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buying Globalstar’s “candy” for $9 billion

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SpaceX has been positioned as a the great giant of telecommunications satellites thanks to Starlink. However, other seemingly more modest companies have been able to occupy the space left free by their weak points. One of them is Globalstar. For this reason, Amazon has set itself the goal of acquiring it as soon as possible. The facts. According to CNA and ReutersAmazon is currently in negotiations to acquire Globalstar for 9 billion dollars. The final transaction could be announced this week, although at the moment nothing is finalized. It would be a big step forward for the e-commerce company when it comes to telecommunications, but to achieve it will also have to reach an agreement with Apple. Starlink vs Globalstar. Starlink currently has more than 10,000 satellites in orbit. SpaceX’s plan is to initially scale up to 12,000 satellites and, if possible, in the future to exceed 40,000. With this, it is intended that Internet access will be broader and faster, by directly connecting users with satellites located in geostationary orbit, without the need to use ground stations as intermediaries. Globalstar has a similar goalalthough it has many fewer satellites. Just a few dozen. However, Globalstar has something that Starlink craves: licensed spectrum. The VIP area of ​​telecommunications. A licensed band in the radio spectrum is a specific range of frequencies that has been assigned by the competent authorities to a specific operator. For the duration of the license, only that company can transmit in that range. This means that interference is reduced to a minimum. There are no other satellites competing to send their signals. Apple enters the scene. Globalstar’s licensed spectrum is a candy highly desired by any telecommunications company. One of them, without a doubt, was Apple. In 2024, the telephone giant invested $1.5 billion in Globalstar, acquiring 20% ​​of the company. Since then they have used it, for example, to send emergency messages or to use offline maps. Given this situation, Amazon will have to negotiate directly with Apple and reach an agreement. More satellites, but worse positioned. Actually, Amazon already has its own satellite project, called Leo. It currently has 200 satellites in low orbit and many more ready to launch when the necessary permits are obtained. However, many of these permits do not arriveso Amazon has been experiencing delays in its release schedules. This has led the company to make the decision to join forces with Globalstar, as it has a much smaller train of satellites, but clearly better positioned thanks to the licensed band. If they reach an agreement, they will be able to start working at full capacity much sooner. Starlink is not going down. Despite the virtues of Globalstar and the forces it could combine with Leo, Starlink is not positioned as a losing company. The power that having the largest train of telecommunications satellites gives it is still very great. However, the space is becoming saturated and there are more and more entities concerned about what the growth of this company could entail. If your maneuver based on the brute forceperhaps there could come a time when you find yourself at a disadvantage. We will have to wait to see it. Image | Charles Boyer and Christian Wiediger In Xataka | Ukraine’s military has a problem almost as important as Russia: Starlink belongs to Elon Musk

how the hell to census 1.4 billion people

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It doesn’t matter what you do, what sector you work in or the number of people you are in charge of. Your tasks will hardly be as complicated as the one the Government of India has just faced: censusing 1.4 billion people, more than triple of the population of the European Union. The mission is so titanic that it will require more than three million of technicians, a whole legion of censors who will visit around 640,000 villages and almost 10,000 towns and cities. The task is difficult, but it is key if New Delhi wants an updated ‘photo’ of the country that allows it to make decisions adapted to its economy and population. One census to rule them all. India is not just any country. In 2023 the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) estimated which had become the most populous nation on the planet, surpassing China. According to their calculations, that same year the (new) Asian giant far exceeded the 1.4 billion of inhabitants, almost three million more than the country led by Xi Jinping. Now New Delhi has proposed to go further and know in detail how that population is distributed. multiply by 3.1 the EU-wide registry. As? Creating him who, according to some analystswill be the most ambitious census of its kind. One figure: three million. Census of 1.4 billion people is imposing, but that is only one of the many figures that give an idea of ​​how enormous the task will be. There are others just as impressive. For example, a few days ago The New York Times needed that shaping the census will require an investment of around 1.2 billion dollars and mobilizing more than three million technicians. The vast majority will be civil servants and teachers. Such a legion of censors will have to travel from top to bottom of the most populous country in the world. To be more precise, it will be dedicated to covering 36 states and territories, 7,000 subdistricts, more than 9,700 cities and 640,000 villages And how will they do it? The million dollar question. Or rather, the 1.4 billion. It is known that from the outset the Government wants to divide the work into two phases. The first one started this month and will last until September, six months during which the technicians will dedicate themselves to preparing a complete list of homes and inhabitants. Its mission will be to record the size and characteristics of the households and whether, for example, they have access to services such as internet or sanitation. The second phase will start in 2027 and will focus on individuals. It will then be when the censors collect data from each person, documenting names, sexes, ages, marital status or educational and salary level, religion or other characteristics, such as whether they have migrated or have some degree of disability. The work is enormous, but the officials will have a new tool: an app that will make their work doubly easier. Not only will it save them from handling printed paper forms. Citizens themselves will be able to use it to provide their data. Then the censors will only have to check them. Is it something new? No. This is not (far from it) the first census carried out by the Indian authorities. The country has updated its records every 10 years since 1881, when it was still under British rule. I had previously done a try with a questionnaire that would allow you to collect basic indicators. Since then the census has been varying, adding and losing items depending on the concerns of each moment. For example, in 1901 the technicians added a section that sought to clarify what English proficiency existed in the country. A pending task. That tradition sustained since 1881 broke in 2021when COVID prevented updating the 2011 registry. Since then the task has been postponed for different reasons until reaching April 2026. Just because technicians have already started collecting data does not mean that we will know their conclusions soon. CNN precise that the final count will not be made public until next year. Only in the first phase, people who participate in the census must answer just over 30 questions. Why is it important? That the Indian Government is willing to deploy resources, hours of work and millions of dollars to improve its census is no coincidence. The State needs an updated ‘photo’ for such basic issues as designing policies and offering specific services and programs aimed at employment or rural areas. Right now the most detailed image you have is from 15 years agowhich has forced the authorities to use sampling. “This census is crucial: it is the definitive snapshot of India, capturing everything from caste and religion to jobs, education and services. It offers the most complete picture of how people live,” explains to the BBC Ashwini Deshpande, from Ashoka University. His comment slips a couple of keys: the census will not only update the rural, urban and peri-urban map, it will also help decide what parliamentary representation each territory should have and will give an idea of ​​the caste system, one of the points most controversial of the study. Image | Neelakshi Singh (Unsplash) In Xataka | China knows that its population is going to collapse but it already has a long-term plan to solve it. Of course, thanks to AI

