tagged w/ Suez
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You can see that confusion on the American cable news networks. It's hard to craft a message the plebs will understand without sounding contradictory. Or making the West look bad. Mubarak is America's paid dictator, a point subtly glossed over, yet they insist on referring to Egypt as a 'democracy' in the Arab world. That's prime doublethink right there. But as you watch those brave Egyptians taking on the security forces the average western person on his couch is rooting for them. At the same time, the corporate oligarchy providing the video feed is dying a little on the inside. The fear for them is that a new Egyptian 'democracy' is going to land us with Iran part II. The Muslim Brotherhood is democratically elected, just like Hamas in Gaza and Ahmajinidad in Iran (LOL). Either way, the thought of Suez in the hands of right wing fanatical Islamists is frightening to the elites. The canal is fundamental to rapid deployment of US naval strategy in the Gulf.You can see that confusion on the American cable news networks. It's hard to... more
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Even though water privatization has been a massive failure around the world, the World Bank just quietly gave $139 million to its latest corporate buddy.
Billions have been spent allowing corporations to profit from public water sources even though water privatization has been an epic failure in Latin America, Southeast Asia, North America, Africa and everywhere else it's been tried. But don't tell that to controversial loan-sharks at the World Bank. Last month, its private-sector funding arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) quietly dropped a cool 100 million euros ($139 million US) on Veolia Voda, the Eastern European subsidiary of Veolia, the world's largest private water corporation. Its latest target? Privatization of Eastern Europe's water resources.
"Veolia has made it clear that their business model is based on maximizing profits, not long-term investment," Joby Gelbspan, senior program coordinator for private-sector watchdog Corporate Accountability International, told AlterNet. "Both the World Bank and the transnational water companies like Veolia have clearly acknowledged they don't want to invest in the infrastructure necessary to improve water access in Eastern Europe. That's why this 100 million euro investment in Veolia Voda by the World Bank's private investment arm over the summer is so alarming. It's further evidence that the World Bank remains committed to water privatization, despite all evidence that this approach will not solve the world's water crisis."
All the evidence Veolia needs that water grabs are doomed exercises can be found in its birthplace of France, more popularly known as the heartland of water privatization. In June, the municipal administration of Paris reclaimed the City of Light's water services from both of its homegrown multinationals Veolia and Suez, after a torrent of controversy. That's just one of 40 re-municipilazations in France alone, which can be added to those in Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and more in hopes of painting a not-so-pretty picture: Water privatization is ultimately both a horrific concept and a failed project.
"It's outrageous that the World Bank's IFC would continue to invest in corporate water privatizations when they are failing all over the world," Maude Barlow, chairwoman of Food and Water Watch and the author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Fight for the Right to Water, told AlterNet. "A similar IFC investment in the Philippines is an unmitigated disaster. Local communities and their governments around the world are canceling their contracts with companies like Veolia because of cost overruns, worker layoffs and substandard service."
The Philippines is an excellent example of water privatization's broken model. After passing the Water Crisis Act in 1995, the Philippines landed a $283 million privatization plan managed partially by multinational giants like Suez and Bechtel. After some success, everything fell apart after 2000, and it wasn't long before tariff prices repeatedly increased, water service and quality worsened, and public opposition skyrocketed. Today, some Filipinos still don't have water connections, tariffs have increased from 300 to 700 percent in some regions, and outbreaks of cholera and gastroenteritis have cost lives and sickened hundreds.
"The World Bank has learned nothing from these disasters and continues to be blinded by an outdated ideology that only the unregulated market will solve the world's problems," added Barlow.
cont.Even though water privatization has been a massive failure around the world, the World... more
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The dramatic increase in piracy in the Gulf of Aden could trigger a humanitarian and environmental disaster in the Horn of Africa and cut off global sea routes through the Suez canal, a report warned yesterday.
The report, by the Chatham House foreign policy thinktank, calls for a reinforced international naval presence in the region to combat the mostly Somalia-based pirates, with a significantly strengthened European component.
It also suggests the creation of a coastguard run on Somalia's behalf, possibly by the UN or African Union in the absence of a stable government in Mogadishu.
The Chatham House report emerged in the midst of a tense maritime standoff between the US navy and pirates who have seized a Ukrainian ship filled with tanks and other heavy weapons.
Somalia's foreign ministry said yesterday that telephone negotiations were taking place between the owners of the MV Faina and the pirates, who are demanding a $20m (£10m) ransom to release the vessel and its 21 crew. The ministry added that foreign forces had permission to use force if necessary.
One of the pirates told Agence France Presse by telephone that they were "prepared for any eventuality". He also denied reports that three of the pirates had been killed during infighting on board.
The US defence department, which is seeking to ensure that the weapons are not off-loaded and used to fuel the Islamist-led insurgency in Somalia, said yesterday it was in no hurry to take action.
