Shrinking reservoirs in Morocco, India, Iraq and Spain could spark the next “day zero” water crisis, according to the developers of a satellite early warning system for the world’s 500,000 dams.

Cape Town recently grabbed global headlines by launching a countdown to the day when taps would be cut off to millions of residents as a result of a three-year drought. Drastic conservation measures have forestalled that moment in South Africa, but dozens of other countries face similar risks from rising demand, mismanagement and climate change, say the World Resources Institute (WRI). The US-based environmental organisation is working with Deltares, the Dutch government and other partners to build a water and security early warning system that aims to anticipate social instability, economic damage and cross-border migration. A prototype is due to be rolled out later this year, but a snapshot was unveiled on Wednesday that highlighted four of the worst-affected dams and the potential knock-on risks.(theguardian)…[+]

An Indian man who was arrested after accusing a ruling party official of raping his teenage daughter has died in police custody, prompting outrage and calls for an independent investigation. The day before the man died, his daughter had gone to Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh, doused herself in kerosene and tried to self-immolate in protest against the alleged unwillingness of police to pursue her allegations. Uttar Pradesh is a state of 200 million residents with poverty and malnutrition levels close to those of sub-Saharan Africa and a reputation for lawlessness. The allegations have shocked Indians and prompted renewed scrutiny of the power wielded by politicians in small-town India.

The mother of the girl, who court documents say is 15, has alleged in a handwritten note to police that her daughter was raped on 9 June last year by two men one of whom was Kuldeep Singh Sengar, a member of the Uttar Pradesh parliament with the ruling Bharatiya Janata party. Her family had been unsuccessfully trying to convince police to register a case against the politician for months until last Tuesday, when the family allege Singh Sengar and his brother Atul Singh Sengar barged into their home at about 6pm with a group of men. “My two young girls were molested and when my husband protested he was tied to a tree and was beaten,” the woman alleged in her note.(theguardian)…[+]

More than 250 people have been killed in a military plane crash in Algeria, state television has reported. The plane crashed soon after takeoff in a field near the Boufarik military base in northern Algeria on Wednesday. The cause of the crash was unclear and an investigation has been launched, the defence ministry said. Emergency services converged on the area near the base. Mohammed Achour, the chief spokesman for the civil protection agency, said the Russian-designed Il-76 military transport plane had been carrying soldiers. The defence ministry has not provided a death toll but expressed condolences to the victims’ families.

The Algerian TV network Ennahar published images of body bags lined up in a field after the crash. The flight had just taken off from Boufarik, about 20 miles (30km) south-west of Algiers, when it crashed. It was bound for a military base in Béchar in the south-west of the country, Achour said. It was scheduled to make a stopover in Tindouf, in western Algeria, home to many refugees from the neighbouring Western Sahara, a disputed territory annexed by Morocco.(theguardian)…[+]