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PROJECT CENSORED PROJECT According to the Project Censored voting team, these are the top 25 news stories that should have received major coverage in the US mass media last year, but didn't. onoma State University'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, screen - ing and evaluation 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 projectcensored.org for additional text, references and updates. — Editor 1. World Bank and Multinational Corporations Seek to Privatise Water lobal 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 per- sist, by 2025 the demand for fresh water is expected to rise by 56 per cent 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 world 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 Enterprises was contracted to manage 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 months of unrest, the Bolivian government forced Bechtel out of Cochambamba. Bechtel Group Inc., a corporation with a long history of environmental 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 Globalization, 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 participat- ing 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 companies. Water-related conflicts are springing up around the globe. Monsanto estimates that water will become a multibillion-dollar market in the coming decades. References ¢ Maude Barlow (www.canadians.org), "The Global Water Crisis and the Commodification of the World's Water Supply", International Forum on Globalization: Special Report, June 1999, in Prime, July 10, 2000, www.ifg.org/bgsummary.html Jim Shultz (JShultz@democracyctr.org), "Water Fallout", Canadian Dimension, February 2000; "Water Fallout: Bolivians Battle Globalization", In These Times, May 15, 2000, www.inthesetimes.com; "Just Add Water", THIS, July/August 2000 * Vandana Shiva, "Monsanto's Billion-Dollar Water Monopoly Plans", Canadian Dimension, February 2000, www.purefood.org/Monsanto/waterfish.cfm compiled by Project Censored © 2001 Sonoma State University 1801 East Cotati Avenue Rohnert Park, CA 94928-3609, USA Telephone: +1 (707) 664 2500 Email: censored@sonoma.edu Website: www.projectcensored.org JUNE — JULY 2001 NEXUS = 13 THE MOST UNDEREXPOSED NEWS IN AMERICA www.nexusmagazine.com