The NYT published the story of the AI ​​entrepreneur who has a turnover of 1.8 billion with two employees. Forgot to mention a few things

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On April 2, The New York Times public a profile of Matthew Gallagher, a 41-year-old entrepreneur from Los Angeles who with $20,000, the help of his brother and a dozen AI tools managed to create MEDVi. This telemedicine startup sells GLP-1 weight loss drugs and in 2025 had a turnover of $401 million and projects to reach $1.8 billion in 2026. The story went viral and seemed to show that the AI ​​revolution can make you rich if you set up your own sole proprietorship (or almost), but in reality the NYT article left without mentioning important details and disturbing aspects of this business success. 800 fake doctors. In creating MEDVi, Gallaguer created more than 800 Facebook pages that posed as the profiles of individual doctors. Dr. Daniel Foster, Dr. Jacob L. Chandler or Dr. Alistair Whitmore do not exist: they are profiles created by AI, with photos generated with AI, and which precisely serve as support for women between 35 and 55 years old on Facebook who want to lose weight to see these profiles. The NYT article itself commented that photos with models generated by AI appeared on the MEDVi website and that some advertisements They were “AI Slop”. The media talks about me or not really. The company’s official website also showed logos of Bloomberg or The Times as if they had published articles about it when in reality it had barely advertised in said media and then could show that it had appeared in said media. What the article does not mention is the scale of this Facebook profiling operation. The FDA warns. On February 20, 2026, the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) sent a warning letter (#721455) which was in fact part of a set of similar letters sent to 30 telemedicine companies. This type of letter is not a formal accusation, but rather an “informal and advisory” communication. The reason for the letter to MEDVi were two specific problems on its website. First, the images of the products showed the label “MEDVi”, which in American regulations implies that the company is the manufacturer of these medications, when in reality it is just an intermediary that orders them from external pharmacies. Second, phrases such as “same active ingredient as Wegovy® and Ozempic®” led one to believe that MEDVi’s compounded products had received FDA approval or evaluation, when compounded medications do not go through that process. The NYT did not mention the FDA letter. Medications with uncertain (or no) effectiveness. Part of MEDVi business includes oral compound tirzepatidea product that does not exist in an FDA-approved form. This company falsely presented it as a safe and effective GLP-1 drug for weight loss, even though there is no regulatory-approved variant. The only approved oral GLP-1 requires an absorption enhancer and very controlled administration conditions: MEDVi was selling something that probably did nothing, and in fact laboratories like Lilly have warned of these types of products and have taken legal action to prohibit its sale. A group of people already sued several telemedicine companies for selling “snake oil” as if oral tirzepatide were magic when nothing has been proven. Again, there was no data on this in the NYT article. 1.6 million medical records leaked. MEDVi outsources its medical infrastructure to OpenLoop Health, which the NYT article mentions as “managing doctors, pharmacies, shipping and regulatory compliance.” In January 2026, a cybercriminal managed to access OpenLoop systems and claimed to have obtained the records of some 1.6 million patients including names, contact information, dates of birth and medical information. OpenLoop reported of the intrusion in March 2026 and confirmed that at least 68,000 were affected in the state of Texas alone. If you want clients, the key is spam. MEDVi too has been sued in California for violating this state’s anti-spam laws. According to that lawsuit, MEDVi used an affiliate marketing technique that sent spam using falsified information, spoofed domains, and shipping addresses designed to avoid spam filters. Gallagher noted in The New York Times that “a total of $20,000 was spent on the software and the first month of marketing,” and it is not clear how much of the initial growth was due to practices that are now part of that new legal process. A success story with a dangerous background. The story that NYT tells us is fascinating and seems to effectively point to that future in which a person will be able to set up a successful business with the help of AI. However, in this case the success achieved is overshadowed by the way in which AI was used and the way in which Gallaguer presented his business. The NYT seems to have verified that the company actually earned $401 million in 2025. The question that remains unanswered is what part of that income came from people who bought a drug that probably doesn’t work, promoted by doctors who don’t exist, through an infrastructure that ended up leaking their medical data. Image | MEDVi In Xataka | We believed that GLP-1 drugs were only going to change obesity. They just turned upside down how we treat addictions

