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Rare earth (RE) metals find application in a massive range of devices including wind turbines, hybrid and electric cars, LCDs, fuel cells, nuclear reactors and lasers. China controls some 97% of the world supply of REs, and in July announced a 72% reduction in exports of REs for the second half of 2010, compared with the previous year. It is predicted that in 2012, Chinese domestic consumption of REs will match domestic production, and this year will see a peak in availability and a demand-supply gap emerging on the world markets.

REs are not lacking in the earth’s crust, for example cerium ranks as the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million, in fact similar in concentration to copper. There are however few economically concentrated ores of the metals and their very similar chemical properties make the separation and isolation of individual REs in pure form difficult and expensive.

A surge in Chinese prices that has rattled financial markets may be poised to ease as weather improves and the economy returns to more normal growth following a period of extra stimulus following the global financial crisis, a top China economic specialist said.

In a report that rattled financial markets globally, China said last month that its consumer prices index rose by 4.4% in October from a year earlier, the biggest increase in 25 months and well above its 3% annual target for 2010. However, vegetable and fruit prices accounted for 27% of the October rise, and stripping that influence out, the CPI increase would have been only 3.5%, close to a pre-financial-crisis average of 3.6%, said Andy Rothman, the China macro strategist at brokerage CLSA.

A mad rush to the playground turned into a stampede that left dozens of elementary school children injured in western China on Monday, state media and officials said.

Students at the No. 5 Elementary School in Aksu city, Xinjiang, were rushing downstairs for after-class exercises around noon when some students fell, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The report said that other students then pushed to squeeze through the narrow stairway, trampling on those that had fallen.

Xinhua put the numbers injured at nearly 100 while an official with the Aksu government's propaganda office said more than 40 were injured and were being treated in hospital. No deaths were reported.

China has expressed frustration with North Korea, with one official calling it a "spoiled child," at the same time as brushing off U.S. requests to choke off the flow of military technology from Pyongyang to Tehran that helps to sustain the regime, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables.

One of the latest batches of cables released by WikiLeaks also quotes a South Korean official speculating that China might be able to accept reunification under South Korea's leadership.

Another cable quotes a Chinese official telling a U.S. Embassy official after North Korea's missile test last year that: "North Korea wanted to engage directly with the United States and was therefore 'acting like a spoiled child' to get the attention of the "adult." The Guardian, one of five news organization that got early access to the cables, names the Chinese official as Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei.