[United Kingdom] Computer hackers broke into a server at the University of East Anglia's famed Climate Research Unit in Norwich, Norfolk, England, and posted hundreds of private documents online, some apparently showing that some scientists have overstated the effects of human activities upon global climate change. The university could not yet confirm if all the posted materials were genuine. In one leaked e-mail, the research center's director, Phil Jones, referred to a technique used by a fellow scientist to "hide the decline" in global temperature increases, but he insisted that his comment had been taken out of context and alluded to a statistical adjustment.

[Italy] In Italy's Chamber of Deputies in Rome, the Ronchi decree passed into law by a vote of 302 to 263. It allows private investment in public utilities, including water. The Minister of European Affairs, Andrea Ronchi, who wrote the bill, assured the public that water rates wouldn't rise, that privatization would help utilities afford repairs to leaking pipelines, and that the government would monitor the water sector. The opposition is heading for the barricades, however, led by the Italia dei Valori Party. They're rallying support for a referendum to nullify the measure. The Lega Nord Party is particularly opposed because privatization is likely to raise water rates in the north, where they're very low. "We will defend the former patrimony of the municipalities," vowed Lega Nord leader Roberto Cota, "from the aggressiveness of the large foreign multinationals."

[Mexico] At a United Nations climate conference in Mexico City, DF, Mexico, the director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) for Latin America reported that the number of natural disasters in the region had quadrupled in the last 20 years and the number of people affected had jumped from 174 million to 250 million. Marcela Suazo blamed the increase upon climate changes, rapid deforestation (a 40% loss in two decades), and migration. By 2030, she said, it's estimated that 90% of the population could live in urban zones, with the densely packed populations becoming more vulnerable to floods and landslides.

[Texas] With the population of Texas expected to double by 2060, lawmakers and water experts warned that the state was running out of water. If the state were to experience major drought conditions again with that many more people, officials estimated that economic losses could reach $90 billion. A state water plan is being crafted for the 2011 Legislative session, including the construction of 19 new reservoirs, water recycling programs, more pipelines, desalination plants, and more effective conservation methods. Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst emphasized that the government's goal was to double potable water supplies as soon as possible.

[China] Plans to raise the water level behind China's massive Three Gorges Dam to its full height have suddenly come to a halt. Officials had been increasing water storage at the dam - located on the Yangtze River in the Yichang area of Hubei Province -- since mid-September, but proceedings stopped on 2 November. The State Council Committee overseeing the project explained that drought had reduced flows in the Yangtze by 34%, but a spate of recent warnings from geologists is suspected of being an equally important reason. In the latest, a political consultative body in Chongqing Municipality, which is located near the reservoir, warned that the risks of landslides were a real threat as the weight of the stored water put pressure on hairline cracks.

[Bangladesh] A team of researchers led by Dr. Charles Harvey of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts has discovered the source of what is probably the worst mass poisoning in history: arsenic in the groundwater of millions of people in rural Bangladesh. The culprits, explained Dr. Rebecca Neumann of Harvard, are tens of thousands of artificial ponds excavated to provide soil for flood protection. The investigators analyzed the flow patterns of surface and underground water in a section of Munshiganj District, using tracer substances and a computer model, and found that the organic compound that unleashes the poison first settles on the bottom of the ponds and then gradually seeps into the ground. Their suggested solutions: digging deeper wells below the level of the ponds or digging shallow wells under ricefields.

[Moon] A "significant amount" of water was found in the moon's Cabeus Crater, near the South Pole, when the US space agency NASA's LCROSS Mission sent two spacecraft crashing into the lunar surface last month, announced principal investigator Dr. Anthony Colaprete of the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. One of the rockets crashed into the crater at around 5600 miles (9000 kilometers) per hour, sending up an enormous plume of debris that contained at least 24 gallons of water. Colaprete noted that this was only an initial result from the experiment. Finding water on the moon is a major breakthrough in space exploration and boosts hopes of someday establishing a permanent base there.

[Brazil] Brazil's space agency, which monitors rainforests in the Amazon River Basin via satellite, reported that the rate of deforestation had fallen to its lowest level in 21 years. Between January and August, 7000 square kilometers were cleared, a 45% reduction compared to 2008. President Lula da Silva has promised to slow deforestation as a way to pressure the leaders of other nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

[Peru] The level of Lake Titicaca, which straddles the border between Bolivia and Peru, has dropped 81 cm since mid-April, alarming the Binational Lake Titicaca Authority (ALT). According to ALT, too much water loss will reduce vegetation that grows in marshy areas, as well as affecting fish reproduction unfavorably. The Authority recommended that the Foreign Ministers of both countries place immediate restrictions upon water withdrawals and inform the populations in and around the lake why it's being done.

[Australia] Premier Anna Bligh of the Australian state of Queensland criticized a decision by Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett to reject the controversial Traveston Crossing Dam in Gympie. "This was on land that had been cleared for more than a century. There is no pristine rainforest," she said. "If you can't approve a dam here, it makes it difficult. . .to see how any state government will ever be able to provide a dam in the future." She warned that the state would now have to rely upon higher-priced water from four new desalination plants. Opponents of the dam, on the other hand, hailed Garrett's decision as a victory, although Member of Parliament Peter Wellington urged them not to stop fighting proposed dams in Obi Obi and Cambroon. Residents of the Mary Valley are also worried that more than 14,000 ha of land bought by the government for the Traveston Crossing project may still be lost to farming.

[Texas] The US section of the International Borders and Waters Commission, based in El Paso, Texas, authorized nearly $7.5 million in Federal economic stimulus funds to build flood-control projects on the Rio Grande. The Sun Belt construction firm of Sonoita, Arizona was awarded a contract to install a series of dikes around the city of Hidalgo in Hidalgo County, Texas and a floodgate at the Hidalgo-Reynosa Bridge on the Mexican border. The work is expected to be finished in September 2010.

