'Crony capitalism is a sharp break from free market ideals'

'Africa's billionaire boom masks a crisis for the many'

Tafi Mhaka at Al Jazeera

The "top 5% of Africans now control nearly $4  trillion in wealth," says Tafi Mhaka. No "two nations better illustrate Africa's stark wealth disparity and oligarchic dominance than Nigeria and South Africa," and "no business leader exemplifies the rise of crony capitalism on the continent more than Aliko Dangote," the wealthiest African. His "vast wealth should represent the pinnacle of success in a thriving African economy," but "instead, he exemplifies Africa's most prominent and wealthiest oligarch."

Read more

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

'Why "South Park" did an about-face on mocking Trump'

Paula Mejía at The Atlantic

"South Park" returned to a "political moment that some satirists have found harder to work with," says Paula Mejía. In the "past, President Donald Trump's second term would have been an obvious target for 'South Park.'" The show's "solution to the quandary of Trump-era satire, it seems, is to use the president as something of a Trojan horse for mocking another subject entirely — and a way to dramatically up the stakes while doing so."

Read more

'The Hippocratic underground'

Eric Reinhart at The Nation

Participation in the "Hippocratic underground consists of everyday acts of bureaucratic subversion and ethical disobedience in which professional risk is negligible," says Eric Reinhart. For "U.S. healthcare workers laboring under a system designed to maximize profits at the cost of tens of thousands of preventable deaths each year, many of us already enact its principles and tactics." A "physician or nurse recognizes that the ethical responsibility to care for others exceeds the bounds dictated by unjust systems."

Read more

'Turbulence ahead: How conflict zones affect the airline industry'

Shaza Arif at The Hill

The "recent Iran-Israel conflict has not only escalated regional tensions but also disrupted global aviation dynamics," says Shaza Arif. As "drones and missiles dominated the skies, the resulting airspace closures and rerouting exposed the vulnerability of commercial airlines to modern conflict zones." It is "timely to examine how such military escalations ripple into civilian sectors, particularly the airline industry, which now faces heightened operational and financial uncertainty." Commercial airlines are "notably vulnerable in conflict-prone regions."

Read more