The News Review:

- Move to privatise water supply opposed
- Summer in Baghdad: power cuts and dry taps
- Don’t profit from dry spell, rice traders told
- Back-pumping could boost Lake Okeechobee but harm environment.

Move to privatise water supply opposed
Hindu – Aug 5, 2007
Even as people were protesting the hike in the water bills and represented to the Board, it had taken yet another hasty decision to handover maintenance of water supply in the new agglomerations of surrounding municipalities in Greater Hyderabad, he said. The Federation demanded that the Government withdraw the privatisation move and review staff position, infrastructure and provide sufficient funds to improve water supply to all areas in the city. People cautioned Meanwhile, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) has cautioned people not to pay money to any person for change of line or connection as there is no such practice in the Board to collect money through individuals. Reacting to reports in a section of the press, Board managing director, K. Jawahar Reddy, said it had come to notice that some miscreants were posing as Baord officials and approaching the multi storied complexes to replace the water supply lines to ensure five to six hour water supply by collecting Rs. 5000 per apartment.

Summer in Baghdad: power cuts and dry taps
Pakistan Dawn – Aug 5, 2007
Those with wells share water with neighbours. People with buckets are a common sight. The number of Iraqis without access to adequate water supplies has risen from 50 per cent to 70 percent since 2003, while 80 per cent lack effective sanitation, British charity Oxfam said in a report last month. INSURGENT ATTACKS: Muna Joseph, a middle-aged woman who lives near Baghdad’s central Karrada district, said she had not had water for three days. Water is one of our simplest rights but always there is a water crisis. We want to live a normal life, we are human. The man in charge of Baghdad’s water supply, Sadiq Shumari, blamed the water shortages on insurgents who had cut power lines between the main water purification plant in Khark’s Tarmiya district and a major electricity station in Salahuddin Province…
Water is one of our simplest rights but always there is a water crisis. We want to live a normal life, we are human. The man in charge of Baghdad’s water supply, Sadiq Shumari, blamed the water shortages on insurgents who had cut power lines between the main water purification plant in Khark’s Tarmiya district and a major electricity station in Salahuddin Province. Usually the water shortages are focussed in Rusafa (eastern Baghdad) and Karkh is fine because of the water plant. But now the water shortage has hit dangerously high levels, he said. Officials were trying to improve security at the plant and repair the electricity lines, he said, but the danger of insurgent attack, which has already forced international organisations to quit work there, remained. He noted that Baghdad generally suffered water shortages because its 6 million inhabitants needed 3.

Don’t profit from dry spell, rice traders told
ABS CBN News – Aug 5, 2007
Cedric Daep, chief of the Provincial Disaster Management Office, quoting official report from weather experts here, said that precipitation in the province was lower by about 100. 7 millimeters for the months of June and July, compared to the normal monthly measurements. âIf this condition will continue we will be running out of enough water supply for our people, the plants and the animals in the coming months,â he said. Daep said their group has started to identify other potential sources of potable water in anticipation of a prolonged dry spell or drought. He said they have also identified areas where to relocate animals in case rivers and other sources of water dry up. âWe hope a full-blown dry spell will be aborted by the coming rainy months, starting this September,â he added. Bulacan braces for worseIn Bulacan, officials initiated a power and water conservation campaign while studying the possibility of putting the province under a state of calamity.

Back-pumping could boost Lake Okeechobee but harm environment.
Free with registration – South Florida Sun-Sentinel – AccessMyLibrary.com – Aug 5, 2007
| South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) (August, 2007). 5–With Lake Okeechobee still way below normal, water managers are considering pumping in pollution-laden water to help boost South Florida’s key backup water supply.