Measuring global income and wealth inequality has always been a problematic issue: the data are not reliable and often measure different things in different countries. Despite the problems with the metrics, virtually all of them suggest that global inequality has gotten significantly worse in recent years. According to Jason Hickel:
Using data from the Maddison Project, we see that in 1960, at the end of colonialism, people living in the world’s richest country were 33 times richer than people living in the poorest country. That’s quite a substantial gap. But then by 2000, after neoliberal globalisation had run its course, they were a shocking 134 times richer. And that’s not counting extreme outliers, like small oil-rich kingdoms in the Middle East or tiny offshore tax havens. This isn’t convergence. To quote Lant Pritchett, it’s divergence, big time.
It is very difficult to imagine any market-based process that would reverse this trend. Only active political action can offer any hope of change.
For the first time in 25 years, the US has deployed B-52s to the Middle East. The B-52 is a strategic bomber that the US has used in the past to conduct massive bombing raids in Vietnam and in Iraq in 1991. The bombers will be based in Qatar and be used against Daesh (the Islamic State). Although the B-52 is associated with carpet bombing (which would be essentially useless against a diffuse force such as Daesh), it is also capable of dropping precision-guided bombs. Nonetheless, the deployment is an index of the intention to use massive force.
The B-52 and Its Maximum Payload
The Ukranian Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has announced that he will resign. His tenure has not been marked by much success, particularly on the economic front. Ukraine continues to suffer from corruption, the Russian-led rebellion in the eastern part of the country, and the lack of effective support from the European Union, the IMF, and the US. The continued deterioration in Ukraine will pose serious problems for Europe if people begin to leave the state to enter the EU.
World Politics News 
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