FRESH WATER BARBADOS
Post date: Aug 31, 2009 11:55:50 AM
TRANFER THE DUCK by Timothy Callender – unpublished poem for Children
Droughtmaker has an invention: his device
can suck water from earth, moister from air
His plan is to take all water, store it in
his huge water tank, and charge farmers,
gardeners, swimmers, frog, fish, etc.
for water. One drop cost $1.50
Plants are dying. Fish barely survive in
Mud, which Droughtmaker is threatening to remove
Dirty Laundry is piling up
Pots are empty
And everyone is sick of
Roasting things to eat.
Obviously, the problem calls for
the intervention of the power-packed
Protector of Pondfield – None other
than – TRANSFER THE DUCK!!
In the June-July 2001 issue of Nexus magazine they quoted from Project Censored 2001 from Sonoma State University - Website: www.projectcensored.org.
“Sonoma State Univeristy’s Project Censored team has released its list of the top 25 most under-covered news stories in the United States during 1999-2000. Media students, faculty staff and community experts are involved in the selection, screening and evaluate process. These top 25 stories , as ranked by Project Censored’s national judges, are summarised below in edited form. We recommend that you visit the website: www.projectcensored.org - for additional text, references and update. – Editor.
“World Bank and Multinational Corporations Seek to Privatise Water.
“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 [1,000,000,000] 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 recognise these trends and are trying to monopolise water supplies around the world. Monsanto, Bechtel and other global multinationals are seeking control of water systems and supplies. The World Bank recently adopted a policy of water privatisation 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.
“San Francisco’s Bechtel Enterprise was contract to mange the water system in Cochambamba, Bolivia, after the World Bank required Bolivia to privatise. When Bechtel pushed up the price of water, the entire city went on a general strike. The military killed a 17 year-old boy and arrested the water rights leaders. But after four mounts of unrest, the Bolivian government forced Bechtel out of Cochambamba. Bechtel Group Inc., a corporation with a long history of environment abuses, now contracts with the city of San Francisco to upgrade the city’s water system. Bechtel employees are working side by side with government workers in a privatisation move that activists fear will lead to an eventual take-over of San Francisco’s water system.
“Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy group, and a director of the International Forum on Globalisation, states: “Governments around the world must act now to declare water a fundamental human right and prevent efforts to privatise, export and sell for profit a substance essential to all life.”
“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 transactional corporations the unprecedented right to the water of signatory companies. Water related conflicts are springing up around the globe. Monsanto estimates that water will become a multibillion-dollar market in the coming decades.”
MORE NEXT ISSUE: How privatised Fresh Water for Profit can be done in Barbados with the same kind of bolt-agreement that our government signed on for with the prison at Dodds and the proposed flyover. Look out for new video on privatised Fresh Water for Profit.