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Ian Birrell

Columnist & Foreign Correspondent

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Books / Media / Technology

The nerdy obsessive who became the world’s richest man

Published by The Spectator (8th February, 2025) Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates (Allen Lane) Shortly before Bill Gates’s seventh birthday in 1962, his parents stuffed their […]

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Aid / Economics

Save us from these self-appointed saviours

Published by The i paper (17th September, 2018) There can be no doubt Jeff Bezos is an extremely impressive business operator. He has turned a website selling books […]

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Aid / Economics

How rich: Gates lecturing other people on taxes

Published by The Daily Mail (21st April, 2017) Scarcely had the starting gun for Britain’s election battle been fired when technology guru Bill Gates waded in with a doom-laden […]

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Economics / Technology

The tax-avoiding Facebook mogul and an act of charity that reeks of hypocrisy

Published by The Daily Mail (3rd December, 2015) Once, it was enough to put a notice in the newspaper when your child was born. But Mark Zuckerberg, the […]

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Africa / Aid / Arts / Books

Double standards, grateful dictators

Published by The Observer (4th May, 2014) The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (Perseus) Last year I flew to Kenya to […]

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Aid / Economics

Bill Gates preaches the aid gospel, but is he just a hypocrite?

Published in The Guardian (January 6th, 2014) He made his name as a sharp-elbowed businessman who rode the technology revolution with such style. But these days he is […]

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Aid / Ethiopia / Politics

This is not about ending world hunger. It is a political stunt

Published in The Independent (June 19th, 2013) The broadcasters fell for it, of course. Those colourful images of a “flotilla” of two longboats sailing near the venue of […]

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Aid / Politics

Corrupt, ineffective and hypocritical: Britain should give less aid, not more

Published in The Independent (May 2nd, 2013) When Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, decided to give his family house in Nkandla a makeover, he did so […]

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Africa / China / Politics / Rwanda / World

The man who turned amorality into an art form

Published in The Daily Mail (January 12th, 2013) When Tony Blair visited Beijing a few weeks ago to open a prestigious conference on philanthropy, he showed he had […]

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Arts / Books / Economics

Outrageous fortunes

Published in The Observer (November 4th, 2012) Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich by Chrystia Freeland (Allen Lane) Who is the richest person to have […]

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Ian Birrell is an award-winning columnist, foreign correspondent, feature writer and investigative journalist. He is contributing editor of The Mail on Sunday, a weekly columnist in The i Paper and writes frequently for other papers and platforms. He is also co-founder with Damon Albarn of Africa Express, the acclaimed collaborative music project. (Pictured: Talking to refugees in Iraq fleeing Islamic State)... Read More.

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