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Global wealth
THE share of global wealth of the world’s richest people soared at a record pace during the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Inequality Report showed yesterday. Since 1995, the slice held by billionaires has risen from 1% to 3%. “2020 marked the steepest increase in global billionaires’ share of wealth on record,” it said. The club of the richest 1% has taken more than a third of all additional wealth since 1995, while the bottom 50% captured just 2%. Forbes magazine said that the top 10 richest people each have a net worth of over $100 billion, with Tesla boss Elon Musk on top with $264.5bn. | AFP
Iraq
A BOMB killed four people and wounded 20 in the southern Iraqi city of Basra yesterday, the first such attack in years in a part of the country that has had relative stability, and a senior official said Islamic State militants were suspected of carrying it out. The blast, near a major hospital in the predominantly Shia Muslim city, was caused by a motorbike rigged with explosives. Bomb attacks in Basra have been rare – the last major one was in 2017, and claimed by Islamic State. The authorities have kept a tight grip on the area where the bulk of the OPEC member’s oil is produced. | Reuters
France
FRENCH rescue workers yesterday recovered a man’s body from the rubble of a residential building destroyed overnight in a suspected gas explosion, and were scrambling to find two other people still missing after extracting a woman and a baby alive. The woman and baby as well as three others were injured in the blast in the Mediterranean coastal city of Sanary-sur-mer, which was heard 8km away. The two people still missing “are a mother, an elderly woman, and her son” who lived on the ground floor, Vernhet said. Two adjacent buildings were also damaged in the blast. | AFP
Burundi
A MASSIVE fire ripped through an overcrowded prison in Burundi in the early hours of yesterday, killing 38 inmates and seriously injuring 69, Vice-president Prosper Bazombanza said. The blaze destroyed several areas of the facility in Burundi’s political capital, Gitega.
One inmate said that prisoners had died in the flames, and that the police had refused to open the doors of their quarters, while witnesses said the injured were being ferried to hospital in police and army pick-up trucks. The cause of the fire was being investigated. The facility had over 1 500 inmates. | AFP