The US has invested 16 years and 8 billion dollars in renewing the software of its GPS network. Result: a failure of epic proportions

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The Next-Generation Operational Control System project (OCX) was going to modernize the constellation of the United States’ more than 30 GPS satellites. The company RTX Corporation (previously known as Raytheon) managed to win the project in 2010 with a budget of 3.7 billion dollars. The project was supposed to be completed in 2016, but in reality the US has spent $8 billion and 16 years later has an absolute disaster on its hands. 16 years of broken promises. In 2010 the iPad had just appeared on the scene and cloud computing was a somewhat diffuse concept. The project of the US Government was reasonable, and proposed that the OCX system be operational by the time Lockheed Martin’s new GPS III satellites debuted. The development became a chaos of bugs and requirements changes, and to this day it is unclear when, if ever, it will be completed. In Xataka 90% of Iran’s oil industry depends on a tiny island. One that is already on the radar of the US and Israel A fortune invested. The financial management of the project is the first big disaster. The initial budget was estimated at 1.5 billion dollars, but since the award until today that figure has risen to reach almost 7.7 billion of current dollars, to which another 400 million are added to support an improved version of the satellites, the GPS IIIF. This increase is not due in large part to the project suddenly being much more ambitious or more capable, but rather to the costs of having been fixing everything that has gone wrong since they started working on it. Software costs more than satellites. Every time software fails an integration test, the bill runs into tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. That has made the OCX system one of the most expensive and least efficient software projects in recent US military history. In fact, it far exceeds the cost of the satellites themselves that it had to control: the 22 GPS III satellites of the contract signed in 2018 have a budget of 7.2 billion dollars. Satellites of the future controlled by a fairground shotgun. Currently the United States has a fleet of GPS III satellites in orbit capable of emitting much more powerful “M-code” signals and interference resistantsomething that among other things allocates them especially for military applications. The problem is that since the OCX software not workingthey are managing them with control systems inherited from the 90s. It is as if we had a VHS video connected to watch movies on an 8K Smart TV: the potential is there, but one of the components is an absolute bottleneck. {“videoId”:”x8wlh9q”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”United States vs. China: The CHIPS WAR”, “tag”:”webedia-prod”, “duration”:”1611″} The cybersecurity nightmare. One of the big problems of this project has been the cybersecurity requirements. OCX was designed to resist cyberattacks from powers such as Russia or China, but that requirement has become a spectacular technical burden. Pentagon standards have evolved so quickly that they have not been able to be adapted to an architecture that begins to become obsoleteand covering successive patches is locking the system in a complex vicious circle: the software is never finished because more and more vulnerabilities appear. Failed tests. The latest report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been the final straw. During the tests the system again showed once again instabilitywhich has forced the final delivery to be delayed to the end of 2026 or even 2027. Frank Calvelli, of the Air Force, has expressed his dissatisfaction with that unacceptable management of private industry: the strategic advantage that this project should offer at a time like this is inaccessible due to the disastrous progress of the project. It’s not that difficult. for a long time the excuse for justify the delays was that OCX was “the most complex software ever created for space,” but other players in the sector have shown that achieving these types of technical milestones is possible. SpaceX has demonstrated this with technical “miracles” like its reusable Falcon 9 or with the development of Starship, for example, so those arguments are falling on deaf ears now. Waiting for a better GPS. These problems also affect us end users, who will not be able to enjoy the L5 signals for now. This much more robust frequency will significantly improve accuracy in urban centers with many tall buildings. The irony is tragic: we cannot use extraordinary space infrastructure because the base stations cannot cope with it. While waiting for the problems to be resolved, the learning is clear: the software cannot be a monster that takes 16 years to build In Xataka The GPS in the Baltic has been experiencing interference for months and the culprit is becoming increasingly clear: Russia And while as always, China. While the US crashes against its project to renew the GPS constellation, China has once again managed to “become independent” from Western technology. Your satellite navigation system Beidouit does not replace GPS, true, but It already complements it in 140 countries. Once again China’s long-term view has its obvious result: it has taken 20 years in deploying its constellation, but they already surpass the GPS system in metrics such as signal availability or integrated messaging services. Europe, by the way, also has its own alternative. In Xataka |GPS “dead zones” are spreading around the world: jammers are to blame for confusing drones (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news The US has invested 16 years and 8 billion dollars in renewing the software of its GPS network. Result: a failure of epic proportions was originally published in Xataka by Javier Pastor .