According to figures compiled by the International Maritime Bureau, 16,000 ships sail through the Gulf of Aden each year. There have already been more than 60 pirate attacks off the Somali coast and in the Gulf of Aden so far this year - more than twice last year's total. Pottengal Mukundan, the bureau's director, said 12 vessels and 259 crew were being held for ransom. Shipping companies are thought to have paid ransom demands of up to $30m this year. "They have no choice. They have no one to turn to, to deal with the pirates," Mukundan said.
The Chatham House report said insurance premiums for shipping through the Gulf of Aden have increased tenfold. The combined danger and cost, it said, could "mean that shipping could be forced to avoid the Gulf of Aden/Suez canal and divert around the Cape of Good Hope".
"This would add considerably to the costs of manufactured goods and oil from Asia and the Middle East," the report said. It also warns that if an oil tanker was seriously damaged in a pirate attack it could cause a "major environmental disaster".
The pirates have hitherto focused on extorting ransom but the report warns that if any were co-opted by international terrorist networks, the objective could switch to causing maximum damage, perhaps by scuttling a large ship at the entrance to the Suez canal.
There is also an immediate humanitarian threat. Ships delivering about 185,000 tonnes of food aid to Somalia are being protected for now by the Canadian navy, but its mandate runs out at the end of this month and it is so far unclear what would take its place. If the supply from the World Food Programme was halted, millions could starve.
The dramatic increase in piracy in the Gulf of Aden could trigger a humanitarian and... more
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United States, destroyer, warships, Ukrainian, cargo, weapons, Somalia, American, navy, USS Howard, MV Faina, armed, boarding party, armed, dangerous, Soviet, T-72 tanks, ammunition, ransom, Hobyo, Kenya, Sudan, al-Qaida, terrorist, Siad Barre, warlords, Puntland, Gulf of Aden, Suez, International Maritime Bureau, shipping, Horn of Africa, Europe, Asia, piracyUnited States, destroyer, warships, Ukrainian, cargo, weapons, Somalia, American,... more
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Imagine, that we are beyond the energy crisis-in that we are used to paying double or triple prices for what in the previous century was a small part of the family budget. But now we are faced with a new shortage that taps another precious resource. Water only comes through the tap fours hours a day and we are forced to pay ten to hundred times what we paid in the 90s. Welcome to the world of privatized water, where fresh water is treated like a commodity, traded and sold in the international market to the highest bidder.
No longer can you assume a God-given right to drink from a mountain spring, but instead you will have to pay a toll to drink from Enron Springs, Monsanto Wells or receive tap water from Bechtel Water Works. Global consumption of water is doubling every 20 years, more than twice the rate of human population growth. According to the United Nations, more than one billion people already lack access to fresh drinking water. If current trends persist, by 2025 the demand for fresh water is expected to rise by 56 percent more than the amount of water that is currently available.
Multinational corporations recognize these trends and are trying to monopolize water supplies around the world. Monsanto, Bechtel, Enron and other global multinationals are seeking control of world water systems and supplies. The World Bank recently adopted a policy of water privatization and full-cost water pricing. This policy is causing great distress in many Third World countries, which fear that their citizens will not be able to afford for-profit water.
Last year in a little known case of high scale international water marketing, a supertanker was reported to have filled up with water from Lake Erie and after paying the Canadian Government they shipped the water to Southeast Asia. Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest public advocacy group, states, "Governments around the world must act now to declare water a fundamental human right and prevent efforts to privatize, export, and sell for profit a substance essential to all life. Research has shown that selling water on the open market only delivers it to wealthy cities and individuals. The finite sources of freshwater (less than one half of one per cent of the world's total water stock) are being diverted, depleted, and polluted so fast that, by the year 2025, two-thirds of the world's population will be living in a state of serious water deprivation."
Governments are signing away their control over domestic water supplies by participating in trade treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and in institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). These agreements give transnational corporations the unprecedented right to the water of signatory countries.
Monsanto plans to earn revenues of $420 million and a net income of $63 million by 2008 from its water business in India and Mexico. Monsanto estimates that water will become a multibillion-dollar market in the coming decades.
This international water crisis news story was selected by over 150 faculty and student researchers at Sonoma State University's Project Censored in California as the number one most censored news story for 2000.
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And this is still being censored by the MSM. Just as multinationals move to control our food, they are doing the same to "own" water which is a human right and the MSM is an accomplice to it by not educating the public to what is going down. The MSM is however more than happy to advertise "clean coal" and nuclear, and propaganda by oil companies making us believe they care about this planet as they ravage it. So, for me Current is the only place where this news can be seen to hopefully bring awareness about what is going down... we are being bought and sold and the very substance of our survival along with it. So the question is: what are we going to do about it?
Imagine, that we are beyond the energy crisis-in that we are used to paying double or... more
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