1/ Today I was writing about the My Lai massacre of 1968. US troops murdered over 500 women, children and elderly people. Army photographers captured truly horrifying images. There is zero moral difference between this and the US massacre of schoolchildren in Minab, 2026...

In August 5th, 1962, Nelson Mandela was arrested by apartheid police, with support from the CIA, for resisting white minority rule. He was imprisoned for 27 years. US government agencies listed Mandela as a "terrorist" until 2008.

In many cases, the US and its allies allowed these "new core" countries to use state-led industrial policy for development - an approach that was denied to the rest of the periphery. The East Asian "tigers" are a clear example. The final line by Amartya Sen here is a banger:

Now, a bit more about the "new core" countries. I mentioned above that they were integrated into the core for geopolitical reasons. We have a long discussion about this. This paragraph includes some striking points:

The vast majority of the periphery is *not* moving into the core. On the contrary, the share of the world population living in the periphery has increased from 80% to 86%. The core has become an increasingly exclusive faction of the world economy.

Note that the "new core" states create a methodological challenge because they switch categories over time. To deal with this, we analyse them separately.

China is the only region that has meaningfully improved its position, moving from the periphery to the semi-periphery.

Second, we looked at relative inequality. We found that the ratio of the periphery’s income to the core's has increased by at most 3 percentage points. And that progress is due entirely to China. Outside of China, the relative position of the periphery has deteriorated.

We started by looking at absolute inequality. We found that the income gap between the core and periphery has increased by 170–270%, depending on the currency concept. The core has captured 4–10x more income than the periphery over this period.

We're often told that capitalism and market liberalisation are closing the gap between rich and poor countries, and the old colonial inequalities are fading. Is it true? We explored this question in a new paper, just published in NPE. Buckle up for some interesting results! 🧵

This grotesque headline is from the Telegraph. 3,000 people in Britain have been killed in heatwaves this year so far. 20,000 in Europe. Even if Britain did get to “embrace Mediterranean life”, what about the actual Mediterranean, what do they get to embrace? What about India?

This new study finds that the total death toll in Europe during the June heatwave exceeds 20,000 people. "This result highlights the accelerating threat of mass heat mortality events in Europe despite previous adaptations to heat." Pre-print here: zenodo.org/records/2108...

Also, by my lights, this is one of the most interesting paragraphs in the paper. I think of this often.

2. Second, we assess relative inequality. The ratio of the periphery’s income to the core has increased by at most 3 percentage points. Furthermore, what progress has occurred is due entirely to China. Outside of China, the relative position of the periphery has deteriorated.

1. First, we assess absolute inequality. The income gap between the core and the periphery has increased by between 170% and 270% since 1960. The core has captured 4–10x more income than the periphery over this period.

The Palestinian author and visionary Ghassan Kanafani was murdered by Israeli agents on the 9th of July in 1972, together with his niece, who was a child. Kanafani's family was forced out of their home during the Nakba in 1948.

I predicted that even if their AI found ways to improve efficiency, Google's energy use would go up, not down. Seven years later and this is where we're at:

On June 13th 1954, the US backed a coup against Jacobo Árbenz, the progressive, democratically elected leader of Guatemala, because he sought to restore land to small farmers and Indigenous communities that had been dispossessed by US fruit companies.

This is an important new paper. When we allocate responsibility for emissions, it's normally in terms of consumption. We tally up direct household emissions (eg, from household energy use) plus the emissions embodied in all the stuff that a household consumes.

If you're interested in ecological economics and degrowth, including from a world-system perspective, consider applying for the next edition of this MA degree run by ICTA-UAB. Deadline June 30. master.degrowth.org/studies/mast...

Dr Walter Rodney was assassinated on June 13, 1980, by a bomb planted in a walkie talkie. He was 38. His key work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, exposed the roots of global inequality and the violence of colonial underdevelopment.

This is a really striking paper. It shows that vehicles "Made in Germany" are mostly not made in Germany at all.

People are talking about how Spain has lower GDP than the UK... but look how Spain's life expectancy surpasses the UK's in the early 1970s, with progress accelerating again after 2010. Today people in Spain live 2.5 years longer than people in Britain.

The imperial core has gained $15 trillion through exorbitant privilege since 1970, getting higher returns on foreign assets than what they pay on foreign debt. This privilege is financed by transfers from the global South, outstripping aid flows many times over.

38 million deaths since 1971. “When you consider the scale of the violence and damages, it becomes clear that this system is not something we can continue to accept.”

I'm happy to share this new paper led by Morena Hanbury Lemos, which explores the drain of resources from Latin America through ecologically unequal exchange. Available open access in Ecological Economics: sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I was honoured to give the @IDS_UK Annual Lecture this spring, on capitalism, imperialism and ecology. A really wonderful group of researchers, students and staff, thank you all for welcoming me. The talk and discussion is available online here: ids.ac.uk/events/ids-a...

The vast majority of the world's countries now have a more favourable view of China than of the United States. Data from the Democracy Perception Index 2026.

New data shows *extremely* strong opposition to US foreign military bases. The vast majority of people around the world are opposed to the US having military bases in their country. From the Democracy Perception Index 2026.