Fewer than 60,000 people – 0.001% of the world’s population – control three times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of humanity, according to a report that argues global inequality has reached such extremes that urgent action has become essential.

The authoritative World Inequality Report 2026, based on data compiled by 200 researchers, also found that the top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90% combined, while the poorest half captures less than 10% of total global earnings.

Wealth – the value of people’s assets – was even more concentrated than income, or earnings from work and investments, the report found, with the richest 10% of the world’s population owning 75% of wealth and the bottom half just 2%.

In almost every region, the top 1% was wealthier than the bottom 90% combined, the report found, with wealth inequality increasing rapidly around the world.

“The result is a world in which a tiny minority commands unprecedented financial power, while billions remain excluded from even basic economic stability,” the authors, led by Ricardo Gómez-Carrera of the Paris School of Economics, wrote.

During Donald Trump’s first administration, commentators sagely advised that his words, were to be “taken seriously, not literally”. Experience suggests that formula puts the cart before the horse.

A new US National Security Strategy and a series of comments from US officials, presidential proxies and Trump himself, have culminated in what could be one of the most profound crises for Atlanticism, the security doctrine that has sustained peace and democracy in Europe since the end of the second world war.

Where Trump’s point of departure was once the failure of Europe to contribute sufficiently to its own security, he has now embraced a more alarming vision.

Coloured both by racism and a staggering contempt for Europe’s political institutions and leaders, he has warned of the risk of civilisational collapse on a continent he barely knows, and that he has viewed more often from the window of an armoured sedan.

The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado is “safe” and “will be” in Oslo after “a journey in a situation of extreme danger,” although she will not attend the Nobel peace prize ceremony this afternoon, organisers have said.

Machado has been seen only once in public since going into hiding in August last year amid a tense showdown with the president, Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela’s attorney general has said Machado, 58, would be considered a “fugitive” if she left the country to accept the award.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy appears to blow up some of the key principles behind 80 years of European collective defence, challenging the foundation of the continent’s relationship with the country.

But on whether the White House will — or even can — follow through on many of its more radical or transformative demands, many European capitals will likely need more convincing.

In a blistering attack, Trump’s new policy portrays Europe’s governments as weak and ineffective. Migration has destroyed the continent’s self-confidence, it claims, accusing the European Union of contributing to a loss of national sovereignty, weakened political freedoms and the diminished effectiveness of individual nation states.

Not a word is mentioned of Russia being an adversary — or the instigator of a horrific, ongoing war against its neighbour Ukraine.

The document does not say the U.S. core interest should be the defeat of Russia and the return of Ukraine’s territories, but rather that it should seek to restore “strategic stability" with Russia.