The European Union is said to be working on trade measures to counter China’s planned export controls on critical raw materials should the bloc fail to reach a diplomatic solution with Beijing.

The European Commission is preparing a list of options by the end of the month that can later be deployed against China to boost its negotiating leverage, we’re told. The commission is also developing a plan to protect critical supplies in the short-term and secure other sources.

The issue will likely be addressed at an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels this week, though the commission is said to want to avoid a discussion on specific measures.

The EU isn’t just getting pushing back on China. The bloc lined up unanimous support for its 19th sanctions package against Russia earlier today after Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico became the last holdout to fold, following Austria and Hungary.

The measures, which EU leaders are expected to approve during their Brussels summit, ban liquefied natural gas imports from Russia from January 2027, a year earlier than initially planned, and target Russian banks, lenders in Central Asia and several crypto exchanges.

For the EU, which is often criticized for exerting less influence in big power politics than it’s economic might would suggest, it’s another move that will show its ability to take the initiative.

European nations are also working with Ukraine on a 12-point proposal to end Russia’s war along current battle lines, pushing back against Putin’s renewed demands to the US for Kyiv to surrender territory in return for a peace deal, we reported yesterday.

Another summit between Putin and US President Donald Trump — this time planned for Budapest next month and which would’ve found the EU potentially sidelined in talks on its own territory — is now looking remote after Russia launched multiple drone and missile strikes on Ukraine, killing at least seven civilians, including children, this morning.  Zoltan Simon

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UK inflation unexpectedly held steady in September after food bills fell for the first time in 16 months, prompting a surge in market bets on a Bank of England interest-rate cut before the end of the year. Meanwhile house prices in London suffered their first drop since July 2024, with some attributing it to fears that Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves could lift taxes in next month’s budget. The government is planning a package of emergency measures to boost housebuilding in London, in a move that could be announced as soon as tomorrow, we’re told.

US Vice President JD Vance and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Wednesday to discuss plans for a postwar Gaza, with the allies trying to maintain and look beyond a truce in the shattered Palestinian territory. The plan is for “a completely new vision of how to have a civil government, how to have security there,” Netanyahu told reporters, without elaborating. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is due in Israel tomorrow and is set to meet Netanyahu on Friday to help reinforce the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Apple and Alphabet’s Google were designated with so called strategic market status in the UK, exposing the US firms’ mobile ecosystems market to deeper scrutiny from the country’s antitrust watchdog. The Competition and Markets Authority said Wednesday that Apple and Google’s almost complete dominance of  mobile operating systems, app stores and mobile web browsers merit the designation. The move comes under tougher competition rules for digital markets that came into effect earlier this year.

Ethiopia’s surging gold exports, which have surpassed coffee shipments for the first time, are set to support currency gains in coming months, the nation’s central bank governor told us. That would reverse a losing streak, which began when the government liberalized the foreign-exchange market and allowed the birr to weaken sharply. The currency has lost two-thirds of its value since it was floated on July 29.

The former chief executive of Danish weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk is back in the driver’s seat. Lars Rebien Sorensen is taking on the role of chairman amid a boardroom rupture over the speed of change at the company that’s quickly recasting itself after its rapid growth slowed. Sorensen, who was known for pulling the strings behind the scenes for almost a decade, was already chairman of the Novo Nordisk Foundation — the drugmaker’s controlling shareholder. He’ll now hold sway over both the company and the powerful entity that wields more than three-quarters of Novo votes.

Dubai’s property boom is drawing in one of the wealthiest families of the United Arab Emirates, which until now had steered clear of the well-trodden model of developing and selling new homes. Sultan Al Ghurair, a scion of the family that built the emirate’s first modern mall, is setting up a real estate development firm to build on family land and sell homes ahead of construction. His first foray will be an ultra-luxury tower designed by a prominent Japanese architect. The Al Ghurair group controls a vast real-estate empire that spans thousands of homes, offices, malls, warehouses and hotels and its patriarch Abdulla is among the richest men in the UAE with a net worth of $10.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

A top South African banker criticized the nation’s Black economic empowerment laws as a misfire that’s failed to spread wealth or opportunity after more than three decades. “At a personal level, I think there’s been a misapplication of the policy of BEE,” Investec Plc Chief Executive Officer Fani Titi told reporters at the company’s Johannesburg headquarters on Wednesday. The remarks add to a debate about the benefits of South African laws that were introduced to address wealth disparities between races that stemmed from apartheid rule, an era in which Black people were subjugated and excluded from the formal economy.

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