- The World Bank has raised the global poverty line from $1.25 to $1.90 a day. Charles Kenny and Justin Sandefur explain why picking a poverty line is in the end pretty arbitrary.
- Meanwhile, it seems there have been quite a few generations in human history promising to end global poverty.
- Vox has an illuminating visualisation showing just how much poorer developing countries are than the US.
- Devex has released an interview with Steve Ciobo, Australia's new Minister for International Development and the Pacific, in which he outlines his priorities for the portfolio.
- It turns out that many low-income countries in Africa have high minimum wages, given their average wave levels. This would be a problem if compliance were ever enforced.
- The Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology this year was awarded (along with two others) to Tu Youyou, a modest Chinese woman who forty years ago discovered Artemisinin, a drug that has significantly reduced mortality rates from Malaria.
- Chris Blattman reflects on the role of fear in society: 'I believed, and still believe, that you can't really understand much about the world if you don't understand violence. Now I would extend this statement to fear.'
- If you've been to the movies in Australia recently this warm and (literally) fuzzy ad for the just ratified SDGs might have popped up. Terence Wood provides his take:
- Finally, for a bit of nerd humour in the wake of the SDGs:
