World water crisis must be top UN priority: report

WASHINGTON: A rapidly worsening water shortage threatens to destabilize the planet and should be a top priority for the UN Security Council and world leaders, a panel of experts said in a report.

The world’s diminishing water supply carries serious security, development and social risks, and could adversely affect global health, energy stores and food supplies, said the report titled “The Global Water Crisis: Addressing an Urgent Security Issue,” published Monday.

The study was released by the InterAction Council (IAC), a group of 40 prominent former government leaders and heads of state, along with the United Nations University’s Institute for Water, Environment and Health, and Canada’s Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation.

“As some of these nations are already politically unstable, such crises may have regional repercussions that extend well beyond their political boundaries,” said Norway’s former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, a member of the group.

The Norwegian leader underscored that the danger is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa, western Asia and North Africa, where critical water shortages already exist.

She added that water insecurity could wreak havoc “even in politically stable regions.”

Canada’s former prime minister Jean Chretien meanwhile said it was impossible to overstate the magnitude of the crisis.

“The future political impact of water scarcity may be devastating,” he told reporters in a telephone press conference.

The report found that water demand in the world’s two most populous countries, India and China, will exceed supplies in less than two decades.

Experts said that some 3,800 cubic kilometers of fresh water are extracted from aquatic ecosystems around the world each year, largely as a result of global warming.

Population growth meanwhile has worsened the strain on water resources.

With about one billion more mouths to feed worldwide by 2025, global agriculture alone will require another 1,000 cubic kilometers (one trillion cubic meters) of water per year.

“Using water the way we have in the past simply will not sustain humanity in future,” Chretien said.

“The IAC is calling on the United Nations Security Council to recognize water as one of the top security concerns facing the global community,” he said.

“Starting to manage water resources more effectively and efficiently now will enable humanity to better respond to today’s problems and to the surprises and troubles we can expect in a warming world.”

The report is being released as foreign ministers of several countries prepare for a scheduled special discussion of the topic later this month on the margins of the UN General Assembly.

UN-Water, a coordinating body for water-related efforts by all UN groups, also will told a meeting of experts in New York on September 25 to discuss ways to tackle the problem.

Islam religion of peace but hijacked by extremists: British PM

New York: British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday termed Islam as a peaceful religion but said that some extremists have hijacked it.

Addressing the UN General Assembly, the prime minister said that the democracy and Islam can run together.

Further supporting the Palestinian cause, PM Cameron said, “We support their right to have a state and a home but wants Hamas to renounce violence.”

David Cameron launched his strongest attack on the United Nations over its inaction on Syria, declaring that the blood of young children is a “terrible stain” on its reputation.

The prime minister said: “The blood of these young children is a terrible stain on the reputation of this United Nations. And in particular, a stain on those who have failed to stand up to these atrocities and in some cases aided and abetted Assad’s reign of terror.

“If the United Nations charter is to have any value in the 21st century we must now join together to support a rapid political transition. And at the same time no one of conscience can turn a deaf ear to the voices of suffering.”

He said people who invested great hope in the Arab spring were also wrong to give up even in light of the bloodshed in Syria and the political uncertainty after the election of Islamist leaders in countries such as Egypt. Libya showed the mixed picture, the prime minister said, as he condemned the murder of the US ambassador Chris Stephens in a “despicable act of terrorism” while hailing elections to a new congress.

The prime minister said: “One year on, some believe that the Arab spring is in danger of becoming an Arab winter. They point to the riots on the streets, Syria’s descent into a bloody civil war, the frustration at the lack of economic progress and the emergence of newly elected Islamist-led governments across the region.

“But they are in danger of drawing the wrong conclusion. Today is not the time to turn back, but to keep the faith and redouble our support for open societies, and for people’s demands for a job and a voice.”

In his speech the prime minster announced that Britain was to provide £3m for a Unicef fund to help 500,000 refugees in Syria, more than half of whom are children, as winter approaches.