Good morning, Quartz readers!
This year’s UN General Assembly (UNGA) was always going to be historic: Hitting the three-quarters-of-a-century milestone called for celebrations, as well as an assessment of accomplishments thus far. But the anniversary isn’t why we’ll remember it. Coronavirus will be—the pandemic emptied the New York headquarters this year, and turned the 75th UNGA into the mother of all Zoom calls.
If it is true that nothing unites more than a common enemy, Covid-19 should be the perfect opportunity to mobilize the international machinery—a global crisis of this scale is what the UN was set up to tackle.
But the virus hit the world at a time of peak isolationism. Many UN member states—from the UK, to the US, to India—are led by nationalistic parties that distrust the UN. Even as countries face a quintessentially global threat, many have turned their back on multilateral coordination; and, with the US as a notable example, they’ve focused their resources on getting treatments and vaccines only for their citizens, even at the cost of depleting the stocks for others. Vaccine nationalism risks slowing down the end of the pandemic, and could result in twice as many deaths as a release planned across all countries.
The World Health Organization is a symbol of just how crucial, and how limited, the organs of international cooperation are. It can set guidelines, but has no power to enforce them; it can ask for state cooperation in scientific investigations, but cannot demand it. As it tried to navigate the political complexities of the pandemic, it was accused of being lenient with China, slow in its response, and contradictory in its messaging.
Still, the UN was created out of belief in a better future, and deserves some cautious optimism. Covid-19 might be the shock that catalyzes overdue change, prompting a renewed embrace of international cooperation.
That message still resonates strongly, especially for young people: Think about the movement to stop climate change, or the protests against racism. The UN charter begins, “we the peoples,” and while the organization might struggle to get the full support of inward-looking governments, it can still hold onto their citizens’ support. They are the ones it was created to serve. —Annalisa Merelli
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
All that glitters. A precious metals dealer that sold overpriced coins to senior citizens was sued this week by the US federal government and 30 states for alleged large-scale fraud. In 2019, Quartz’s Hanna Kozlowski and Jeremy Merrill reported that Metals.com targeted older conservatives using Facebook ads. In this new investigation, they found that the company had begun operating under many new names and used Covid-19 to scare retirees into converting their savings into supposedly collectible coins. —Katherine Bell, editor in chief
African regulators aren’t sure about crypto. Financial regulators in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya are looking to come to grips with cryptocurrency trading in their respective markets—where it has spiked by more than 120% since the start of the year, writes Yomi Kazeem in Lagos. Some small businesses use bitcoin to get round forex restrictions and other business barriers, and global investors have taken note. —Yinka Adegoke, Africa editor
(Un)seen on TV. I love when a single stat says a lot. In this case, Adam Epstein writes about how immigrants on US television are far more likely to be undocumented than in real life. TV can have a lot of influence over how we perceive one another, and the perception of immigrants in US programs furthers lazy stereotypes. But with more momentum around needing to make the small screen more inclusive, there’s hope that things will change. —Michelle Cheng, Quartz at Work reporter
No place for women. The Murugappa Group, a 120-year-old business coalition in India, has denied a board seat to Valli Arunachalam, a female heir and one of the largest shareholders in the company. The group says it’s a “family matter.” But Niharika Sharma makes an incisive point that had Arunachalam won the vote, she would have been the first woman on the board. A particularly jarring piece of this saga is the male-only org chart, which is called the “family tree” on Murugappa group’s website. —Manavi Kapur, Quartz India reporter
A great judge, an even better scholar. You’d expect a US Supreme Court justice to be focused on exactly one country’s constitution. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg felt the court could benefit from looking beyond the US’s borders and legal frameworks for inspiration. For Quartz Africa, Norma Young writes about how Ginsburg admired South Africa’s constitution, which sought to capture the ideals of a modern, new democracy hoping to overcome its divisions and forge a unified path forward. —Jackie Bischof, deputy membership editor
Pop quiz
Which of these crooks is NOT associated with Florida’s Everglades?
