A fresh deal on the future of critical minerals
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There's a new deal on the future of critical minerals. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Byrne. Good morning. Australia, India, Japan and the US. It's a group known as the Quad and it's launched a new push to secure supplies of critical minerals. The goal is to cut their reliance on Chinese rare earths and strengthen their own supply chains. The deal was struck at a meeting in Washington. The BBC's India business correspondent,

Archana Shukla has been looking at this. Hello. Hi, Leanna. Archana, how did this agreement come about? China, which holds the major reserves of several critical minerals that are required for a vast range of industries, whether it's electric vehicles or mobile phones, they have restricted supplies across the world.

although it started as a way to use this restriction as leverage against the United States, but in turn it's also the other industries globally that have suffered. These are critical industries which are big economic powerhouses and countries realise that they need to have different diversified supply chain for critical minerals is concerned. And hence these countries have come together now to talk about

sourcing from each other, building the supply chain. There are several countries like Australia or certain countries in Africa that have critical mineral mines, which are now, you know, countries are seeking more partnerships there to source and have a separate supply chain. In fact, in one of the statements made there, they said that reliance on any one country for processing and refining these critical minerals is

kind of exposes the industries to economic coercion, price manipulation and supply chain disruptions. So to avoid that, somewhere both the motives of the Quad work here. One is looking to balance or counterbalance China's influence in the Indo-Pacific as well as diversifying supply chains so the industries globally are not dependent

as much on China for these critical minerals as they are now. Archana Shukla, thank you so much for joining us on Marketplace. Thank you, Liana. Meanwhile, the Australian airline Qantas says it's looking into a major cyber attack. Hackers have broken into a system holding sensitive data on around six million customers. The BBC's Phil Mercer reports. Qantas has apologised for the breach in security, the scale of which hasn't been made public.

But the Australian airline says that some customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth have been stolen. Credit card and passport details weren't stored on the system that was infiltrated. The government's National Cyber Security Coordinator is part of the investigation into what could be a huge cyber attack. Experts believe the notorious so-called Scattered Spider Hacker group could be responsible. OK, let's do the numbers.

Shares in Danish wind giants Vestas and Ørsted have surged, up 9% and 4% respectively. And over in Hong Kong, retail sales are back in the black, rising in May for the first time in over a year. Now, Pride events in the US and the UK are feeling the pinch, with some seeing corporate sponsorship drop by up to 30% compared to previous years. Even Pride in London happening this weekend...

has lost some big-name backers. So what does that mean for the celebrations? Here's the BBC's Elizabeth Hudson. The second Trump administration has brought with it a rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion policies, as well as restrictions of rights for trans and gender non-conforming people.

The political and policy climate has led to some big names cutting funding for Pride initiatives and parades, and not just in the US. Tim Noblett is Director of Marketing at Pride in London, the UK's biggest Pride event. So what we've seen here, both directly in Pride in London, but also at a wider UK level, is that corporations and big organisations are pulling funding. Some of these being American organisations or international organisations who have lost their DEI budget.

And I think there's also been an opportunity for some organisations to use this cultural shift to step away. There's long been a concern that big names have used pride sponsorship and the rainbow symbol in general as a quick way to sell products to the LGBTQ community.

Kerry Nicholson, who identifies as non-binary, is Chief Operating Officer at marketing consultancy Brand Champions. You can't just put a rainbow on something and expect it to sell and expect the LGBTQ community to feel like you're supporting them. Kerry says it's time for a reset. Not

Not getting rid of corporate involvement altogether, but thinking more about how their values align with LGBTQ causes. You almost need to go back to basics. Look at what's going on internally. Do you have good employee resource groups that support the LGBT community? You really need to start there before you start going out to the world. And in the current economy, there's also the flip side. If you're a big company sponsoring a pride event, will your dollars actually translate into extra sales? Don't

Dr. Matt Johnson, a professor of marketing and psychology at Holt International Business School in Boston, isn't sure. Certainly members of that specific consumer group may be more likely to buy from a brand that openly espouses those values. But consumers tend to be very, very habitual with their spending. They tend to be very price sensitive, especially in times of inflation. Yeah, of course, we like in the abstract sense, a company that maybe espouses certain values. But

we also love a deal. Despite the wider challenges, there are companies that are still keen to get involved in Pride events. Hugo Remy is the boss of Pride Pay, a finance app launching later this year. It's the new lead sponsor of Pride in London, and Remy has a very pragmatic approach to corporate funding in general.

Even the best public initiative will fail without proper funding, you know. And everything in our life costs money right now. There's also a personal reason behind the Latvia-born CEO's involvement. I'm bisexual myself. I feel free and secure in the UK. I can talk about this. In my home country, I still can't. I always try to be honest with myself, first of all, and with other people. I know that when you have an opportunity to change something, you should use this opportunity.

So while some corporations have stepped back from contributing to events, others are relishing the opportunity and representation Pride presents. In London, I'm the BBC's Elizabeth Hotson for Marketplace.

And finally, the Women's European Soccer Tournament, known as the Euros, kicks off in Switzerland today. They'll be battling it out for that $48 million prize money. And that's it from the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. Linda Walker is the producer today. James Graham is the editor. And I'm Leanna Byrne. Have a great day. Thanks for listening.

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