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NEW YORK —  Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York mayor caps an extraordinary rise for the leftist local lawmaker who emerged from relative obscurity to lead a supercharged campaign for the US megacity’s top job.

Since his surprise victory in the Democratic Party primary in June, New Yorkers have become used to seeing his bearded, smiling face on television — and on badges proudly worn by his supporters.

The 34-year-old election winner was born in Uganda to a family of Indian origin and has lived in the United States since he was seven, becoming a naturalized US citizen in 2018.

He is the son of filmmaker Mira Nair (“Monsoon Wedding,” “Mississippi Masala”) and Mahmood Mamdani, a professor and respected Africa expert — leading some of his detractors to call him a “nepo baby.”

He followed a path paved by other youngsters from elite liberal families, attending the elite Bronx High School of Science followed by Bowdoin College in Maine, a university seen as a bastion of progressive thought.

Under the alias “Young Cardamom,” he ventured into the world of rap in 2015, influenced by hip-hop group “Das Racist,” which had two members of Indian origin who played with references and tropes from the subcontinent.

Mamdani’s attempt to break into the competitive world of professional music did not last, with the performer-turned-politician calling himself a second-rate artist.

He took an interest into politics when he learned that rapper Himanshu Suri, who performed under the alias Heems, was supporting a candidate for city council — and joined that campaign as an activist.

Mamdani went on to become a foreclosure prevention counselor, helping financially struggling homeowners avoid losing their homes.

He was elected in 2018 as a lawmaker from Queens, a melting pot of predominantly poor and migrant communities, representing the area in the New York State Assembly.

‘Disaffected voters’

The self-proclaimed socialist, who has been re-elected three times, forged an image that has become his trademark — a progressive Muslim just as comfortable at a Pride march as he is at an Eid banquet.

He put the goal of making the city affordable for everyone who are not wealthy, the majority of its approximately 8.5 million residents, at the heart of his campaign.

He has promised more rent control, free day care and buses, and city-run neighborhood grocery stores.

Mamdani is also a long-standing supporter of the Palestinian cause, although his positions on Israel — which he has called an “apartheid regime” while branding the war in Gaza a “genocide” — have drawn the ire of some in the Jewish community.

In recent months he has made a point of vocally denouncing antisemitism — as well as the Islamophobia he has suffered.

Playing the race card, President Donald Trump, who calls Mamdani a “little communist,” denounced him as a “a proven and self professed JEW HATER” Tuesday as New Yorkers were heading to the polls.

Mamdani is something of an establishment “outsider,” according to Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Northeastern University.

“He has managed to galvanize support from disaffected voters and others in New York City who are dissatisfied with the status quo and with an establishment that they perceive to be overlooking their needs and policy preferences,” he said.

Mamdani, a keen soccer and cricket fan, recently married US illustrator Rama Duwaji, and put his experience of activism to work in a strategically coordinated canvassing and leaflet campaign that he has paired with an extensive and often humorous use of social media.

“He really is a kind of an hybrid of a great 1970s campaign and a great 2025 campaign,” said Lincoln Mitchell, a Columbia University professor. –AFP

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EUROPEAN Union member states endorsed a deal to reduce emissions over the next decade by 90% compared with 1990 levels, a move that bolsters the bloc’s climate leadership credentials ahead of the COP30 summit. 

The agreement was reached after lengthy talks that began Tuesday, according to people with knowledge of the discussions, who asked not to identified because the details are private. It paves the way for an updated EU climate pledge under the United Nations framework, and for final negotiations on the pace and depth of a transition that will reverberate across Europe’s economy. 

Dozens of world leaders are meeting in the Amazonian city of Belem on Thursday for two days of climate talks, with formal negotiations beginning at the UN’s annual COP30 summit in the city on Nov. 10. –BLOOMBERG

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COUPANG Inc. slid in late trading after reporting third-quarter profits that fell far short of Wall Street’s projections in the face of heightened competition.

The US-listed company is grappling with the entry of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s AliExpress and PDD Holdings Inc.’s Temu in South Korea, its most important market. In response, Coupang has expanded into new categories such as groceries and beauty products to capture more consumers and shore up its lead.

Korea’s answer to Amazon.com Inc. reported operating profit of $162 million, well below analysts’ estimates for $210.1 million. That’s despite posting a better-than-expected 18% gain in net revenue. Its shares fell as much as 6.9% in after-hours trading.

The company, which employs similar warehousing strategies to Amazon, has pushed deeper into fresh produce and meals with early-morning or same-day delivery. At the same time, it’s built out its cosmetics vertical, curating both mass-market and premium brands to attract shoppers.

But Naver Corp., Korea’s dominant internet portal, is also intensifying its own push into online shopping, seeking to leverage its large existing digital audience and more comprehensive user data.  

Naver spun out the shopping feature from its main app and launched a dedicated platform called “Naver Plus Store” this year to chip away at Coupang’s position. It’s also partnered with the popular service Kurly Inc. to expand into groceries, while investing heavily in logistics. 

“There’s plenty of competition in this space, as you noted, both online and offline,” Chief Executive Officer Bom Kim said in response to an analyst’s question about the potential impact of Naver and Kurly’s partnership. “Unlike luxury products, for example, there’s no shortage of stores and sites that carry fresh.” –BLOOMBERG

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NINTENDO Co. shares surged as much as 10% after the company raised its Switch 2 sales forecast ahead of the holidays, a sign of confidence in the record-breaking console’s continued momentum.

The Kyoto-based company now expects to sell 19 million units of the $450 gadget by March next year, up from the original guidance of 15 million units. It also raised its fiscal-year operating income forecast by 16% to ¥370 billion ($2.4 billion) and raised its dividend payout ratio to 60%.

Second-quarter earnings were “a big beat across the board, with plenty more to come,” wrote Jefferies analysts Atul Goyal and Shunki Nakamura in a report, adding that both software and hardware sales have been strong. Management’s decision to raise forecasts shows confidence in the current cycle, they said.

Nintendo’s stock price gain on Wednesday was their biggest intraday jump in almost seven months.

The sustained strength of one of this year’s marquee consumer electronics debuts bodes well for holiday shopping demand across the global economy. Nintendo’s September quarter beat the consensus of analyst estimates, with an operating profit of ¥88.25 billion and revenue of ¥527.2 billion. It sold 10.36 million Switch 2s by the end of that month, according to its website.

“Selling over 10 million units in just the first half of the fiscal year was a major surprise that far exceeded market expectations,” Toyo Securities analyst Hideki Yasuda said. “Since sales in the second half of the year — which includes the Christmas shopping season — almost never fall below those of the first half, there is a strong likelihood that Nintendo will revise upward again.”

The Switch 2 is Nintendo’s most expensive piece of hardware to date, and the company’s sole long-term platform for a wealth of in-house gaming franchises. It surpassed sky-high expectations for early sales, setting records for the console segment and powering hardware across Nintendo’s two key markets of Japan and the US.

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has said it won’t be easy to keep up that hot momentum, pointing to the hardware’s elevated price and macroeconomic challenges including US-China trade uncertainty and the Donald Trump administration’s elevated tariffs. Nintendo spent 64.6 billion yen on advertising in the most recent quarter, an 80% increase to ensure the Switch 2 was ever-present in the minds of fans and potential new customers.

Investors and analysts like Yasuda expect Switch 2 sales to accelerate in the current quarter as the gift-giving season ramps up. Nintendo is increasing console production to meet demand, which has remained higher than supply in its most important markets. The company has asked its assembly partners to make 25 million units of the Switch 2 by March, people familiar with the matter have said. –BLOOMBERG

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