World’s rich have the money to end poverty four times over

LONDON: It would take only 100 of the world’s richest people to end the world’s poverty, according to a new report released by Oxfam. According to Oxfam, the net income of the world’s 100 richest billionaires is $240 billion - enough to end poverty four times over, according to an Al Jazeera article on the report. Oxfam, based in London, released its report to coincide with the World Economic Forum, slated to begin in Davos next week. Oxfam is calling on world leaders to commit reducing inequality to 1990 levels. The world’s richest one per cent have seen their incomes rise by 60 per cent in the last 20 years, the report states. “Extreme wealth and income is not only unethical it is also economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive and environmentally destructive,” Oxfam said in its report.

Austrians want conscription

AUSTRIA: Austrians have voted to retain the country’s current system of military conscription, Al Jazeera reports. In a referendum historic to the country held Jan. 20, about 60 per cent of the country voted to keep conscription, which sees about 22,000 men drafted into six months of military service each year. Austrians favoured conscription over a volunteer-only army. The country’s social democrats, led by Chancellor Werner Faymann, supported abandoning conscription leading up to this year’s elections. The country’s conservative People’s Party, along with the far-right Freedom Party, supported maintaining conscription. Since the Cold War ended, European countries have been moving away from conscription, including France in 1996 and, most recently, Germany in 2011, Al Jazeera notes.

Five dead in New Mexico slaying

NEW MEXICO: A teenager is facing charges after allegedly murdering five people, including three children, with a military-style assault rifle in New Mexico, Al Jazeera reports. On Jan. 20, New Mexico police say they found an adult male and female, along with two young girls and boy, shot to death in an Albuquerque home. Multiple weapons were found at the scene, including an assault rifle believed to have been used in the slayings, according to the report. The teen is facing two counts of murder and three counts of child abuse resulting in death. The slayings come months after 20 school children and six adults were shot to death in a Connecticut school. U.S. President Barack Obama has proposed a ban on some military-style assault rifles.

Police rounded up on organized crime charges

MEXICO: More than 150 police officers in northern Mexico have been detained over alleged ties to organized crime, Al Jazeera reports. Durango state prosecutors say they have evidence showing 158 local police officers in the cities of Gomez Palacio and Lerdo were sharing and protecting information with drug traffickers for at least three years. Some of the officers are believed to have been working for the Sinaloa cartel, which controls trafficking in the state of Durango, according to the report. Soldiers and state police will patrol the cities, prosecutors say. According to the report, homicides in Durango have more than doubled in the past two years in an ongoing turf war between the Sinaloa and Zetas cartels. Since 2006, more than 70,000 have been killed from drug-related violence as Mexico continues it war against the cartels.

Published in Volume 67, Number 17 of The Uniter (January 23, 2013)