Nexus - 0705 - New Times Magazine-pages

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... GL@BAL NEWS ... NEWS has recently adopted a policy of water pri- vatisation 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 the cost of privatised water. Two years ago, the World Bank (whose official attends Bolivian Government cabi- net meetings as a full participant) refused to guarantee a US$25-million loan to re- finance water services in Cochabamba, Bolivia's third-largest city, unless the gov- ernment sold the public water system to the private sector and passed on the c to consumers. Only one bid was consid- ered, and the utility was turned over to a subsidiary of a conglomerate led by Bechtel—the giant engineering company implicated in the infamous Three Gorges Dam in China, which has caused the forced relocation of 1.3 million people. In January 1999, before the company had even hung up its shingle, it announced the doubling of water prices. For most Bolivians, this meant that water would now cost more than food; for those on a minimum wage or unemployed, water bills suddenly accounted for close to half their monthly budgets. To add insult to injury, the World Bank granted monopolies to private water concessionaires, announced its support for full-cost water pricing, pegged the cost of water to the US dollar, and declared that none of its loan could be used to subsidise the poor for water services. All water, even from community wells, required permits to access, and peasants and small farmers even had to buy permits to gather rainwater on their property. This is a story unfolding in many parts of the world. Just as humanity is begin- ning to come to terms with the awesome dimensions of the looming fresh-water cri- sis, a handful of transnational water and food corporations, backed by the World Bank, are moving in on Third World coun- tries and, in the name of human charity, commodifying their water for profit. These corporations openly dominated the UN/World Bank-sponsored World Water Forum in The Hague in March. The privatisation of municipal water services has a terrible record that is well documented. Customer rates are doubled or tripled; corporate profits rise as much as 700 per cent; corruption and bribery are rampant; water quality standards drop, sometimes dramatically; overuse is promoted to make money; and customers who can't pay are cut off. When privatisation hits the Third World, those who can't pay will die. At least the Bolivia story has a happy ending (for now). By the hundreds of thousands, Bolivians marched to Cochabamba in an anti-government protest. On 10 April, they won: the Bolivian Government kicked Bechtel out of the country and revoked its water pri- vatisation legislation. Oscar Olivera, the Bolivian shoemaker who led the fight, had brought his message to a Washington rally during the recent IMF/World Bank meetings. He said that if water is privatised and commodified for profit, it will never reach the people who need it but will serve only to make a hand- ful of water corporations very rich. (Source: By Maude Barlow, Toronto Globe and Mail, Canada, 1] May 2000, website www.theglobeandmail.com) Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Liberia, Liechtenstein, the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Monaco, Nauru, Panama, St Vincent, the Seychelles, Tonga, Vanuatu and Western Samoa are just some of the nations accused of distort- ing competition by attracting money from companies and individuals seeking to avoid high taxes in their own countries. (Sources: Weekly Telegraph, 5-// July, Guardian Weekly, London, 6-12 July 2000) LAWSUITS CLAIM CYBERSPACE PRIVACY VIOLATIONS lass action lawsuits have been filed gainst several major online compa- nies, alleging that they secretly monitor file transfers and collect personal informa- tion for commercial purposes. "Unbeknownst to [Netscape users]... defendants have been spying on their Internet activities," said one New Jersey—based website operator who has filed a class action lawsuit, charging that AOL/Netscape's Internet software violates electronic privacy law. The complaint, filed on 30 June in the US District Court for the Southern District Court of New York by New Jersey—based website operator Chris Specht, states that the "SmartDownload" feature in the Netscape Communicator web browser secretly transmits file download informa- tion to Netscape and America Online (which acquired Netscape in 1998). Four other class action lawsuits winding their way through the courts are alleging GLOBAL CRACKDOWN ON OFFSHORE TAX HAVENS co-ordinated global attack upon tax havens emerged during June and July. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is considering imposing economic sanctions against some 35 nations unless they move into line with higher-tax regimes in the rest of the world. Anguilla, Antigua, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belize, the Cayman Islands, the Cook Islands, Dominica, NEXUS 7 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2000