Marking World Water Day in a speech Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said tackling the world’s water problems “represents one of the great diplomatic and development opportunities of our time,” Inter Press Service reports. “It’s not every day you find an issue where effective diplomacy and development will allow you to save millions of lives, feed the hungry, empower women, advance our national security interests, protect the environment, and demonstrate to billions of people that the United States cares,” she said.

Several media outlets looked ahead to President Barack Obama’s scheduled visit to India later this week, as part of his Asia-Pacific tour.

The Guardian concluded its three-year Katine project in north-eastern Uganda, which “tracked the implementation of a development project focusing on five aspects of deprivation: health, education, water and sanitation, livelihoods and governance,” the newspaper writes. Together with the help of Barclays, Guardian readers, Amref and CARE International, the newspaper covered “an extraordinary picture of the ups and downs, strains and stresses of a development project” (Bunting, 10/30).

The majority of African nations will fail to meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets related to water and sanitation, the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) said Friday, Agence France-Presse reports.

Water shortages that could reduce food production and worsen economic conditions in Asia are worsening, Arjun Thapan, an infrastructure advisor with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), said on Tuesday at the ADB’s “Water: Crisis and Choices” conference in Manila, Philippines, Agence France-Presse reports.

“Haitian Health Ministry officials have informed the World Health Organization that 138 deaths are a part of a fast-moving cholera outbreak north of Port-au-Prince, a U.N. official said,” CNN reports. In addition to the deaths, 1,526 cases of cholera have been reported in the Lower Artibonite region, said Imogen Wall, the U.N. humanitarian spokesperson in Haiti. “This is a situation that’s developed very quickly. It’s only been 48 hours, and we’ve already got 138 deaths confirmed,” Wall said.

Global Fund Will Make ‘Every Possible Effort’ To Raise Additional Resources: Although pledges to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at its recent replenishment meeting did not meet “the lowest estimate of demand,” the Fund “will make every possible effort to raise the additional resources that we…

An accountability report, prepared by officials in G8 member countries’ foreign affairs departments, acknowledges that G8 “countries are $10 billion behind the five-year, $50-billion commitment they made at their 2005 summit in Scotland,” the Canadian Press/CTV News reports (6/20).

Tropical Storm Agatha Hits Central America Tropical storm Agatha pounded Central America over the weekend, bringing heavy rain that killed at least 179 people, mostly in Guatemala, the New York Times reports. The search for survivors continues as rescue workers dig through the thousands of homes and buildings that collapsed.…

Nine days after a major earthquake struck, “deeply needed aid streamed into Haiti’s ravaged capital in quantities that relief agencies said is a clear sign of progress,” the Miami Herald reports. Roads have been cleared, additional food and water distribution points are available and some new medical clinics are open.