Water News
Misleading “CEO Water Mandate” Threatens Global Commons
Updated: 4/4/08
On March 20, a letter was delivered to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in New York urging him to withdraw his support from the CEO Water Mandate - a voluntary initiative promoted as a way for corporations to make progress toward protecting water resources. Laura Roskos of US WILPF was among leaders from more than 125 environmental, public health, water justice, human rights and corporate accountability organizations in 35 countries who signed the letter. The Letter was delivered by Tony Clarke of the Polaris Institute (Ottawa, CA) and others to coincide with the U.N.'s World Water Day on March 22 to call attention to the threats posed by corporate control of public water resources.
Stop the Mining of Sacred Tribal Land!
Stop the Mining of Sacred Tribal Land!
We need your immediate support to stop the proposed copper mining that would irreversibly desecrate lands sacred to Apache and other tribes and devastate the environment and health of the people in Superior, Arizona, and many other neighboring Arizona communities.
Background
On July 24, 2007 Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John McCain (R-AZ) introduced bill S. 1862, the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2007, in the US Senate. A related bill, H.R. 3301, was introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Pastor (D-AZ) on August 1, 2007,. The House bill is co-sponsored by Representatives Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Harry Mitchell (D-AZ), and John Shadegg (R-AZ). The proposed bills would, among other things, convey federally-owned land known as Oak Flat, Devils Canyon, and Apache Leap near Superior, Arizona, to Resolution Copper Mining, a subsidiary of a multi-national mining corporation. The land sought by Resolution Copper is believed to have one of the largest copper deposits in the world and is worth an estimated $65 billion. That land, however, contains sites and artifacts that are of deep spiritual, cultural, and historic significance to the Apache and other tribes in the region. Further, Apache Leap is a breath-taking butte where Apache lookouts were once posted to warn of attacks by the US Cavalry and leapt to their deaths rather than be captured.
Download Water Petitions!
One of WILPF's campaign initiatives is to pressure the UN Human Rights Council to create a binding convention on Water as a Human Right. We've created a petition to send to the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights demanding implementation and accountability of the Human Right to Water.
Click here to sign our online petition!
Download and collect signatures here!
The Water Campaign is also working to Boycott the Bottle! Bottled water is expensive, wasteful and toxic, and not so pure! Say no to bottled water.
The Tanzania Gender Networking Programme Statement on Water Privatization
The Tanzania Gender Networking Programme this morning issued a strong statement condemning profit hungry companies that came to Aftica to reap profits from our natural resources such as water. The statement signed by TGNP Executive Director Ms. Usu Mallya mentioned Biwater Gauff as being a one such case, saying such trends were quite appalling and that the dispute currently under litigation at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) was far more a human rights issue than an investment dispute.
A Human Right to Water
The WILPF Save the Water Campaign calls for the United Nations to pass a binding Convention on the Human Right to Water. This letter, of which WILPF is a signatory, was sent to to the Human Rights Council, urging the High Commissioner to support the Human Right to Water.
The Blue Planet Project
The Blue Planet project commissioned a legal analysis of the Green Cross campaign for a UN Convention on the Right to Water. While the Green Cross campaign does include some progressive elements, we maintain that it would undermine, not strengthen, protection for the international right to water. You can read the summary, or download the full-length report here . Click here to read important documents from the Project ...
The Ravaging Tide
by Mike Tidwell
Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities
Not only does The Ravaging Tide explain how global warming will soon turn all of America's coastal cities into the next New Orleans, it lays out the systematic campaign to cover-up climate studies by leaders at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman's recent revelation of internal NOAA documents to this effect is but the latest in this shocking cover-up now imperiling all Americans.
Israel Lays Claim to Palestine's Water
Israel has drawn up a secret plan for a giant desalination plant to supply drinking water to the Palestinian territory on the West Bank. It hopes the project will diminish pressure for it to grant any future Palestinian state greater access to the region's scarce supplies of fresh water. Under an agreement signed a decade ago as part of the Oslo accord, four-fifths of the West Bank's water is allocated to Israel, though the aquifers that supply it are largely replenished by water falling onto Palestinian territory
BECHTEL VS. BOLIVIA: THE PEOPLE WIN!!
The Cochabamba water revolt – which began exactly six years ago this month – will end this morning when Bechtel, one of the world’s most powerful corporations, formally abandons its legal effort to take $50 million from the Bolivian people. Bechtel made that demand before a secretive trade court operated by the World Bank, the same institution that coerced Bolivia to privatize the water to begin with. Faced with protests, barrages of e-mails, visits to their homes, and years of damaging press, Bechtel executives finally decided to surrender, walking away with a token payment equal to thirty cents. That retreat sets a huge global precedent.
