Calls for a national referendum on renationalising England’s privatised water and sewerage companies have intensified after 20,000 people signed a petition launched by a campaigner from Channel 4’s “Dirty Business” series. The move targets companies responsible for combined sewer overflows, long-term leakage issues and high storm discharge volumes into rivers and coastal waters. Any shift to public ownership would directly affect funding models for major wastewater upgrades, long-life pipeline renewals and resilience works on ageing treatment works and trunk mains.

EU and US negotiators are close to a critical minerals pact that would use tools such as minimum pricing mechanisms, subsidies and purchase guarantees to support non‑Chinese suppliers of lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, copper and rare earths. A leaked draft action plan calls for joint standards, coordinated investment and shared responses to supply disruptions, following Beijing’s 2025 export controls that hit rare earths and forced some European manufacturers to halt production. The framework is intended to mesh with existing US agreements with Mexico and Japan, signalling a move towards a wider multi-country minerals accord.

Argentina’s Congress has approved President Javier Milei’s reform of the 2010 Glacier Law by 137–111, allowing provinces rather than a national scientific body to define which of nearly 17,000 glaciers and 8,484 sq. km of periglacial zones can host mining, including high-altitude copper, lithium and gold projects. Supporters, including provincial leaders in Mendoza, San Juan, Catamarca and Salta, and miners such as Glencore, BHP, Rio Tinto, Lundin Mining and McEwen Mining, see scope to triple exports by 2030 and reach $165 billion by 2035. Environmental lawyers and scientists warn that opening periglacial areas—key to water regulation in arid Andean basins—could threaten supplies relied on by about 70% of Argentinians and introduce fragmented, politically driven permitting standards.