Wealth of richest 1% 'equal to other 99%'
The richest 1% now has as much wealth as the rest of the world combined, according to Oxfam.
It uses data from Credit Suisse from October for the report, which urges leaders meeting in Davos this week to take action on inequality.
Oxfam also calculated that the richest 62 people in the world had as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population.
It criticised the work of lobbyists and the amount of money kept in tax havens.
Oxfam predicted that the 1% would overtake the rest of the world this time last year.
It takes cash and assets worth $68,800 (£48,300) to get into the top 10%, and $760,000 (£533,000) to be in the 1%. That means that if you own an average house in London without a mortgage, you are probably in the 1%.
Daughter of Hong Kong bookseller dismisses China state TV 'confession'
Angela Gui tells the Guardian her father, who published gossip books on China’s elite, had not voluntarily surrendered but was abducted
The daughter of a previously-missing Hong Kong publisher specialising in tabloid-style books on China’s leaders has dismissed a state television broadcast showing her father confessing to a hit and run attack.
Gui Minhai, 51, and four of his colleagues from the Causeway Bay Books shop disappeared over the last few months, sparking protests in the former British colony against China’s security services accused of carrying out the illegal snatchings in order to silence critics abroad.
On Sunday night, a tearful Gui was shown on state broadcaster CCTV saying he turned himself in to Chinese authorities in October for his involvement in a fatal hit-and-run incident in the Chinese city of Ningbo in December 2003.
It's time to face the truth about immigration - starting with the facts about who's most likely to commit crime
Studies actually show immigrants seem less likely to commit crime than native populations, despite tending to have lower incomes and live in deprived areas
The mood across Europe is hardening as desperate people continue to pour across borders in search of sanctuary or escape from poverty. Hungary’s hardline leader has called for a ‘European defence line’ on Greek borders. Norway is ordering thousands of refugees to get back on bikes into Russia. Even liberal Sweden has tightened controls. Meanwhile Switzerland, one of the world’s richest nations with a dodgy history of hiding stolen property, has joined Denmark by demanding refugees hand assets over to the state.
What a grim start to 2016. Anger and fear have grown after sexual assaults in German cities during New Year celebrations, seemingly covered up by police. Shops there are selling out of pepper spray, a public swimming pool has banned male asylum seekers and Angela Merkel’s humane response is blamed for declining popularity. Yet her party remains well ahead in polls and her stance is backed still by half the nation, despite another 51,395 newcomers arriving in the first two weeks of January.
World tennis hit by match-fixing allegations
Latest update : 2016-01-18
World tennis was rocked on Monday by allegations that the game’s authorities have failed to deal with widespread match-fixing, just as the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, kicked off in Melbourne.
Tennis authorities rejected reports by the BBC and online BuzzFeed News, which said 16 players ranked in the top 50 had been repeatedly flagged to the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) over suspicions they had thrown matches in the past decade.
The reports said the TIU, set up to police illegal activities in the sport, either failed to act upon information that identified suspicious behaviour amongst players, or impose any sanctions.
All of the players, including winners of Grand Slam titles, were allowed to continue competing, while eight were playing in the Australian Open, the media reports added.
Murder, not honour
HUMA YUSUF
Another Oscar nod for Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy; another moment of introspection for Pakistan. Four years ago, Chinoy’s award-winning documentary on acid attacks inspired parliamentary and media debate on the issue and revived activism against the heinous practice. It also sparked new conversations about the growing role of Pakistani women as national icons, and the fragility of our national identity, which takes criticism of even the most heinous practices to be a form of treachery if it is for a Western audience.
Now A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness has stirred a fresh debate. Chinoy’s film about a rare survivor of an ‘honour’ killing was nominated last week. While congratulating the filmmaker, the prime minister vowed to do no less than eradicate the ‘evil’ practice. If Chinoy goes on to win the award, he may have to, at a minimum, raise the issue in a parliamentary session.
Islands of the missing: Micronesia's emptying atolls
Updated 0137 GMT (0937 HKT) January 18, 2016
Our ship's crew brings ashore a barrel of iced drinks.
The atoll's children don't care about the refreshments.
They scoop out the barrel's ice cubes and cradle them with wonderment like diamonds. The youngest shovel them into their pockets.
Living without refrigeration and other modern essentials such as the Internet and cell phones is a way of life in remoter parts of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).
Yet it's not necessarily a choice the younger generation is putting up with.
They're turning their backs on traditional life among FSM's smallest atoll populations.
Nukuoro Atoll
Baseball cap tilted down to shield his eyes against the fierce western Pacific sunshine, Mayor Senard Leopold waits on Nukuoro Atoll's porcelain-white beach to greet our ship.
I'm aboard an expedition cruise vessel, Silver Discoverer, with 60 other passengers taking a 17-day voyage across FSM.
Few ships ever cross this watery nation of 607 islands.
Our traverse takes us from FSM's southernmost outpost north of Papua New Guinea to the westernmost tip of the Caroline Island chain to Palau.
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