Public holiday announced in Tehran as government tries to grapple with deepening water crisis
Iranian authorities have asked people to limit water consumption amid severe heatwaves and a water crisis across the country.
Iran is experiencing its hottest week of the year, according to the national meteorological service, with temperatures exceeding 50C in some areas.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/22/2025 - 00:00
07/21/2025 - 23:00
Two years after the Nova Kakhovka dam was destroyed in Ukraine, nature has returned in abundance to the drained land in a ‘big natural experiment’ – but it could be lost as quickly as it appeared
At the southern tip of Europe’s largest river island, the ground falls away into a vast and unexpected vista. From a high, rocky ledge on Khortytsia Island, the view opens on to a sea of swaying young willows and mirrored lagoons. Some of the trees are already many metres tall, but this is a young forest. Just a few years ago, all of it was under water.
“This is Velykyi Luh – the Great Meadow,” says Valeriy Babko, a retired history teacher and army veteran, standing on the former reservoir shoreline at Malokaterynivka village. For him, this extraordinary new-old environment represents more than nature alone.
Water flows over the collapsed Kakhovka dam on 7 June 2023. Photograph: AP
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07/21/2025 - 20:46
Peter Malinauskas says politicians do themselves a disservice ‘when they get caught up in technicalities’
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The South Australian premier has said the state’s algal bloom catastrophe, which has caused mass deaths among hundreds of marine species, should be described as a natural disaster as the Greens warn the crisis is a sign of things to come for the country.
Speaking to the ABC’s News Breakfast program, Peter Malinauskas warned “politicians can do themselves a disservice when they get caught up in technicalities”.
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07/21/2025 - 16:29
Twenty-seven trunks symbolise child flood victims: ‘They died as a result of choices – terrible and deadly choices’
Twenty-seven blue, pink and purple trunks, adorned with yellow roses and other flowers, were placed within view of the White House on Monday – each representing a child who perished when Camp Mystic in Texas was overwhelmed by a devastating flood.
“We are gentle, angry people and we are singing for our lives,” sang a group of activists, including mothers from Texas, as they protested against the deadly consequences of government cuts and Donald Trump’s inaction on the climate crisis.
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07/21/2025 - 13:24
Ofwat abolished as ministers adopt Cunliffe review ideas such as sewage map naming and shaming firms
Nils Pratley: Cunliffe’s reforms should have happened 20 years ago
Water review in England and Wales: seven key takeaways
The “broken” water sector in England and Wales faces an era of much tighter oversight after a landmark review, including the creation of a new sector watchdog to “prevent the abuses of the past”.
With water and sewerage companies reeling from what the report’s author Sir Jon Cunliffe called their “Great Stink” moment, the government announced it would abolish Ofwat and combine its powers with those of other water watchdogs under a new “super-regulator”.
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07/21/2025 - 12:47
This precious resource should never have been privatised, and tougher regulation won’t solve the problem
Labour could have chosen the public interest over the profit motive, as it set about its promised reorganisation of the water industry in England and Wales. Polling last year showed a higher level of support for publicly owned water companies than railways. Yet while train companies are being renationalised as contracts expire, ministers ruled out a reversal of 1989’s water privatisation before they commissioned Sir Jon Cunliffe, a former central banker, to report on how they could improve this failing industry through tougher regulation.
This newspaper regrets that the question of ownership was taken off the table. Water is among the most precious of all natural resources and the pro‑market logic for the sell-off was bogus. In the absence of competition, regional monopolies were created and, in the decades since, businesses have enriched themselves while failing to fulfil their responsibilities. No other European government has followed suit in offloading vital infrastructure including pipes and reservoirs, and enabling investors to extract wealth by loading up balance sheets with debt.
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07/21/2025 - 12:17
A harder rain needs to fall on those responsible for the water crisis. Let Thames Water fail – it doesn’t deserve a bailout
In a bone dry summer, every drop of water counts. So, even though the rain is finally falling again now, it’s still hard to take it for granted, or to ignore the way that everything in the countryside still feels unnervingly out of rhythm: earth too cracked, grass too bleached, wheat harvest being brought in too early, rivers too low – and, knowing what Thames Water has been pumping into them, water quite possibly too dirty to cool off in.
In May, the company was fined £122.7m for the combined sins of sewage dumping and continuing to pay shareholder dividends despite its environmental failings. It responded by protesting that it might go bust if actually held accountable for its actions, a sentence that sums up everything people find infuriating about the water industry. Yet its resentful customers have no choice but to keep paying bills that are expected to rise by a third over the next five years – though Thames Water, inevitably, asked to be allowed to charge more – while wondering how we ever let a commodity this precious become so badly managed, heading into a volatile new era of summer drought and winter flood.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
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07/21/2025 - 11:22
Disasters and tragedies have long been a source of conspiracy theories. But when devastating flash floods hit Texas over the Fourth of July weekend, far-right conspiracies over cloud seeding and weather manipulation spread within a matter of hours. The floods killed at least 135 people, including children who were staying at an all-girl summer camp along the Guadalupe River. Extremism reporter Ben Makuch explains more behind these conspiracy theories, while Guardian US environment reporter Oliver Milman tells us what really happened
Far-right conspiracy theories spread online in aftermath of the Texas floods
The long road to tragedy at the Texas girls camp where floods claimed 27 lives
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07/21/2025 - 10:00
More than 600 captive-bred spotted tree frogs have joined the dwindling wild population near Mount Beauty – and so far more than half have been found again
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Hundreds of captive-bred, critically endangered frogs are managing to survive after being released at a fast-flowing mountain stream near Mount Beauty in Victoria, with some moving a “considerable distance” from the release point.
More than 600 spotted tree frogs have joined dwindling wild populations in the Kiewa River, as part of a Zoos Victoria conservation breeding program to boost numbers and genetic diversity after 50% of the frog’s Victorian habitat was severely burnt in the 2019-20 black summer bushfires.
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07/21/2025 - 10:00
Captive-bred critically endangered frogs are managing to survive after being released at a mountain stream near Mount Beauty in Victoria, with some small frogs found about a kilometre from where they were dropped off. More than 600 spotted tree frogs have so far joined dwindling wild populations in the Kiewa River system, as part of a Zoos Victoria conservation breeding program designed to boost numbers and genetic diversity after 50% of the frog's habitat was severely burnt in the 2019-20 black summer bushfires
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