Whoop is already worth 10 billion and wants to be your doctor

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Whoop just closed one $575 million Series G which values ​​it at 10,000 million. Among its new investors there are profiles that contextualize this company well: the Mayo Clinic, the sovereign fund of Qatar, LeBron James and Cristiano Ronaldo. Capital, health and sports. Quite a declaration of intent about what market Whoop is serious about. Between the lines. The market for elite athletes has never been worth $10 billion. Whoop knows this and that’s why it has been transforming for years: hired its first medical director in 2022obtained authorization from the US FDA to record electrocardiograms, integrated blood test analysis (forgive the redundancy) into its platform and has gone from selling bracelets to selling subscriptions of between $149 and $359 a year that combine hardware with health services. The bracelet is the hook. The personal health platform is the business. And it’s getting clearer. The money trail. With 2.5 million active subscribers and reserves that exceeded $1 billion in 2025, doubling those of the previous year, Whoop was not in any financial emergency, it did not need this money to survive. It needs it to scale: the 575 million will finance an international expansion throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Persian Gulf, and will almost double its current workforce of 800 people with 600 new hires. The logic is that of any subscription company that has found a fit between its product and the market: grow before someone else does. Yes, but. The road is full of corpses. In recent years we have seen the birth, growth and fall of Pebbleto Jawboneto fitbitalso to other examples of independent hardware beyond health, such as Human AI either Magic Leap: The consumer hardware sector has destroyed capital with remarkable efficiency. And Whoop doesn’t play in a quiet niche: the Apple Watch is the wearables best seller in the world and includes increasingly advanced health functions, Xiaomi and Huawei are breathing down your neck, and Google still has Fitbit although Your future only passes through the Pixel Watch. Additionally, Whoop cannot yet compete with the sports market that requires a screen to view exercise tracking (Garmin, Suunto, Coros, etc). Competing against companies with ecosystems of billions of users and enormous balance sheets is a peculiar gamble for a Boston startup, no matter how well funded it is. But no one can take away from him what he has achieved so far, which is a lot. The big question. Whoop’s answer to that problem is the same as any company that can’t win on generic hardware: specialize until comparison is impossible. His recent integration with Soaak Technologieswhich uses the bracelet’s real-time physiological data to adjust sound frequency compositions to the user’s state, points in that direction: building a third-party ecosystem that makes switching platforms increasingly expensive. The goal is not to be the best-selling bracelet, that is a lost war. It is being the health platform to which the most things are connected. Go deeper. An IPO is on the table. In November, its founder, Will Ahmed, spoke about the possibility of this operation over a two-year horizon. With 575 million fresh in, Whoop can afford to wait for the right time, wait for a quieter time than this warlike spring of 2026, and show up when it has more users, more recurring revenue, and a fuller story to tell. The question is not whether it will go public. It will come out. It’s whether the market will continue to believe in those 10 billion when that time comes. In Xataka | The Nike Mind 001 are the strangest shoes I have ever tried. And that is precisely why they are being sold Featured image | Whoop

Danone wants to pay 1 billion for a powdered shake company. It’s his answer to Ozempic

