BRAZIL: Sao Paulo Water Crisis Worsens

The world's third-most populous city may soon only have water for two days a week.

The worst drought to hit São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city, in decades may leave many residents with water service only two days a week. São Paulo’s water utility company, Sabesp, says a five-days-off, two-days-on system would be a last-ditch effort to prevent the collapse of the Cantareira water system. The reservoir is the largest of six that provide water to about six million of the 20 million people living in the metropolitan area of São Paulo. The utility says Cantareira is now down to 5.1 percent of its capacity of 264 billion gallons. A utility official, Paulo Massato Yoshimoto, said Wednesday that “rationing could happen if rainfall does not increase in the reservoir area soon.” Details of how a rationing plan might be put in place were not released.

More analysis:

The worst drought in nearly a century continues to plague Sao Paulo state and neighboring Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais states in southeastern Brazil; the nearly 30 million people living in the extended municipal complex of Sao Paulo have been dealing with extremely low reservoir levels for more than a year. In fact, the water reserves have fallen so low that they are now below the dead level, the point at which the water must be pumped up to reach the pipes connecting the reservoir to the greater distribution system. We are already seeing reports and anecdotal evidence of limited water availability in Sao Paulo, from limited flow to lack of availability in whole neighborhoods. The consumer will feel the greatest impact of the water shortages, but it will not be just households that will have to adjust. Large commercial consumers of water such as the petrochemical, steel, ethanol and textile manufacturing industries in Sao Paulo state account for approximately 70 percent of Brazil's total industrial water use.

According to Reuters, the Amazon lost another 2300 square miles of rainforest just last year.

Sao Paulo Is Almost Out Of Water

The world's third-most populous city may be out of water in just a couple of weeks.

São Paulo, a Brazilian megacity of 20 million people, is suffering its worst drought in at least 80 years, with key reservoirs that supply the city dried up after an unusually dry year. One of the causes of the crisis may be more than 2,000 kilometers away, in the growing deforested areas in the Amazon region. “Humidity that comes from the Amazon in the form of vapor clouds - what we call ‘flying rivers’ - has dropped dramatically, contributing to this devastating situation we are living today,” said Antonio Nobre, a leading climate scientist at INPE, Brazil’s National Space Research Institute. The severity of the situation in recent weeks has led government leaders to finally admit Brazil’s financial powerhouse is on the brink of a catastrophe. São Paulo residents should brace for a “collapse like we’ve never seen before” if the drought continues, warned Vicente Andreu, president of Brazil’s Water Regulatory Agency. Dilma Pena, chief executive officer of Sabesp, the state-owned water utility that serves the city, warned last week that São Paulo only has about two weeks of drinking water supplies left.

The region's main reservoir is only at 5.3% of its capacity. According to the above-linked Reuters report. the Amazon lost another 2300 square miles of rainforest just last year.

BRAZIL: At Sao Paulo Gay Pride 2014

The world's largest gay pride parade took place in Sao Paulo yesterday.

President Dilma Rousseff, who is seeking another term in October elections, gave a message of support via Twitter. "People from around the country are in Sao Paulo today to participate in #paradalgbt," Rousseff tweeted, reminding her followers there is a hotline people can call in Brazil if they are attacked because of their sexuality. They were surrounded by mainly young, beer-swigging marchers dressed as anything from angels to devils and police officers. "We attended mass in a church near here and then came to the march," said Cassia Maria, 53. "I am Catholic -- apostolic and Roman. But I stick my fingers up against discrimination," she smiled as her husband viewed on his cellphone footage of examples of physical abuse meted out to gay people in Brazil.

Organizers of the parade claimed three million attendees last year, but local police have contested that number, saying it is impossible to accurately judge the "floating population" of such events.

BRAZIL: Protests And Riots Rock Major Cities Over Government Spending

Massive protests took place across Brazil last night, partially in reaction to government spending plans for the World Cup and the Rio Olympics. Rioters in Rio De Janeiro set fire to the state legislature building. Protesters claim that social services and aid to the poor are being cut in order promote sports and tourism to Brazil. The New York Times reports:

Sharing a parallel with the antigovernment protests in Turkey, the demonstrations in Brazil intensified after a harsh police crackdown last week stunned many citizens. In images shared widely on social media, the police here were seen beating unarmed protesters with batons and dispersing crowds by firing rubber bullets and tear gas into their midst.

“The violence has come from the government,” said Mariana Toledo, 27, a graduate student at the University of São Paulo who was among the protesters on Monday. “Such violent acts by the police instill fear, and at the same time the need to keep protesting.”

While the demonstration in São Paulo was not marred by the widespread repression that marked a protest here last week, riot police officers in Belo Horizonte dispersed protesters with pepper spray and tear gas. In Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, police officers also used tear gas against protesters.

