In brief: Key reservoir in Brazil holds only 6 percent of capacity
Sao Paulo – Halfway through the rainy season, the key reservoir for the hemisphere’s largest city holds just 6 percent of its capacity, and experts warned Friday that Sao Paulo authorities must take urgent steps to prevent the worst drought in more than 80 years from drying it out.
The system of reservoirs and rivers that provide water to millions in this Brazilian city have received less rainfall than hoped during the first weeks of the wet season, raising fears they won’t be replenished as hoped. Rainfall during the first two weeks of January totaled just 2.9 inches, well below the historic average for the month of 10.7 inches.
The biggest problem is in the Cantareira water system, which is the largest of six reservoirs that provide water to about 6 million of the 20 million people living in the metropolitan area of Sao Paulo city. Cantareira is now down to 6 percent of its capacity of 264 billion gallons.
Pro-Russian separatists discard idea of cease-fire in Ukraine
Ukrainian military brass and pro-Russia separatists have abandoned all pretense of adhering to a cease-fire, sending massive reinforcements Friday to their eastern Ukraine battlegrounds and engaging in a fierce battle for control of the devastated airport in Donetsk.
Six government troops were killed within 24 hours and 18 were wounded, Col. Andriy Lysenko of the National Security and Defense Council told reporters at his daily briefing in Kiev, the capital.
The command center of the “anti-terrorist operation,” as the Kiev leadership calls its forward base for the fight against separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, said Ukrainian positions had been attacked 82 times overnight Thursday to Friday, the Ukrinform news agency reported.
Separatist leaders told Russian media in Moscow they had in effect won control of the Sergei Prokofiev International Airport in Donetsk, the modern hub built three years ago that had been Ukraine’s second-busiest air travel facility. The sleek glass-and-steel main terminal has been shattered by almost daily artillery bombardment since May, when separatists moved to seize the strategic asset but met strong resistance.