Growing cities, overuse of fertilizers and factory wastewater have degraded China's water supplies to the extent that half the nation's rivers and lakes are severely polluted. China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth. Photo: Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, June 19, 2009. (Photo by Jianan Yu/Reuters)

Ethnic Cham Muslim people pass the time near their boats on banks of Mekong river in Phnom Penh July 29, 2013. About 100 ethnic Cham families, made up of nomads and fishermen without houses or land who arrived at the Cambodian capital in search of better lives, live on their small boats on a peninsula where the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers meet, just opposite the city's centre. The community has been forced to move several times from their locations in Phnom Penh as the land becomes more valuable. They fear that their current home, just behind a new luxurious hotel under construction at the Chroy Changva district is only temporary and that they would have to move again soon. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

“On Friday, after something of a show trial, three young women in a Russian punk band were found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison for an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral earlier this year”. – Daniel Schwartz via CBC News

Photo: A woman wears on her chest the text “free p*ssy riot” as a demonstration by supporters of the jailed feminist punk band p*ssy Riot takes place outside the Russian Embassy on August 17, 2012 in London, England. The three women who staged an anti-Kremlin protest in a church in February, were found guilty today of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, and could face a three-year jail sentence. Supporters are gathering in several cities around the world today as a mark of solidarity. (Photo by Dan Kitwood)

The Breitling DC-3, HB-IRJ, plane fly escorted by Italian Air Force's aerobatic demonstration team, the Frecce Tricolori, during the last stage of its world tour two days ahead of the International Sion Air Show, in Sion, Switzerland, 13 September 2017. From March to September 2017, the Breitling DC-3 from 1940 has done a grand world tour in several stages, over 28 countries and flies 50000km, an amazing accomplishment for this legendary plane that will be celebrating its 77th birthday. (Photo by Christian Merz/EPA/EFE)

A young Bengal tiger cub smuggled into the US and seized at the Mexico border is displayed for the media during Operation Jungle Book at the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Torrance, California on October 20, 2017. Operation Jungle Book, a law enforcement initiative led by the US Fish and Wildlife Service that targeted wildlife smuggling, resulting in federal criminal charges against defendants who allegedly participated in the illegal importation and/ or transportation of numerous animal species – including a tiger, monitor lizards, cobras, Asian “lucky” fish, exotic songbirds and several coral species. (Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP Photo)

Syrian girls carry bags with bread as people queue up outisde a bakery in a rebel held neighbourhood in the northern city of Aleppo on July 12, 2016. Since mid-2012, Aleppo has been roughly divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east, and has suffered enormous destruction in the war that has killed more than 280,000 people nationwide. Last week, a government advance brought regime troops within firing range of the Castello Road, the only remaining supply route into the opposition-held east, effectively severing rebel neighbourhoods from the outside world. With their route to the outside world cut, there is no new flour coming to the city's bakeries, and fuel to light their ovens is also now hard to find. (Photo by Karam Al-Masri/AFP Photo)

A damaged vehicle is seen next to the ring road, around Skopje, near the village of Stajkovci, Skopje, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, 08 August 2016. At least 21 people have died and more than 100 are injured in the heavy rain storm that hit the Macedonian capital Skopje late Saturday night causing severe damage to the roads and house infrastructure. More than 80 vehicles were hit by landslides at Skopje's ring road. The highway remains closed. The government announced a 15-day state of emergency in the Skopje and Tetovo region. (Photo by Georgi Licovski/EPA)

A soldier from the African Union (AU) peacekeeping force stands guard at the site where a cargo plane carrying supplies for AU troops crash-landed outside Somalia's capital, on October 13, 2015 at Abirska, some 18 kilometres outside Somalian capital, Mogadishu. The officials said the Egyptian-owned transport plane went down after making several unsuccessful passes over the seafront airport. Two of the six crew members suffered light injuries in the crash, the officials said, but added that the plane and those on board were safe having landed in an area controlled by the Somali government and the African Union's AMISOM force. (Photo by Mohamed Abdiwahab/AFP Photo)