NEWSBLOG: Behind the headlines ? 22 March 2006

A Sri Lankan man drinks water from Olu Ella natural waterfall in Amanvella village, Yatiyanthota. REUTERS/Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi

Happy World Water Day. A chance to savour life&${esc.hash}39;s most important commodity and reflect on the plight of a billion people worldwide who don&${esc.hash}39;t have access to safe water. Dirty water kills a child every 15 seconds, according to UNICEF.

Plenty of experts will tell you water is perhaps THE big theme of the 21st century, with global shortages fuelling conflict, disease and food insecurity, and pitting farmers against pastoralists while creating tens of thousands of &${esc.hash}39;water refugees&${esc.hash}39;.

We interviewed a leading scientist, Maarten de Wit, who said water shortages will trigger mass migration, sometimes across borders, with huge political implications. A new study calculates that surface water supplies will have fallen significantly across 25 percent of Africa by the end of the century. ( Story)

The International Rivers Network, a U.S.-based advocacy group, says the high-tech approach to water supply &${esc.hash}39; dams, canals, irrigation systems &${esc.hash}39; has failed to help the world&${esc.hash}39;s poor while resulting in massive environmental and social damage. They call for a new global water policy that stresses low-cost, decentralised approaches. ( Viewpoint)

The global press is bursting with water-related stories. Here&${esc.hash}39;s a small sampler:

• The Independent cites British aid agency Tearfund, which says governments are losing the fight to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without access to clean drinking water ( Water crisis is now &${esc.hash}39;one of the greatest causes of mass suffering&${esc.hash}39;)

• The Guardian picks up a U.N. report that millions of people could have to wait years for clean water as some of the world&${esc.hash}39;s biggest firms pull out of developing nations amid growing doubts about privatisation projects. ( Big water companies quit poor countries)

• BBC News Online describes how Tanzanian villagers have begun using solar energy to sterilise water. The less energy-efficient alternative is to boil it. ( Using the sun to sterilise water)

• The Christian Science Monitor has a useful summary of global patterns of water access, value and consumption, including striking factoids like this one: &${esc.hash}39;Africans consume 37 litres of water a day on average; Americans consume 420 litres a day.&${esc.hash}39; ( Backstory: Tapping the world)

  24 million displaced by conflict worldwide

  The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, a Geneva-based group that keeps tabs on people displaced by conflict in some 50 countries, has released its latest Global Overview of Trends and Developments for 2005. It makes sobering reading, and many of the statistics on internally displaced people (IDPs) speak for themselves:

  Total global IDP population:

  23.7 mln (Dec 2005)

  Worst affected continent:

  Africa (12.1 mln in 20 countries)

  IDPs at risk of death through violence

  14 mln

  Proportion of women and children among IDPs:

  70-80%

  TB fight gets mixed scorecard

  The World Health Organisation has released its Global Tuberculoisis Control 2006 study today, ahead of World TB Day on Friday.

  Global efforts to fight the disease, which kills 1.7 million people each year, get a mixed review. TB programmes are still seriously under-funded in Africa, while the Americas, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific regions are on track to reach WHO targets for detection and treatment.

  Last week WHO unveiled a new global strategy to expand existing treatment programmes, improve diagnosis and prevent co-infection with HIV/AIDS as part of its ${esc.dollar}56 billion plan to halve TB prevalence and death rates and save 14 million lives by 2015.

  A bitter-sweet homecoming?

  In Burundi, authorities are planning a &${esc.hash}39;massive&${esc.hash}39; repatriation of refugees who fled to Tanzania during 12 years of ethnic conflict that killed 300,000 and displaced more than a million, according to Tanzanian newspaper The Guardian.

  The goal is to bring home all the refugees &${esc.hash}39; about 393,000, according to the U.N. refugee body, UNHCR &${esc.hash}39; in three years. That&${esc.hash}39;s an ambitious plan, given the land crunch facing one of Africa&${esc.hash}39;s most densely populated countries.

  It may signal the government&${esc.hash}39;s confidence in the peace and reconstruction process, as well as pressure from Tanzania, which has played host to tens of thousands of Burundian refugees since 1972.

  Many aid workers say the problem of refugees returning to land that had been occupied by former neighbours &${esc.hash}39; some of whom may have taken part in massacres &${esc.hash}39; is one of the most explosive issues facing the government. This is a story to watch.

  Kicking off with the news&${esc.hash}39;

  Some notes now from our morning editorial powwow:

• Bird flu

  remains a top story, with 140 poorer nations needing urgent support to detect the virus and compensate farmers.

• Violence is surging again in Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s south, as well as in its western Darfur region, fuelled by government inaction even after years of global attention, the U.N. says.

• We&${esc.hash}39;ve got a telling interview with an AIDS expert who says Asia must tackle taboos about sex and fight discrimination if it&${esc.hash}39;s going to halt the world&${esc.hash}39;s fastest growing HIV rates.

• In Sri Lanka, Tamil Tiger rebels say they may postpone crunch talks in April unless the state disarms renegades they claim are backed by the military.

• BBC Monitoring has picked up a report by Shabeelle Media Network in Somalia of &${esc.hash}39;heavy clashes&${esc.hash}39; between rival militias in northern Mogadishu, displacing dozens of families.

  That&${esc.hash}39;s it for now.

  Best regards,

  Tim Large AlertNet Deputy Editor

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