The last decade have seen a rapid increase in the privatization of water in coorperate conglomerates.
Especially this video mentions Jay-Z as the person who will educate people about water, however Jay-Z is the CEO of Island Def Jam which is part of Vivideni-Universal which includes Vivendi Environment who is the #1 in water globally and keeps on swallowing up water rights all over the world including the third world where people need affordable water and not a megacorporation setting the price for their water.
Who owns the water?
Suez, Vivendi, RWE or you or me?Tuesday, August 20, 2002
By Mort Rosenblum, Associated Press
PARIS — In a world fast running short of fresh water, a new debate rages: Private companies are free to exploit oil, "black gold," but what about the infinitely more valuable resource of "blue gold"?
Two French companies alone — Suez and
Vivendi Environnement — supply water to
230 million people around the globe,
from U.S. cities like Atlanta to urban centers across the Third World. Hardly noticed a few years ago, the issue of water privatization is likely to be a big topic at the United Nations' World Summit on Sustainable Development that begins Monday in Johannesburg, South Africa.
It raises a deceptively simple question: Is water a human right or a commodity? "The problem is that it's both," said Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute in Berkeley, Calif. Everyone has a right to safe, clean water, he said, but because of government failures, 1.1 billion people lack access to it.
A new trend is clear.
Both Suez and Vivendi expect double-digit annual growth in their water business, and each already has contracts that add up to more than $10 billion a year. Puerto Rico just hired Suez to distribute its water.
(...)
Managing water is a business fraught with economic and cultural complexities. A 2000 uprising in Cochabamba, Bolivia, underlines the dangers.
Consumers revolted when Bechtel doubled water rates. Seven people died in violence, and the U.S. company lost its concession.
(...)
http://waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/world-water-5.htm So it was very surprising to Jay-Z who works for the #1 water company who has been swallowing up water rights left and right talk about how precious it is, because it is his own company who is one of the major obstacles in affordable drinking water for the Third World
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