The new minerals diplomacy Beijing’s export controls on rare earths and other niche metals are prompting countries and companies to spend heavily in order to become self-sufficient, with destabilising consequences for markets. Financial Times Europe15 Jul 2026By Cam illa Hodg son In the late 18th cen tury, a Finnish chem ist named Johan Gad olin was sent anunusual black rock dis covered in a quarry in Ytterby, near Stock holm. The find was thought to con tain tung sten, but Gad olin announced it in fact con -tained a “new earth”, a pre vi ously unknown min eral sub stance. “Gad olin’s yttria”would become known as the first dis cov ery of a rare earth com pound, and amongthe ele ments it yiel ded was the sil very metal now known as “yttrium”. Today, yttrium has huge stra tegic value in the pro duc tion of the com puter chipsthat are the back bone of AI. It is also one of the niche metals at the centre of araging geo pol it ical storm. The vast major ity of yttrium, along with many ot...
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RATS KEEP DROWNING China’s GDP Growth Weakens to 4.3%, Below Official Target Range By Bloomberg News July 15, 2026 at 12:00 PM GMT+10 Updated on July 15, 2026 at 12:02 PM GMT+10 Save Translate 2:43 China’s economy slowed more than expected last quarter to the weakest in more than three years, as attention turns to what policymakers will do next to make sure their annual growth goal is met. Gross domestic product grew 4.3% from a year ago, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, below the bottom of this year’s official target range of 4.5% to 5%. That compares with a 4.5% gain projected by economists polled by Bloomberg, following an increase of 5% in the first quarter. “The economy ran within a reasonable range,” the NBS said in a statement. “There were many instabilities and uncertainties externally, and the supply-demand imbalance was prominent domestically.” China's GDP Growth Slips Below Official Target Range Economy expanded 4.3% in secon...
Is the US or Europe better off? Comparing them is hard and can lead to different answers depending on what is measured and how Financial Times Europe15 Jul 2026Mar tin Wolf mar tin.wolf@ft.com The gen eral view, not just in the US, is that the con tem por ary European eco nomy isa dying duck. As the Nobel laur eate Paul Krug man notes in a recent Substack onthis ques tion, which builds in turn on import ant earlier work by Seth Ack er man,“there is . . . a wide spread per cep tion that Europe is liv ing off its past glor ies, that itis lag ging behind Amer ica and China in ways that will under mine its abil ity tomain tain its eco nomic stand ing in the world”. Indeed, just this fear anim atesreports recently pro duced in Europe, not ably the highly influ en tial ana lysis byMario Draghi, which was pub lished in 2024. Mak ing such com par is ons is diffi cult. There is no doubt, for example, that the UShas long been in another league when it comes to advanced digital tech no lo ...
How Brands Sneak In Cheaper Ingredients to Protect Their Profit Margins Companies are enlisting consultants and spending millions to reformulate their most beloved products. Photographer: Tonje Thilesen for Bloomberg Businessweek Save Translate 9:52 Takeaways by Bloomberg AI We all have our breaking points. For Brad Reese it was no longer being able to wear his bright orange racing jacket in public — the one with the word “Reese’s” emblazoned across the chest in yellow cursive. His grandfather created the eponymous chocolate-peanut-butter cups in 1928, and Reese likes to wear the jacket out to “experience people’s love” for the iconic American candy. “I’ll be walking in Manhattan, and I swear to God the sidewalk will part,” he says. “People step aside, and they’ll all be smiling — everybody from the 4-year-old up to the 104-year-old.” Reese with his prized company racing jacket last month.Photographer: Ysanya Perez for Bloomberg Businessweek Hershey Co. purchased Reese’s in 196...
Putin Will Turn a Cease-Fire Into a Weapon Michael Kimmage and Hanna Notte July 14, 2026 A residential building heavily damaged by a Russian strike, Kyiv, Ukraine, July 2026 Alina Smutko / Reuters HANNA NOTTE is Director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. She is the author of the forthcoming book We Shall Outlast Them: Putin’s Global Campaign to Defeat the West . To recall the last negotiated peace with Russia is to tell a depressing tale. Russia invaded Ukraine in March 2014, annexing Crimea and then moving regular and irregular forces into the Donbas, in the country’s east. After months of war and intense interference in domestic Ukrainian affairs, Moscow signed a series of cease-fire agreements in the Belarusian capital of Minsk in September 2014 and February 2015. Russia retained and militarized the territory it had taken in Ukraine. The Minsk agreements did not solve any core problems, but Europe and the United S...
Expelled from China A New York Times correspondent was kicked out of the country after reporting on the struggles of everyday Chinese. Here’s her story. Listen · 12:08 min July 14, 2026, 5:11 p.m. ET You’re reading The World newsletter. Your daily guide to understanding what’s happening — and why it matters. Hosted by Katrin Bennhold, for readers around the world. China is one of the biggest stories in the world — and one of the most complex. That’s why The New York Times has always tried to have correspondents on the ground who can get under the surface and report out the nuances. But the Chinese authorities have long been wary of foreign journalists. They restrict their access, surveil their movements and sometimes expel them outright. My colleague Vivian Wang, our brilliant China correspondent, recently had her visa revoked. During her time in the country, she talked to a cross-section of Chinese society — migrant workers, academics, college students, retirees. Tod...