World News at a Glance

Dangerously Low on Water, Cape Town Now Faces ‘Day Zero’

“Day Zero” is coming to Cape Town this April. The reason for the alarm is simple: The city’s water supply is dangerously close to running dry. If water levels keep falling, Cape Town will declare Day Zero in less than three months. Taps in homes and businesses will be turned off until the rains come. The city’s 4 million residents will have to line up for water rations at 200 collection points. The city is bracing for the effect on public health and social order.

As Rebels Boycott, Russia Holds a Syria Peace Conference

Most of Syria’s rebel groups refused to come to the Russian-sponsored peace conference in the resort town of Sochi on Tuesday. Those who did come refused to leave the airport. The Sochi talks were called by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, with the stated goal of breaking a long-standing impasse in talks to end the 7-year-old civil war. Other talks have made no progress. Putin’s effort on Tuesday fared little better. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, was heckled by a critic of Russia’s bombing campaign, and critics called the conference theater that did not even pretend to foster discussion.

Pope Francis, After Criticism, Sends Sex Crimes Investigator to Chile

When it comes to sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, supporters of Pope Francis are hoping that if indeed he was blind, now he sees. Francis on Tuesday dispatched the Vatican’s leading sex crimes investigator to Chile, days after the pope’s vigorous, repeated and potentially disastrous defense of Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, who is accused of protecting the country’s most notorious pedophile priest. The pope’s supporters on Tuesday quickly embraced the decision as an important course correction.

Saudi-Backed Coalition in Yemen Upended in Deadly Factional Fighting

A simmering split within the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting rebels in Yemen since 2015 exploded into deadly combat this week. The fighting, which began Sunday, has pit allies armed with heavy weapons against each other and further complicated prospects for a resolution of the war in Yemen, the Middle East’s poorest country and home to one of the world’s worst man-made humanitarian crises. The feud has, for the moment, overshadowed the coalition’s common goal of defeating the Houthis, the northern Yemeni rebels supported by Iran and who still control big regions of the country.

Shock in India Over Rape of an Infant

An 8-month-old infant girl has been hospitalized in India’s capital after being raped, police said, a sexual assault that has both sickened and transfixed a city and country grown distressingly accustomed to horrifying sex abuse cases. A relative has been arrested. As an indication of the widespread attention and concern the case has prompted, one major television station, NDTV, ran regular updates at the bottom of the screen Tuesday. Police officials said Tuesday that the 8-month-old girl was in stable condition, following a three-hour operation.

Catalonia’s Parliament Delays Vote on Puigdemont as President

The Catalan Parliament postponed a vote Tuesday to re-elect Carles Puigdemont, the leader of the movement to break away from Spain, as president of the restive region, extending a standoff with Madrid that could force new elections. Roger Torrent, speaker of the Parliament, insisted that Puigdemont was the only candidate that separatist lawmakers would present, though Puigdemont refuses to return from Belgium, where he surfaced in late October to avoid prosecution in Spain. The postponement came after Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled Saturday that Puigdemont could not be elected and sworn in without physically being present in the Catalan assembly.

Kenyans Name a ‘People’s President,’ and TV Broadcasts Are Cut

The Kenyan government cut transmissions of three private television stations and moved to criminalize a political opposition group Tuesday, as supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga gathered in the capital to name him “the people’s president.” Odinga lost his bid for the presidency last year to incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta, but he says the voting was plagued by fraud. His supporters have been planning an alternative “inauguration” for months. The event proceeded peacefully and without police interference. But early Tuesday evening, Fred Matiang’i, the Interior Ministry secretary, declared the National Resistance Movement, part of Odinga’s opposition coalition, an “organized criminal group.”