Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

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

Cybersecurity experts may have been shocked to find that the snooping software called Pegasus was being used by governments around the world.

But they wouldn't have been surprised by its origins.

Israel has quite a tidy business in hacking tools.

And a traditional Nigerian seasoning called Eru was, for a while, displaced by the mass market stock cubes of foreign farms.

But diehard fans of its funky taste are making sure it can still be found, at home and increasingly abroad.

First up, though, this week, for the first time ever, America's federal government formally declared a water shortage in the Colorado River.

40 million Americans in seven states depend on the massive waterway.

The region's farmers will now face drastic cuts.

For more than 20 years, one long drought has relentlessly dried out the region.

But drought might not be the right word.

It suggests something temporary.

John Ensminger, the boss of Southern

Nevada's water authority, says these conditions are here to stay.

We must adapt to the new reality of a warmer, drier future, where today's Colorado River

hydrology is not the same hydrology this basin knew a century ago.

The West's famed Joshua trees are already parched and dying.

Making sure that whole ecosystems and citizens don't go the same way

will take more than just blunt restrictions on usage.

Century old habits and policies will have to change.

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