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Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, December 20th.

And this is your FT news briefing.

The prices of a lot of metals have taken a beating this year except for one and our defense

and security correspondent tells us about his experience in a Hamas tunnel.

It was hot and clammy and quite oppressive. Plus India has

transformed a lot under Prime Minister Norengra Modi. Our Bureau Chief

there takes a look at how tech is changing the country.

I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day. Copper has been red hot this year. It's up 2.5% in 2023. It's coming in at 8,600

per ton, and that puts it on track to finish this year as the top-performing industrial metal.

So, why the surge in copper?

Well, disruptions in production created a supply squeeze.

There were mining problems in Latin America which

downgraded production forecasts. But copper is an outlier in what was a tough year

for metals overall. They've been getting slammed by high interest rates, which is pushing up the dollar,

making those commodities more expensive for importers. The Israel. The Underground Network provides shelter for Hamas fighters from Israeli

aerial attacks and the tunnels are massive. The network is the size of the

London underground. Recently, our defense correspondent John Paul Rathbone had a chance to see one of those

tunnels. He went with the Israeli Defense Forces and he joins me now to talk about what he saw.

Hi, J.P.

Hello Mark. So tell me a little bit about the tunnel that you were in JP.

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