by Aseem Gupta | Aug 9, 2025 | Economics, Markets & Money
In 2016, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay more than $264 million to settle allegations surrounding a hiring programme in Asia that had operated between 2006 and 2013. The bank had created a separate pathway for candidates referred by powerful clients, executives and...
by Aseem Gupta | Jul 27, 2025 | Business, Innovation & Industry
Across the high-altitude landscape of China’s Qinghai Province, rows of solar panels stretch towards the horizon. The Gonghe Talatan solar park is not simply one large power station. It is part of a vast collection of renewable-energy projects that reflects the...
by Aseem Gupta | Jun 28, 2025 | Geopolitics, States & Global Power
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Western governments responded with one of the most ambitious sanctions campaigns ever imposed on a major economy. Russian banks were isolated, foreign reserves were frozen, technology exports were restricted, and Europe...
by Aseem Gupta | Jun 16, 2025 | Economics, Markets & Money
On December 5, 2014, a Korean Air flight preparing to leave New York for Seoul returned to the gate because an executive was angry about a packet of macadamia nuts. Cho Hyun-ah, then a Korean Air vice-president and the daughter of the airline group’s chairman, had...
by Aseem Gupta | May 31, 2025 | Society, Culture & Demographics
South Korea’s fertility rate is rising. In almost any other context, that would sound like unambiguously good news. After reaching a record low of 0.72 children per woman in 2023, the country’s total fertility rate increased to 0.75 in 2024 and then to 0.80 in 2025....
by Aseem Gupta | May 28, 2025 | Economics, Markets & Money
On Christmas Eve in 1969, Norwegian authorities announced that Phillips Petroleum had discovered oil beneath the North Sea. The field, later named Ekofisk, was enormous. Commercial production began in 1971, followed by a succession of discoveries that transformed...
by Aseem Gupta | May 21, 2025 | Narrative, Media & Storytelling
Disney live-action remakes are easy to mock. They look like the safest possible products: familiar titles, familiar songs, familiar characters, familiar marketing hooks, and a built-in audience of parents who grew up with the originals. From the outside, the strategy...
by Aseem Gupta | May 17, 2025 | Economics, Markets & Money
In 2016, Saudi Arabia presented the world with an extraordinary picture of its future. A kingdom built on oil would become a center of technology, tourism, finance, culture, entertainment, and global business. New industries would employ a younger and more productive...
by Aseem Gupta | May 12, 2025 | Economics, Markets & Money
Governments are accumulating gold, settling more trade in local currencies and building payment systems designed to reduce their exposure to the United States. Russia conducts much of its trade with China in yuan. BRICS leaders regularly complain that the...
by Aseem Gupta | Apr 19, 2025 | Economics, Markets & Money
Canada’s 2025 election was shaped by two economic pressures that suddenly became inseparable. The first was domestic. Housing costs had pulled away from incomes, rent consumed an expanding share of household budgets, productivity growth remained weak, and many...