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Danone has announced the acquisition of Smella British shake and powder company that competed with things like Soylent or Joylent in the “complete nutrition” sector, for about 1,000 million euros. It is an earthquake in the sector, but (above all) because of what it implies. The food industry is preparing for the earthquake caused by the new GLP-1 drugs and is doing so by gobbling up everything there is for functional nutrition. What is Huel? Founded in 2015 in the United Kingdom, it had a turnover of around 250 million pounds in 2025, sells in more than 100 countries and has among its investors to Idris Elba and Jonathan Ross. But none of that explains why a company like this is worth so much money. After all, Human Fuel sells nutritionally complete meals: powders, shakes, bars and instant meals. Although the idea is that these products cover 100% of daily needs, the same company recommends complementing it with conventional food. And why does Danone want that? That’s the big question. The purchase of Huel is part of the strategy Renew Danone which, since 2022, seeks to expand and diversify the company’s work. Danone already has Nutriciaits specialized medical nutrition division (Fortimeloncological supplements, pediatric formulas), which operates in the clinical and hospital setting. With Huel, you are building a functional and specialized nutrition ecosystem that covers all steps from the clinic either probiotics to mass consumption. The central issue is that the market does not stop growing. To grow and transform. It is estimated that meal replacements move between 16,000 and 21,000 million dollars each year. and heanalysts agree in which it will grow at a rate greater than 5%. But what makes this operation more than a corporate purchase is the context. GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro) are radically transforming food purchasing habits. Users eat less, buy less ultra-processed foods, and when they eat, they look for maximum nutritional density in every bite. According to Circana, households with LPG-1 usersThey will represent 35% of food sales in the US by 2030. Nestlé has already launched a specific line (Vital Pursuit), Conagra Label your dishes “GLP-1 Friendly” and General Mills is reformulating its products so they have more protein and fiber. And why now? Basically because Danone has money. In 2024, they had a cash flow of more than 3,000 million euros. In 2025, Danone CEO made it clear that the company wanted to “go on the offensive with acquisitions. And I have done it. In the last few years they have bought three emerging companies in key sectors (and many others that, finally, has not been able to acquire). Danone isn’t buying a smoothie maker: it’s buying a position in the new food chain the GLP-1s are creating. One where food is not sold for pleasure or convenience, but for function. Image | In Xataka | Neither Soylent nor Joylent. May the future not take away the ritual, flavor and texture of eating.

The generational conflict with Generation Z is costing us a lot of money: $56 billion

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There is a silent war in offices around the world over the focus on AI adoption at work. It has no declared sides or visible battles, but its devastating effects already have a price: a scandalously high one. We are not talking about employees who lose their jobs because an AI does its jobwe talk about an intergenerational war that has been declared between the baby boom generation and generation Z due to the discrepancy of use of this technology. The damage it is causing that confrontation It is not nonsense: almost one working day lost per week for each employee, in addition to projects that do not progress and burnt-out workers who, instead of looking for solutions, are looking for a new job. A very very expensive war. A published study by Salesloft and the consulting firm Workplace Intelligence based on surveys of 2,000 employees, puts figures on the intergenerational battle for the implementation of AI and other technologies that is being experienced in some US companies: 56,000 million dollars a year in terms of lost productivity due to conflict between generations. These losses are not due to misuse or ignorance of technology or lack of employee performance, but because boomers and Gen Z have communication problems and have different expectations about balance between work and personal life. A day’s work wasted for not understanding each other. That conflict between employees more veterans and those who have just joined, translates into a combined loss of 5.3 hours per week of lost productivity for each employee. Steve Cox, CEO of Salesloft, explained the phenomenon in his report: “The $56 billion productivity loss is just the visible cost. When AI adoption is fragmented, the damage multiplies and leads to missed forecasts, slower execution, and higher turnover quarter after quarter. At that point, generational conflict is not a culture problem; it is a balance problem.” They prefer to talk to a bot. A relevant fact from the study indicates that 39% of Generation Z respondents say they prefer to be directed by an AI than by a boomer, while 25% of boomers prefer to work with an AI than with a fellow Gen Z. That’s how heated the mood is. The tensions do not remain only in the environment, this intergenerational friction is causing 28% of Generation Z workers to acknowledge that they are looking for another job so they don’t have to work with boomers. Similarly, 19% of boomers say they are considering early retirementpartly because he can’t stand his younger colleagues anymore. AI, gasoline or solution? Although many of them have indicated that they prefer to have a bot as a boss rather than someone from the “rival” generation, artificial intelligence is aggravating the situation instead of softening it. The problem is that 64% of employees admit that they are not even using the AI ​​tools they already have available well. The study reveals that 60% of boomers surveyed believe the way Gen Z uses technology is hurting customer relationships. Young people, on the other hand, respond in the same tone: 64% think that boomers’ resistance to adopting new tools is slowing down innovation, and 63% say that this attitude is costing them many sales. However, there is room for optimism because both generations agree in some aspects. 86% of respondents believe that AI could improve knowledge sharing between generations, 80% that it could reduce the experience gap, and 79% of participants believe that it could improve communication between teams of different ages. The clash is not just about AI: it is about values. Beyond the tools and the adoption of technology, the underlying problem is values ​​at work. 71% of Gen Z respondents believe boomers value plus the hours in the chair than the results obtained, and 56% point them out as those responsible for the toxic environment that exists in many companies. On the other hand, 64% of more veteran employees believe that Gen Z puts your personal life ahead of the job needs. The assessment of these employees is correct and confirms it a study on job preferences among generation Z prepared by the consulting firm Robert Walters. 52% of the young people interviewed stated that avoided promotions to not take on more responsibilities that were not going to translate into economic benefits or a great evolution in their work career, but rather into more stress and loss of work. time for your personal life. In Xataka | We have found the “kryptonite” of Generation Z: they are experts in apps, but they don’t know how to use a printer Image | Freepik (pch.vector)

