Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

When Giair Bolsonaro was sworn in as Brazil's president in January, he spoke of a national

effort to fix the country's economy and to rid it of crime and corruption. Now two sweeping

bits of legislation will reveal whether Mr. Bolsonaro's government can deliver on those

promises. And there's a big budget science fiction film out called The Wandering Earth.

You know the kind of thing that planet is saved through critical aberration and daring

due. But the themes seem suspiciously aligned with the philosophy of China's leader.

We've just stepped up though. One of the largest rivers in the world is drying up.

We need healthy river on our station because it literally is a pinnacle of the way of life

where we are without it. We just won't survive.

The Murray-Darling Basin in South Eastern Australia is a body of water larger than Ethiopia.

But mismanagement and overproduction of crops such as cotton are causing it to dry up.

As of thousands of fish have died this year and whole sections of the river are without

water altogether.

Kate McBride is a fifth generation sheep and cattle farmer from Tolorno station, which

sits at the banks of the Doerling River. She's been campaigning for better water management

to try and save her animals and the river.

I'm standing on the base of the Darling River. I'm about 100 meters below the Burke

Whir. Now there is no water coming down at all. What we're seeing is about a 14 hundred

kilometres stretch of river that is absolutely bone dry. Towns like Tilpa and Laugh

are being devastated. Today I've actually been flying around cotton country in a plane

...