Economy
Top economists urge creation of global panel to tackle inequality
Hundreds of top economists and other experts, including former U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, called on Friday for the world to set up an independent international panel on income and wealth inequality.
The call in an open letter came before the Group of 20 summit in South Africa next weekend, when a report on global inequality chaired by Nobel Prize-winning American economist Joseph Stiglitz is due to be presented to world leaders.
That report, which was released this month, said that the world is facing an inequality emergency as well as a climate emergency, leading to more political instability and conflicts, and “decreased confidence in democracy.”
Between 2000 and 2024, the richest 1% captured 41% of all new wealth created in the world, the report said. Meanwhile, one in four people globally – around 2.3 billion people – now face moderate or severe food insecurity, meaning they regularly skip meals. That number has increased by 335 million people since 2019, the report said.
The report recommended a new International Panel on Inequality to advise governments on how to address the issue in the same way the U.N.-appointed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does to help develop climate policies.
The economists and inequality experts, which include Nobel laureates and former senior officials at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, said in their letter addressed to world leaders that they were concerned “that extreme concentrations of wealth translate into undemocratic concentrations of power, unraveling trust in our societies and polarizing our politics.”
South Africa, which hosts the G20 summit on Nov. 22-23, wants global inequality to be one of its main topics, even as South Africa itself is ranked as the most unequal country in the world by the World Bank.
Shares in pharma giant Moderna soared about 60% in premarket trading after the company, in a joint statement with Merck, said its mRNA vaccine, combined with Merck’s immunotherapy Keytruda, succeeded in a late-stage trial for skin cancer, also known as melanoma.
The study is ongoing, but interim results found the treatment, Intismeran, met both its primary target of reducing cancer recurrence and its secondary goal of keeping cancers from spreading to other parts of the body.
Moderna has been diversifying its portfolio beyond its COVID-19 vaccine. The company recently added an FDA-approved flu vaccine while developing experimental shots for diseases including norovirus and Lyme disease.
Analysts had noted the cancer vaccine data could be an important catalyst for the company and potentially strengthen investor sentiment. Last month, Barclays analysts said they expect the therapy could generate about $3 billion for treating melanoma by 2035.
Shares of Moderna were trading at $103.60, while Merck climbed 7.5% before the bell.
The cancer treatment combines Merck’s Keytruda with a made-to-order mRNA vaccine from Moderna that is based on an analysis of mutations found in the patients’ own tumors.
The trial enrolled 1,137 high-risk patients with stage IIB-IV melanoma that had been surgically removed.
Volunteers were randomized to receive up to nine doses of Keytruda plus the personalized vaccine or Keytruda alone for about one year. The companies said no new safety signals have emerged in the trial. In January, the companies announced results of a mid-stage trial of the treatment showing that it reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 49% after five years.
The companies said they will present their results at an upcoming medical meeting and share them with regulators.
Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. In 2023, there were more than 1.5 million people in the U.S. living with melanoma, according to the National Cancer Institute.
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered the Russian government to launch a program to rebuild commercial warehouses damaged or destroyed by Ukraine in a month of targeted attacks.
Ukraine has carried out drone strikes against at least two dozen warehouses of Russia’s top online retailer Wildberries since July 18, causing explosions and fires that have destroyed a large chunk of its storage capacity.
Putin, without naming the company, said a number of logistics sites needed rebuilding with state involvement, and told the government to work on this.
“It is essential to ensure that the restoration of damaged facilities is carried out at a qualitatively new technological level,” he said in televised comments to a conference of ministers and business leaders on the economy.
Putin said the economy was growing modestly despite external pressure – a reference to Western sanctions – and despite Ukrainian attacks on industrial and infrastructure facilities.
“Of course, such attacks have not caused, and could not cause, critical consequences. However, they do inflict damage; this is obvious, and we fully understand and acknowledge it,” he said.
Ukraine, whose own cities, ports and logistics hubs are also under attack, says its strategy is aimed at raising the costs to Russia of continuing the war that Moscow launched in February 2022.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said this week that the EU would in the coming months impose its most far-reaching sanctions yet on Russia.