The return of BTS turns K-pop into macroeconomics thanks to 4 million copies and a 2 billion tour

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After four years of group silencethe return of the undisputed kings of K-pop, BTS, is going beyond the mere cultural event: 3.98 million copies of her new album sold on the first day and the announcement of an 82-concert tour whose projected revenue rivals Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. BTS is already more than one of the most important pop groups in the world. It is an event of almost microeconomic magnitude. The farewell BTS’s last joint concert was in March 2022. A few months later, the group announced a pause for its seven members to complete mandatory military service in South Korea, a commitment of between 18 and 21 months from which not even they were exempt. The last to graduate was Jin, in June 2025. In between, each member launched solo projects with mixed success while HYBE, the company that owns the group, endured the pressure of not having its main asset working. Strangled without BTS, but not much. Because of this forced absenceHYBE’s operating profit fell 73% in 2025up to 49.9 billion won and while restructuring its operations in the United States and investing in new business lines. Its fan platform Weverse, however, managed to enter its first year of profit, with 11.2 million monthly active users generating stable income through memberships and expenses linked to digital commerce. The search for ‘Arirang’. This past weekend, BTS released ‘Arirang’, their fifth studio album. The title is loaded with meaning: it refers to a Korean folk song considered the country’s unofficial anthem, with centuries of history and dozens of regional variants. A clear manifesto, as they have said in various interviewsabout the group members’ common Korean identity. They produced more than 120 songs for this album in two months, of which 14 survived, all deliberately brief to please generation Z and its more than recognized difficulty concentrating your attention at a point beyond a few minutes. The sales. ‘Arirang’ sold 3.98 million physical copies in its first 24 hourssurpassing the record that the group itself had with ‘Map of the Soul: 7’. On Spotify, the platform recorded 110 million global plays on Spotify in its first 24 hours, and was positioned among the most pre-saves in the history of the service, with more than 5 million prey. The album’s 14 songs simultaneously occupied Spotify’s global top spot, while the single ‘Swim’ debuted at number one with more than 14.6 million views. The absolute historical record for the platform is still held by Taylor Swift with ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ and 314 million listens. Concert in Seoul. The day after the release, on March 21, BTS held a free concert in Seoul’s massive Gwanghwamun Square. Around 260,000 people traveled to the venue: 22,000 fans were in front of the stage and tens of thousands more followed the show on giant screens installed in the surrounding area. Municipal authorities and HYBE 8,200 people were deployed between police, medical staff and management teams. The concert was, furthermore, broadcast live on Netflix: It was the platform’s first global live broadcast of a music concert, and could be enjoyed in 190 countries. The tour is the key. The tour is where the economic magnitude of the return is concentrated. The ARIRANG World Tour will begin on April 9 in Goyang (South Korea) and will end about 11 months later in Manila, with 82 concerts in 34 cities in 23 countries. The tour includes Europe (Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany and France), North America, Latin America (Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil), Southeast Asia and Australia. How will it be? Apparently, BTS will use a 360 degree scenario instead of the usual front format. This will eliminate restricted visibility areas that normally render between 15% and 30% of the seats unusable: a 70,000-seat stadium in frontal format sells approximately 55,000 usable tickets; with the round design it can reach 65,000. The analysts They project total income from the tour of up to $1.8 billion, figures that would place the tour in the same league as Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour. For comparison: that of Taylor Swift It generated nearly $2.07 billion with 149 concerts. BTS could approach that figure with half the number of concerts. The stock market hype. Following the announcement of BTS’ comeback, HYBE shares reached their highest in the last four years, rising up to 9.5% and adding more than one trillion South Korean won to the company’s market capitalization. It is expected HYBE’s revenue in 2026 is expected to grow by 47% to 3.87 trillion won, with an operating profit of approximately 480 billion won: ten times that of 2025. Impact on tourism. According to data from the South Korean Ministry of Justice, foreign visitor arrivals between March 1 and 18 grew by 32.7% compared to the previous year, driven especially by tourists between 20 and 29 years old. Europe was the market with the highest relative growth, with an increase of 51%. The Korea Culture and Tourism Institute esteem that the tour will generate 1.2 trillion won of impact per concert held in South Korea. Some economists are modeling the entire return as a macroeconomic event in itself, with projections pointing to a contribution of up to 0.5% of GDP when tourism, hospitality, retail and country brand growth are added. What has changed. Four years later, BTS returns to a different market than the one they left: the short-form video (Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok) is no longer an accessory promotional tool, but the very core of what needs to be covered with any launch. Artificial intelligence has been installed in music production (in the interview with Bloomberg, Suga compares it to the Industrial Revolution and speaks of “irreversible” changes). It has also changed how we see live musicincreasingly in need of spectacularity. And, of course, how the international perception of K-pop has changed after the success of ‘The K-pop Warriors’ from Netflix. A world in perpetual change to which, for the moment, BTS does … Read more

