Water? Not at Brazil forum on water shortages

BRASA­LIA: There’s no escaping water rationing in Brazil’s drought-hit capital Brasilia -- unless you’re attending an international conference on global water supply problems, local media reported.

Brasilia has been on a schedule of rolling cuts to fresh water supply, neighborhood by neighborhood, since January 2017. But the estimated 40,000 people expected to attend the 8th World Water Forum starting on Sunday will be able to turn the taps on full, Folha de S.Paulo newspaper reports.

"During this period we’ll suspend rationing in the city center to guarantee a supply of water to the forum," Mauricio Luduvice, president of CAESB, the city’s water and sewage agency, told Folha. "We’ll make the water available. We don’t want there to be any problems," he was quoted as saying.

The conference is due to discuss growing fears for water security around the world, including in Cape Town. That South African city has been threatened this year with running almost completely out of drinking water.