A second Ukrainian suspect that German prosecutors allege was involved in the 2022 undersea explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines has been arrested on a European warrant in Croatia, authorities said Wednesday.
The German prosecutors said that the suspect was a “trained scuba diver” who belonged to a group of people who “planted explosives” on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm.
The undersea explosions on Sept. 26, 2022, damaged the pipelines, which had been built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The damage added to tensions over the war in Ukraine as European countries moved to wean themselves off Russian energy sources after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
The suspect was “strongly suspected of jointly causing explosions, anti-constitutional sabotage, and destruction of buildings and structures,” the prosecutors’ statement said. It said he was arrested in the Croatian seaside city of Pula and would be brought before an investigating judge at Germany’s federal court of justice after his extradition.
The German prosecutor’s office identified the suspect only as Vladimir Z. in its statement announcing his arrest. A spokesperson, however, confirmed to The Associated Press (AP) that it was the same man who was arrested in Poland last year but was later released when a Polish court refused to extradite him to Germany. Polish authorities identified him as Volodymyr Zhuravlov.
Poland has long opposed the Nord Stream pipelines, viewing them as an attempt by Russia to use its vast energy resources to gain leverage across Europe. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at the time of Zhuravlov’s extradition hearing that it would not be in Poland’s interest to hand him over.
It was not immediately clear why Zhuravlov left Poland given the arrest warrant that was out for him.
“Volodymyr knew that the ruling applies only on the territory of Poland,” his Polish lawyer, Tymoteusz Paprocki, told the AP, adding that Zhuravlov’s wife was also surprised that her husband was detained in Croatia.
The German government welcomed the arrest on Wednesday.
“We’re simply glad that the federal prosecutor’s office is making progress in these investigations, because it’s important that the bombing of the pipelines be clarified as well,” Justice Ministry spokesperson Nicholas Limmer told reporters in Berlin.
Last month, German federal prosecutors filed charges against a former Ukrainian army officer in connection with the same explosions.
The suspect, identified only as Serhii K., faces charges of causing an explosion, damaging property, disrupting public service and being an “accomplice to war crimes” by attacking civilian objects.
Serhii K. was detained in August 2025 in an Italian village, where officers raided a bungalow where he was staying with his family. Police said he surrendered without resistance. He was extradited to Germany in November.
The suspects allegedly used a yacht that set off from the German port of Rostock. The yacht had been rented from a German company using forged IDs and intermediaries.
The explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was Russia’s main natural gas supply route to Germany until Moscow cut off supplies in August 2022. They also damaged Nord Stream 2, which never entered service because Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia’s invasion.
Russia has accused the U.S. of staging the explosions, a charge Washington has denied. The pipelines were long a target of criticism by the U.S. and some of its allies, which warned that they increased dependence on Russian gas.
Türkiye is assessing short-term capital flows, particularly the growing amount of foreign and institutional money flowing into money market funds, reports said Wednesday.
Authorities are weighing new steps that may include taxation aimed at keeping capital in the country longer and channeling it into longer-term investment, private broadcaster CNBC-e reported.
The Treasury and Finance Ministry is studying the rising share of institutional investors in short-term funds and the scale of capital flowing into them, it said.
The review is aimed at limiting the financial risks associated with capital that enters and exits markets quickly while encouraging investment in production, employment and the broader economy, according to the reports.
No final decision has been made on any potential measure, and the review is focused on managing risks from short-term capital movements rather than simply increasing tax revenue.
Institutional investors in focus
Interest in short-term funds has increased among both domestic and foreign investors in recent years, with money market funds becoming particularly attractive because of their high liquidity and existing tax treatment.
The ministry is assessing whether short-term capital flows by foreign institutional investors through such funds make a sufficient contribution to economic growth and whether some of these resources could instead be directed toward longer-term investments.
The review is examining not only the size of capital inflows but also how long funds remain in Türkiye and their contribution to expanding the economy’s productive capacity.