Ukraine refused to fix a bombed Russian oil pipeline. The EU has given you 90 billion reasons to do so

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Choking off Vladimir Putin’s war machine seemed like a seamless plan for Europe, but geopolitics has a bad habit of ruining the best strategies. The outbreak of the Third Gulf War has shaken the foundations of the global energy market. Now, with prices skyrocketing and a European Union desperately searching for oil, all eyes have once again fallen on an old Soviet relic: the Druzhba pipeline (which, ironically, means “friendship” in Russian). This gigantic steel tube has today become the trench of a new cold war that threatens to fracture the EU itself. Ukraine, a victim of constant bombings, refused out of principle and security to repair a section of this pipeline that continues to supply crude oil to the European countries closest to Moscow. However, as he advances Financial Timesunprecedented pressure from Brussels and the blocking of a vital loan have forced kyiv to make a 180-degree turn and give in to its European partners. What has happened? To understand the problem, we must go back to the end of January 2026. According to the Ukrainian media Suspilne Mediaa Russian airstrike severely damaged the Brody pumping station in the western Lviv region. The flow of Russian oil transiting through Ukrainian territory towards Hungary and Slovakia was cut short. The diplomatic consequences were immediate. Hungary, which has an exemption to continue buying Russian crude due to its energy dependence, accused Ukraine of delaying reparations for political reasons. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán issued a lethal ultimatum, picked up by the chain NPR: “If there is no oil, there is no money.” A threat that was fulfilled. The Hungarian president vetoed a package of macro-financial and military aid from the European Union to Ukraine valued at 90 billion euros, in addition to blocking the twentieth package of sanctions against Russia. Faced with the risk that Ukraine would run out of funds to sustain its economy and its defense, the European Commission decided to intervene. According to PoliticalCommission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa sent a letter to Zelensky offering “technical support and financing” with European funds to repair the pipeline. Cornered by financial asphyxiation, the Ukrainian president ended up giving in and accepted the offer. “I call this blackmail”. For the kyiv government, this transfer has been an extremely bitter pill. In statements to the press collected by EuronewsVolodymyr Zelensky has not hidden his frustration, stating that forcing them to reopen the tap of Russian oil is, for practical purposes, the same as lifting sanctions on Moscow. “I openly say that I am against it. But if you give me the condition that Ukraine will not receive weapons, then, excuse me, I am powerless in this matter. I told our friends in Europe that this is called blackmail,” said the president, reproaching his country for being forced to “finance anti-European policies.” But the Hungarian blockade does not respond only to energy needs; It has a strong domestic component. As pointed out Al JazeeraHungary faces very close parliamentary elections on April 12. Orbán is nine points behind his main rival, Péter Magyar, is using the supply crisis and the figure of Zelensky as an electoral scarecrow. In fact, the Finnish Prime Minister, Petteri Orpo, did not hesitate to denounce upon his arrival in Brussels that Orbán is “using Ukraine as a weapon in his electoral campaign.” Maximum tension between kyiv and Budapest. On the ground, the situation is confusing. On the Ukrainian side, Zelensky has calculated The repairs will take about a month and a half, but at the moment there are no clear indications of what that might be like. While the agency Suspilne Media reports that a small delegation of EU engineers is already in Ukraine assessing the damage (excluding Hungarian and Slovak experts), Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi, declared to The kyiv Independent have no record of any official European mission in the country. On the Hungarian side, the escalation has gone beyond the merely rhetorical to enter the realm of physical retaliation. According to Deutsche WelleIn early March, Hungarian special forces intercepted two armored vans from the Ukrainian entity Oschadbank that were transiting from Austria. In the operation, Hungary seized $80 million in cash and 9 kilos of gold on suspicion of “money laundering.” Various legal experts consulted by the German media greatly doubt the legality of this seizure, suspecting that it is a direct retaliation for the closure of the pipeline. Zelensky, for his part, has not hesitated to describe this act as plain and simple “banditry.” Drones as the “new oil.” While forced to compromise on Russian energy, Ukraine is seeking to capitalize on its own warfare technology to gain international relevance—and funds. As detailed in an analysis of the BBCZelensky has offered the United States and the Gulf countries a $50 billion joint production deal based on Ukraine’s experience making cheap interceptor drones. “For us, this is like oil,” said the Ukrainian president, trying to position his country as a vital provider of security in the midst of the Middle East conflict. In parallel, the energy war is not limited to the Druzhba pipeline. As revealed The Moscow Timesthe Russian state company Gazprom recently denounced that Ukraine launched a wave of 26 drones against compression stations in the Krasnodar region. These infrastructures are key for the TurkStream and Blue Stream gas pipelines, which are currently one of the few remaining routes for Russia to export gas to Europe through Turkey, demonstrating that kyiv continues to try to hit the Kremlin’s energy portfolio wherever it can. The final pulse in Brussels. All this tension has led to the summit of European Union leaders that starts today, March 19, 2026, in Brussels. As he emphasizes TVP Worldthe pressure on Viktor Orbán is absolute. Upon arrival at the summit, the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, went straight to the point: “It’s time to show our support for Ukraine.” In Brussels right now they are crossing their fingers. As pointed out … Read more

