At the 2025 COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, the conspicuous absence of a senior delegation from the United States has provided the People’s Republic of China an unexpected opening to assume a more visible and influential role in global climate governance. While the United States has been a...

There is a quiet seismic shift underway in India’s world of inherited wealth: the new generation of heirs—millennials and Gen Z—are no longer content to simply preserve legacy assets like land, stocks and real-estate. Instead, they are actively reshaping how family fortunes are deployed — and their...

India’s booming start-up ecosystem is triggering a surge of initial public offerings (IPOs) as recently fledgling companies aim to tap public markets, but analysts and investors are increasingly scrutinising how and why these listings are being conducted amid mounting concerns over valuation...

China’s younger generations are exhibiting a marked retreat from consumer spending, opting instead for heightened savings and minimalist lifestyles. Although once heralded as the engine of domestic consumption, today’s youth in China are facing a confluence of labour-market stress, mounting debt...

India’s headline consumer price inflation dropped sharply to a provisional 0.25 per cent in October, significantly below market expectations and setting the stage for renewed calls for monetary easing by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The drop, from around 1.54 per cent in September, reflects a...

Fragrance has today transcended its traditional place as a luxury add-on to become a central cultural and commercial moment — and none more so than among the younger generation. For Coty Inc., Estée Lauder Companies and other leading beauty firms, the surge in demand for perfumes among Generation Z...

Global food commodity prices fell for the second month in a row in October, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said, pointing to an easing of inflationary pressures in agriculture markets. The FAO’s Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 126.4 points in October, down from...

China is quietly reshaping its rare earth export strategy, beginning work on a streamlined licensing system that may quicken shipments but stops short of the sweeping deregulation Washington expected. The Ministry of Commerce’s move reflects a careful recalibration — an attempt to relieve...

In the bustling world of high-tech gadgets, electric vehicles, wind turbines, and defence systems, a shadow supply chain hums in the background. The so-called “rare earth elements” (REEs) — 17 metallic elements including the 15 lanthanides along with scandium and yttrium — occupy an outsized role...

In a high-stakes meeting that has reverberated across global supply chains, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping reached an agreement whereby China will maintain exports of rare-earth elements for one year under a new framework, with the U.S. President declaring that the matter is “settled” for now. The...

U.S. President Donald Trump has granted a full and unconditional pardon to Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, marking a pivotal shift in the interplay of finance, technology and political power. The move not only frees a high-profile crypto executive from a...