- William “Boss” Tweed
- Charles Ponzi
- Al Capone
- “Junk Bond King” Michael Milken
The taming of the Everglades was one of the grandest water engineering projects in human history—and one of mankind’s most ecologically destructive acts. Its history is as muddy as the swampland itself, and attracted several famous shady characters. Nicolás Rivero takes you on an airboat ride in the Quartz Weekly Obsession.
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Remote work résumé
With remote work possibly here to stay, the ability to remain focused, organized, and productive at home is becoming a coveted skill. Career advisors say highlighting it on a résumé can give applicants an advantage.
That isn’t just a matter of being able to power up a computer from the couch. Kelli Jordan, director of careers and skills at IBM, says that “soft skills”—interpersonal attributes and social intelligence—will be “more relevant in this environment.” The technical skills you have may become obsolete after three or four years, but these professional skills allow you to become an ongoing learner, she explains, and to challenge yourself.
There’s no single template for an effective résumé, but in our latest field guide on the home office, we provide an example of how to denote your work-from-home credentials. Anne Quito shows how exactly to showcase your virtual self on virtual paper.
✦ Quartz can put “eight years as a company” on its résumé. It’s our birthday, and to celebrate, we’re offering 50% off a year of membership* with code BIRTHDAY, plus two free Quartz presentations on the future of sleep and cash (both pdfs). Eat a slice of cake for us!
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Five things from elsewhere that made us smarter
The song machine. We have entered the era of Spotify SEO. Artists with search-optimized names like “Stress Relief Music” and “Relaxing Music Therapy” have emerged to grab streams from users searching for a specific mood. As Peter Slattery explains for OneZero, uploading generic soothing songs (a.k.a. “streambait”) under one of these names can generate a healthy stream of income.—Dan Kopf, data editor
Our next 15 months with Covid. The pandemic has thrown out most of our near-future predictions, but that hasn’t stopped a powerhouse team at STAT from trying. The group meticulously forecasted what would and could happen in the coming months—from a Halloween without trick-or-treating, to a vaccine’s approval, to the 250,000th Covid-19 death and a silent summer Olympics. The stunning conclusion they come to is that Covid-19 will become endemic—something we just all live with like the flu. —Katherine Ellen Foley, science and health reporter
The best intentions. A little over 10 years ago—in an attempt to get ahead of a class-action gender discrimination lawsuit—Walmart overhauled its leadership pipeline to ensure more women were represented at all levels of management. The good news: It worked. The bad news: Walmart now has fewer Black managers and executives. For Bloomberg, Matthew Boyle examines how a well-intentioned program ended up leaving others behind, and what companies like Walmart can do to support all underrepresented groups. —Liz Webber, senior news curator
Bilkis 2020. We can look at 2020 as the year when democratic and human rights eroded around the world. But we can also choose to see it as a year of everyday heroes, regular citizens who traded the comfort of their routines to stand up against injustice. In nominating Bilkis—an 82-year-old Indian woman who, for 16 hours every day for months, protested the government’s targeting of Muslims—as a TIME person of the year, Rana Ayyub reminds us that no matter how little power we think we have, it is ours to use. —Annalisa Merelli, geopolitics reporter
From virtual blocks to concrete reality. We typically think of video games as self-contained digital worlds, where kingdoms are explored and dragons are slayed. In a feature for Rest of World, we see how the wildly popular video game Minecraft can be put to novel use: Regular citizens were invited to imagine improved community spaces in Gaza, then teamed up with Palestinian architects to make those projects a reality. —Mary Hui, reporter
The answer to the quiz is D. “Junk Bond King” Michael Milken (though there is a Warren Zevon song that imagines Milken fleeing from SEC investigators into the Everglades). Charles Ponzi sold flooded swampland to gullible marks, Al Capone smuggled rum through an Everglades base, and Boss Tweed hid out there while he was on the run from federal investigators. That’s just the tip of the swamp.
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, home office tips, and bitcoins from Africa to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Weekend Brief was brought to you by Annalisa Merelli and Susan Howson.