The electric rental car still cannot find its place. Hertz tried it and it cost him 4 billion to discover it

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In October 2021, Hertz announced with great fanfare that bought 100,000 Teslas worth 4.2 billion dollars. It was the biggest bet by a vehicle rental company on electric vehicles. He didn’t know what he had gotten himself into. And four years later, that bet has ended up becoming one of the most expensive lessons in history, because between 2023 and 2025, the company has accumulated losses of more than 4.5 billion dollars, a good part of them directly linked to that decision. What went wrong from the beginning. The business of a car rental company is not just renting, as they also need to sell the vehicles when they are paid for at the best possible price. And that is where the electric became a basic problem. electric cars They depreciate faster than combustion ones in the first three to five years, something that Hertz saw firsthand. When the fleet of Teslas began to lose value, the company was unable to place them on the second-hand market at a profitable price. The final blow came when Elon Musk decided reduce the price of new Teslaswhich automatically dragged down the value of the used cars that Hertz had in its fleet. In detail. Added to that were other problems that were not in the script. Electrical repairs they were more expensive Compared to combustion vehicles, tires wore out faster and many drivers simply did not want to rent an electric car. In addition, it should be noted that the charging network in the United States was (and partly still is) insufficient for travelers who do not fully know the specifics of charging an electric car. According to MarketWatch, electric cars in the United States they are not popular among rental customers precisely due to the scarce network of charging points in the country. And a car stopped in the parking lot does not generate income, but it does generate costs. The numbers of the disaster. In 2024 alone, Hertz registered a net loss of $2.9 billionafter having closed the first nine months of the year with 1,332 million in the red. The company rapidly sold the 30,000 electric vehicles that it planned to liquidate, and in 2025 it closed the year with a net loss of 747 million, although with an improvement of more than 2,000 million compared to the previous year. The results of 2025 We met them precisely a few weeks ago, in their financial report. The numbers are improving, but right now Hertz’s stock is trading near historic lows and the market does not quite believe the recovery. It’s not just Hertz. The company has not been the only one that has gone through this bad experience, in fact it has been a warning sign for the rest of the competitors. Avis Budget Group, the second largest global vehicle rental group, closed 2025 with losses of nearly 1 billion dollarsthe main reason being its electric fleet in the United States. The company had to register more than 500 million in asset impairment by reducing the estimated useful life of its electric cars, which caused them to plummet in the stock market by more than 20% in a single day after presenting results. Avis CEO Brian Choi even publicly acknowledged to investors that the quarter’s results were “unacceptable,” according to picked up SherwoodNews. Between the lines. A McKinsey report from April 2025 pointed out that only one in ten American consumers is considering going electric with their next purchase. If the customer who rents a car does not want an electric one, because he does not know where to charge it, because it generates range anxiety or simply because it is not comfortable, the rental company has an expensive vehicle that depreciates quickly and that spends too much time without generating income. Therefore, the equation does not work. And now what. Hertz has promised that 2026 will be the year of the turning point. The company anticipates revenue growth of between 4% and 6% in the first quarter of this year and has once again placed the depreciation target below $300 per month per vehicle, which was the figure it always indicated as the profitability threshold. Avis is also looking ahead cautiously. Both companies hope to improve results in 2026, relying on younger fleets and managing its electric cars more conservatively, adapting its presence in markets where there is a more mature charging infrastructure, as is the case in California. What is clear is that the great bet of massive electric rental in the United States has failed, at least in its first version. The electric car may have a future in rental fleets, but not at any price, not in any market and, of course, not without the customer being willing to get into it. Cover image | Ernie Journeys In Xataka | No matter what you do: the wheels of your car are revealing your position to anyone who wants to monitor you

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