Head of World Food Program USA says 235 million people ‘marching toward starvation’
Billionaires whose wealth has soared during the coronavirus pandemic should stump up to provide emergency aid to the record numbers of people facing starvation, the head of a US charity supporting the World Food Programme has said.
Related: Billionaires' wealth rises to $10.2 trillion amid Covid crisis
Continue reading...Covid-19 pushed many into poverty but brought huge benefits for some of the wealthiest, renewing calls for fairer taxes
Ten of the richest people in the world have boosted their already vast wealth by more than $400bn (£296bn) since the coronavirus pandemic began as their businesses were boosted by lockdowns and financial crises across the globe.
The extra wealth accumulated by the 10 men – approximately $450bn, using Forbes figures – over the past nine months is more than the £284bn the British government is estimated to have spent on tackling the pandemic and the economic damage it has wrought on its 66 million people.
Continue reading...Report includes Jeff Bezos, whose personal fortune has risen by 65% since 18 March
The already vast fortunes of America’s 643 billionaires have soared by an average of 29% since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which has at the same time laid waste to tens of millions of jobs around the world.
The richest of the superrich have benefited by $845bn , according to a report by a US progressive thinktank, the Institute for Policy Studies.
Continue reading...Microsoft billionaire’s innovative and eco-fuelled 112m Aqua vessel to launch after 2024
Bill Gates has ordered the world’s first hydrogen-powered superyacht, worth an estimated £500m ($644m) and featuring an infinity pool, helipad, spa and gym.
The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft has commissioned the Aqua ship – a 112-metre (370ft) luxury vessel completely powered by liquid hydrogen – which was publicised last year at the Monaco yacht show by the Dutch design firm Sinot.
Continue reading...Trillions of dollars needed to avoid ‘climate apartheid’ but this is less than cost of inaction
The world’s readiness for the inevitable effects of the climate crisis is “gravely insufficient”, according to a report from global leaders.
This lack of preparedness will result in poverty, water shortages and levels of migration soaring, with an “irrefutable toll on human life”, the report warns.
Continue reading...Ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos will become world’s fourth-richest woman but has promised to give away half of award
The world’s biggest divorce settlement will be made official this week as Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos hands over a 4% stake in the online shopping giant to his soon-to-be ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos.
A judge is expected to sign legal papers transferring the Amazon shares – worth $38bn (£29bn) – into MacKenzie Bezos’s name. It is by some distance the largest divorce settlement in history the previous record was $2.5bn paid to Jocelyn Wildenstein when she divorced art dealer Alec Wildenstein in 1999.
Continue reading...Jeff Bezos’ former wife, known as world’s 22nd richest person with $36.6bn fortune, signs up to the Giving Pledge
MacKenzie Bezos, who recently became the world’s fourth richest woman after her divorce from Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon, has promised to give away at least half her $36.6bn (£28.4bn) fortune.
The 49 year-old novelist and founder of the anti-bullying group Bystander Revolution said on Tuesday that she had “a disproportionate amount of money to share” and promised to work hard at giving it away “until the safe is empty”.
Continue reading...The philanthropist and wife of Bill Gates on what she tells her kids, getting women into tech and the perils of wealth
Melinda Gates is co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which she set up with her husband, Bill Gates. It is the largest private charitable organisation in the world and uses Microsoft’s billions in diverse philanthropic drives: supplying vaccines and birth control to developing countries and working to get the world’s 130 million girls not in formal education into school. Gates was herself educated in an all-girls Catholic high school in Dallas and studied computer science and economics at university before taking a job with “a smallish software company called Microsoft”. Her new book The Moment of Lift is an illuminating and often moving scrutiny of the ways in which the lot of women can be improved; her argument is that it is only by involving women that the world will be changed for the better. She lives in Seattle with her husband and their three children.
What, aside from donating, are the top three things a western woman could do to improve her situation and help the world beyond herself?
The first thing I’d urge is: look into your own home. Figure out whether you have true equality. Sit down with your partner and say: “OK, who is doing the dishes? Who is putting the rubbish out? Who is doing the gardening? Do we need to make some changes?” [Her book describes her own negotiations with Bill over divisions of labour – he volunteers to do the school run.] And if there isn’t equality, you need to bring up some tough conversations about unpaid labour in your home. The second thing that still needs saying to women is that it is essential to vote – and to vote for candidates whose policies best support women. And the third thing is: look at your workplace. Is there full transparency about pay?