[Brazil] The Brazilian states of Tocantins, Paraiba, Para, and Pernambuco will receive 45.4 million reales, or around $22.7 million US, for a series of water-related projects. Approximately a quarter of the funding (R$10.3 million) will go to the massive Sao Francisco River diversion project in the northwest. The Ministry of National Integration allocated the lion's share, R$30 million, to Tocantins to build a bridge over the Rio Tocantins. Paraiba will receive funding for the second stage of the Congo Aqueduct System and an irrigation project in Ainda, Para will get funding for urban drainage projects in Ananideua and Santarem, and Pernambuco's project to reduce water pipeline leaks in Belo Jardim will also be funded.

[California] In Sacramento, California, state legislators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger approved a law requiring groundwater levels to be monitored and reported by water services and well-owners for the first time. Every other western state already keeps tabs on aquifer levels. Starting on 1 January 2012, water districts must report the data to the Department of Water Resources or face the loss of state water grants. Farmers' groups fought mandatory groundwater monitoring, fearing that it could lead to the state regulating their pumping, but were willing to compromise on the bill. Environmentalists also compromised on the stringency of enforcement and penalties.

[Madagascar] The snail-borne parasite that causes bilharzia (also called schistosomiasis) is surging on the island-nation of Madagascar, where hundreds of cases of the disease have been reported recently. At one elementary school in Ambondromamy, in the Boena region, 278 out of 349 pupils are ill. Local medical inspector Liva Andrianasolo blamed polluted drinking water for the outbreak. Dr. Armand Rafalimanantsoa said that bilharzia couldn't be eradicated until the government could allocate major funding to the effort. Meanwhile, Madagascar has joined a global initiative to fight the illness and will begin distributing free medications in 2012.

[Africa] An emergency United Nations program to halt erosion along West Africa's coasts began its pilot phase. Rising sea levels, often linked to global warming, are nibbling away at coastal settlements in Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinee-Bissau, Mauritania, and Senegal. The first steps are being taken in Guinee-Bissau, explained program coordinator Isabelle Niang: a public-awareness campaign to enlist the help of coastal residents plus reclamation of mangrove swamps in order to encourage the return of birds and fish and to give sea turtles a place to lay their eggs safely.

[United Arab Emirates] At the International Desalination Association's World Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain's Minister of Electricity and Water, Fahmi Al Jowdar, called for better desalination technology to minimize damage to the marine ecosystem of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf. The UAE's Minister of Environment and Water, Dr. Rashid Bin Fahd, said that the UAE was now the second largest producer of desalinated water in the region, producing 1.3 billion cubic meters annually to meet 98% of the country's demands. "In order to mitigate climate change, the UAE has adopted the option of using nuclear and renewable energy in desalination processes," he announced. In addition, Salma Hareb, head of Economic Zones World, announced that the Dubai Institute of Technology was creating the Excellence Centre for Integrated Water Management.

[Yemen] Several groups of home-grown insurgents and a branch of Al Qaida are threatening Yemen's government, a fact that is directly related to the country's water crisis, pointed out Minister of Water and Environment Abdul Rahman Al Eryani. Much of the rising militancy, he argued, is a conflict over water, land, or oil resources, and a study at Sana'a University bears him out: researchers calculated that 70-80% of all rural conflicts in Yemen were related to water. The World Bank ranks Yemen as one of the most water-scarce countries in the world. According to Dierk Schlutter of the German Development Service (GDS), many poor households rely upon charity from mosques to meet their water needs. The root cause of the shortage is growth: Yemen's population has almost tripled since 1975, according to United Nations statistics, and water resources simply won't go around. Potential solutions include increasing rainwater harvesting in rural areas and adopting modern irrigation techniques, but, said Al Eryani, people must be given economic incentives to change their habits.

[Madagascar] In Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar, Water Minister Nirhy Lanto Andriamahazo announced that a proposed deal to export water from the Faraony River to Saudi Arabia was being cancelled. Another project to sell water from the island's northeast is under study. The green party, Hasin'i Madagasikara, has been fighting the plan ever since its inception, pointing out that many Malagassies don't have access to safe water and that the island's resources need to be protected. A significant portion of residents are also opposed to selling off their water. "The ministry can't close the deal on its own without the support of the Malagassy people," explained Andriamahazo.

[Morocco] From 3-5 November, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) sponsored a conference in Marrakech, Morocco, at which the 21 nations of the Mediterranean region sought agreement on reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. The Mediterranean Sea is more seriously affected by climate changes than most other parts of the globe, said Maria Luisa Silva, who directs the Mediterranean section of the UNEP. Predicted sea-level increases of several centimeters will result in major changes by the end of this century, including the flooding of Spain's Balearic islands, the Italian city of Venice, and Italy's Adriatic Coast and the erosion of Egypt's Nile Delta. Higher temperatures are expected to result in invasions of jellyfish and tropical algae, plus widespread water shortages during the already sultry summers in Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Israel, and southern Italy.

[Greece] After disastrous forest fires denuded parts of Greece's Attika Prefecture at the end of August, mineralogist Thanassis Gondelitsas and Assistant Professor Panagiotis Nastos of the Laboratory of Climatology and Atmospheric Environment at Athens University waited eagerly for the first rainstorm to measure pollutants in the atmosphere. To their shock, the usual vehicle emissions over Athens and dust from the Sahara Desert were joined by toxic metal particles - including antimony, bismuth, and nickel - that had never before appeared. Gondelitsas explained that the heavy metals must have emanated from human activities. His conclusion: "Some people have been dumping dangerous wastes in the mountains of the region for many years."