community set a goal that half of all LDCs should meet the criteria for graduation by 2020. But halfway to the target date, this goal already appears elusive.   In considering the status of least-developed countries even at a basic level, one is struck by the links between politics, power and money and how they seemingly conspire to maintain the status quo rather than improve a country's well-being.   Perhaps this is not surprising. The UN is made up of 193 countries that include democratic governments as well as governments engineered by totalitarian leaders. It is well assumed that the voting system within the UN, notably the General Assembly is like a stock market, where outcomes may be the results of back-room bidding.   Similarly, major businesses with international connections may induce local leaders in one way or another to let them exploit national resources with 'politics' being overpowered by financial gain and power. This way, multinational enterprises can work with or against their own country's political system while liaising with corrupt leaders of another country.   For example, two former executives of a Dutch oil and gas services company pleaded guilty (in the United States) to conspiracy for their roles in bribing foreign government officials in Brazil, Angola and Equatorial Guinea.   The nature of such alliances can be hard to crack, as the companies could not only be bribing officials but also threatening relevant government ministers to toe the line or the company might pull out, possibly destabilizing the country.   Equatorial Guinea is a classic example of a country that with encouragement toward good governance could have had strong positive effects on its general population.   It is a tiny country on the coast of West Africa with offshore territories in the Atlantic. It possesses large oil deposits as well as such minerals as gold, diamonds, bauxite, iron ore, titanium, copper, manganese and uranium. Artisanal gold mining is reportedly taking place in parts of the mainland.   An article in answersafrica.com suggests that the Equatorial Guinean president, Teodoro Obiang, is worth $600 million.   Since the mid-1970s, Equatorial Guinea has become one of sub-Saharan Africa's major oil producers. It is the richest country per capita in Africa, and its gross domestic product, adjusted for purchasing power parity per capita, ranks 43rd in the world. However, the wealth is distributed unevenly and few people have gained from the oil riches.   The country ranks 144th on the UN's 2014 Human Development Index, and the UN says that less than half of the population has access to potable water and that 20 percent of children die before reaching age five.   The country is entering its two-year elected term on the UN Security Council this month; some civil society members suggest the country bought its seat.   The fact that Equatorial Guinea graduated from least-developed countries status on the basis of GNI per capita ignores the reality that oil income can inflate that measure without increasing average incomes for most of the population.   Thus the qualification for aid to the country is raised and most of the population is subjected to increased poverty. Clearly, aid itself is not the answer to raising the standard of living in LDCs, and graduation from the list can be 'achieved' by using insensitive criteria that hurts the population. It is a tragic comment on the judgment of those who assess such situations.   'Oil projects require huge amounts of capital and only pay off fully over decades', an article in IOL.co.za notes. 'This means companies such as Exxon prefer countries with political stability, which is often equated with authoritarian rule. The key is to be able to predict what the country will be like in two decades time. With this in mind, Exxon has cut deals with long-serving leaders in major oil producing countries such as Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Chad. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was in power in Angola from 1979 until this year [2017] and has accumulated a net worth of $20 billion, largely through the oil industry'.   President Obiang has been ruling Equatorial Guinea since 1979, giving him plenty of time to accumulate his vast net worth; President Idriss Deby has been in power in Chad since 1990, and is worth $50m.   Individual countries can coerce or encourage the governments of other countries by offering material and/or political support in exchange for what they want. So, there may be some hope for the poorest of the poor in least-developed countries.   According to Human Rights Watch, the International Monetary Fund acknowledged some of these gaps, recognizing its approach to corruption as 'uneven' and often couched in 'indirect language'. The IMF promises, it says, to start rethinking how it addresses corruption, rightly recognizing that systemic fraud directly threats sustainable and inclusive growth, contributes to the neglect of health and education and worsens inequality.   As for Equatorial Guinea, Human Rights Watch said: 'Moreover, the IMF included government statistics showing a steep decline in poverty, while admitting to us that the data had significant methodological weaknesses.   In a 1997 report on the Industrial Development Decade for Africa, it noted that LDCs accounted for a high proportion of projects and activities that are financed by outsiders, including Equatorial Guinea.   Even so, the UN report noted: 'Meanwhile, signs of deterioration were seen at every turn. Health delivery services could hardly keep pace with increasing poverty, hunger and disease; physical infrastructure could not be maintained and utility services kept falling apart'.   In some countries this unstable situation was made worse by persistent indulgence in poor governance engulfed in corruption, nepotism and abuse of individual rights and liberty.   Foreign aid, from whatever source, is a multibillion-dollar business that attracts a range of participants and collaborators. It is promoted by conscience, the potential to make money, national and international politics and other incentives.   There are cases where the presidents or leaders of least-developed countries are multimillionaires or billionaires who have made their fortune from using their power and could fund their own country's foreign aid budget.   So why don't donors stop giving money to such corrupt countries? One answer is politics: giving aid will result in a quid pro quo. Why is it that many UN project and program managers, working in LDCs, do not complain loudly when they see corruption? Maybe because they are hired on fixed-term contracts and have no incentive to have their contract canceled.   What role can major world powers play in helping - or not helping - LDCs move from poverty?   It seems that the status of people in poorer counties is a tool to be used to further gains by wealthy countries or other parties. Indeed, multinational corporations can influence their own governments and other organizations to collaborate with other, questionable governments to secure deals with political and economic benefits.   People power has pressured governments and corporations to change their practices and attitudes: international condemnation of apartheid in South Africa is one of the best examples where the status quo was gutted. For least-developed countries, the future could glow brighter someday.   http://www.passblue.com/2018/01/01/least-developed-countries-a-status-that-many-nations-cant-leave-behind/ http://unohrlls.org/ https://unctad.org/news/promises-worlds-poorest-need-be-kept-stop-massive-inequalities-new-trends-show http://unctad.org/press-material/poverty-trap-leaves-least-developed-countries-ever-further-behind Visit the related web page
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