The director of London-based Bebo Construction Limited, Adebanjo Adebayo Talabi, has received a two-year prison sentence suspended for two years, 200 hours’ unpaid work and a six-year director disqualification after admitting three fraudulent Covid Bounce Back Loan applications totalling £150,000. An Insolvency Service investigation found he exaggerated company turnover from about £1,300 loan eligibility to claims of £200,000–£220,000 turnover and secured three £50,000 loans from different banks between August and November 2020. Investigators also found the funds were diverted to personal accounts rather than used for the company’s economic benefit.

Western governments are adopting a “China-light” industrial strategy, pouring tens to hundreds of billions into defence, semiconductors and critical minerals via tools such as the US Defense Production Act, CHIPS and Science Act ($53 billion), and the EU’s €43 billion European Chips Act and Critical Raw Materials Act. China’s integrated model still dominates midstream capacity, refining 68% of global nickel, 73% of cobalt, 95% of manganese, all spherical graphite for battery anodes, and over 90% of rare earth processing and magnet production. For mining and materials players, the key shift is policy focus from new mines to midstream conversion capacity, long-term offtake-style defence contracts, and allied coordination of minerals and materials flows.

Chile’s Ministry of Health has formally authorised the use of copper slag as an artificial aggregate in infrastructure works, including road surfacing, turning a major smelting waste stream into a regulated construction input. The decree defines copper slag as a by-product of copper pyrometallurgy and allows its controlled use in pavements and other civil works, subject to health and environmental criteria. For Chilean miners and contractors, this opens a large-scale outlet for slag stockpiles and may alter aggregate sourcing, pavement design and leachate management practices.