Under the current system, income earned by individual investors from money market funds is subject to a 17.5% withholding tax under provisional Article 67 of the Income Tax Law.
There is currently no withholding tax on such income for corporate investors.
The Treasury is considering whether this difference in tax treatment has encouraged short-term capital flows and whether it should be reconsidered, the reports said.
It remains unclear which investor groups or types of funds could be affected if new measures are introduced.
Keeping capital in Türkiye longer
Authorities are seeking to limit the volatility that rapid movements of short-term capital can create in financial markets while encouraging funds to support production, employment and long-term investment.
If new taxation is introduced, the attractiveness of money market funds to investors could change.
Higher costs for institutional and foreign investors could encourage some capital to move into alternative investment instruments.
Markets will therefore be watching the scope of the Treasury’s review, particularly which funds and investor groups could be covered by any potential regulation.
Türkiye’s jobless rate fell to 7.9% in the April-June period, marking the lowest quarterly level since the country’s current unemployment data series began in 2005, official data showed Wednesday.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate declined 0.3 percentage points from the previous quarter, while the number of unemployed people aged 15 and over fell by 84,000 to nearly 2.78 million, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.
The unemployment rate stood at 6.7% for men and 10.3% for women.
The number of employed people rose by 155,000 from the previous quarter to almost 32.48 million in the April-June period, the data showed.
The seasonally adjusted employment rate increased by 0.1 percentage point to 48.5%, with the rate at 65.8% for men and 31.6% for women.
The labor force grew by 71,000 to 35.28 million, while the labor-force participation rate edged down 0.1 percentage point to 52.7%. Participation was 70.6% among men and 35.3% among women.
In sectors excluding agriculture, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said the average informal employment rate over the past year stood at 15.7%, well below the historical average.
“The increase in formal employment, which provides social security for our workers, also yields significant gains for public finances,” Şimşek wrote on the social media platform X.
“We are continuing our policies that strengthen human capital, support employment and increase labor force participation.”
Youth unemployment also at record low
Unemployment among people aged 15-24 fell by 1 percentage point from the previous quarter to 13.9%, TurkStat said.
Labor and Social Security Minister Vedat Işıkhan said that the rate also marked the lowest since 2005.
“We will continue to implement initiatives that will facilitate our young people’s entry into the workforce and strengthen the link between education and employment,” Işıkhan wrote on X.
Youth unemployment was 11% among men and 19.3% among women.
The broader measure of labor underutilization, which includes the unemployed, people in the potential labor force and those in time-related underemployment, fell 0.2 percentage point from the previous quarter to 29.9%.
The combined rate of time-related underemployment and unemployment stood at 19.3%, while the combined rate of potential labor force and unemployment was estimated at 20%.
Annual inflation in the U.K. accelerated in July in line with analysts’ expectations, official data showed Wednesday, driven primarily by higher household energy bills.
The consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.9% in the 12 months to July, up from 2.6% in June, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement.
The rise was spurred by a 13% hike in the price cap on household energy bills that took effect last month, a consequence of the ongoing U.S.-Iran war.
The ONS called it “the largest rise in gas prices for almost four years.”
Britain’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, has pledged to ease cost-of-living pressures, unveiling measures such as a tax cut on household electricity prices and a cap on bus fares.
“Iran-war inflation continues to impact prices here at home, but Britain’s economy is resilient,” Treasury chief John Healey said in response to the latest figures.
“There is more to do to restore hope and build a stronger economy where prosperity is shared more fairly across Britain,” he added.
Analysts expect inflation to rise toward the end of the year as higher energy costs feed through to bills further, with little sign of a deal to end the Middle East war.
The Bank of England held its benchmark interest rate at 3.75% last month despite inflation remaining far above its 2% target.
“A renewed spike in inflation has been expected as the war in the Middle East continues to navigate a clunky cease-fire,” said Jonathan Raymond, investment manager at Quilter Cheviot.
“Things remain far from normal in the Strait of Hormuz and look unlikely to be resolved any time soon, meaning pressure is likely to remain on prices for the remainder of the year at least,” he added.
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