In Rio de Janeiro, where an independent estimate put the number of protesters around 100,000, televised images showed masked demonstrators trying to storm public buildings including the state legislature, a part of which was set on fire. In Brasilía, the police seemed to be caught off-guard by protesters who danced and chanted on the roof of Congress, a modernist building designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Click the below Vine clip to see last night's protest in Rio.

LIVE VIDEO: Sao Paulo Pride

The world's largest gay pride event is underway in Sao Paulo and you can watch it live here. Crowd estimates range as high as four million.  Their first parade in 1997 only had 2000 participants!

BRAZIL: Sao Paulo State Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Brazilian Law Blog reports:

Brazil is about to see something that we only heard about from the United States: a massive movement of people going to one specific State, in order to get married there. This is because São Paulo State (where São Paulo city is located) has updated its registration rules in order to allow the automatic registration of same sex marriages, without the need of a previous court order. This change has followed, with some delay, a decision from the Brazilian Supreme Court regarding same sex marriage.

The state of Sao Paulo has 41 million residents! The city of Sao Paulo is the largest in the southern hemisphere!

Three Million Party At Sao Paulo Pride

An estimated three million revelers jammed the streets of Sao Paulo for yesterday's 16th annual pride parade, the largest such event in the world.

Pro-LGBT Ads On Sao Paulo's Subway

Sao Paulo's Metro has launched an LGBT respect campaign.

Its objective is to increase respect towards, and decrease discrimination against, LGBT people living in South America’s most populous city. The first stage of the project aims to combat discrimination and prejudice against transgender people, as well as dissemination of a law that punishes homophobic behaviour and discrimination within the State of Sao Paulo. All 58 underground stations are covered with bright posters that have pictures of transgender women with the tile: “Look, Look again, and see beyond prejudice. I am trans, I have the right to be who I am.”

RELATED: It only opened in 1972, but some consider Sao Paulo's subway system to be the best in the hemisphere. Daily ridership is 3.6 million. NYC's is 4.4 million.

Sao Paulo OK's "Straight Pride"

The city council of Sao Paulo, Brazil has approved a bill calling for a "Heterosexual Pride Day" to be celebrated on the third Sunday of every December. Whether the event becomes a reality or not appears to depend on the mayor.

Sao Paulo Mayor Gilberto Kassab must sign the legislation for it to become law and has said only that he is studying it. His office declined Wednesday to say whether he supports the proposal. The legislation's author, Carlos Apolinario, said the idea for a Heterosexual Pride Day is "not anti-gay but a protest against the privileges the gay community enjoys." As an example, he mentioned how Sao Paulo's huge gay pride day parade is held every year on Paulista Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in this city of 20 million people, while the March for Jesus organized by evangelical groups is not allowed on the same avenue. "I respect gays and I am against any kind of aggression made against them," Apolinario said. "I have no trouble coexisting with gays as long as their behavior is normal." The Brazilian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Association criticized the legislation, saying it could provoke homophobic violence. "How many LGBTs will be attacked because of the message that only heterosexuality makes someone a moral person and a good citizen," the association said in a statement.

Sao Paulo is the most populous city in the western hemisphere (by some measures.)

Sao Paulo - The Ad-Free City

Three years ago Sao Paulo, Brazil, the world's 4th largest city, banned all outdoor advertising. Billboards, bus shelters, everything. Businesses were also forced to dramatically reduce the size of their logo signage. And despite court challenges from marketing behemoths like Clear Channel, the ban has stuck, much to the satisfaction of most residents. Can you imagine something like this in NYC? Here's a video made shortly after the ban went into effect.

Massive Blackout Rocks Brazil

An estimated 50 million people in the southern half of Brazil are without electricity tonight as the massive blackout has triggered crime alerts in several states.

The country's largest cities, including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro among others, were left with no illumination or traffic lights due to the outage late Tuesday, which the energy ministry said was caused by an undetermined problem at the country's biggest hydroelectric plant, Itaipu, on the border with Paraguay. One radio station, Bandnews, said an estimated 50 million people -- one quarter of Brazil's population -- were affected. The blackout hit at 10:15 pm (0015 GMT Wednesday). The southern states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Espirito Santo, Mato Grosso do Sul and parts of the central state of Goias and the federal district of Brasilia were plunged into night. Police in Sao Paulo and Rio called on the cities' residents to not go out into the darkened streets to avoid the risk of accidents and an upsurge in already prolific street crime. Off-duty and vacationing officers were told to report to their posts. In Sao Paulo and its suburbs, an agglomeration of 20 million inhabitants, streets were illuminated only by the lights of cars and from a few buildings -- including hospitals -- that had their own generators.

Just three days ago, CBS' 60 Minutes reported that a similar blackout in 2007 was created by computer hackers, a claim hotly denied by Brazilian investigators.

BELOW: Twitter user RodrigoBNO sends out this shot of Rio's Copacabana beach.