What does Ecuador’s President Correa know that Colombia’s President Uribe also knows?
President Correa’s persistence in terms of pursuing the validity of the data found on the laptops seized by Colombian forces
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Press Releases
Manuel Noriega in Legal Limbo – Grant Him House Arrest
Former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega will be living out the rest of his life in custody, the question is –
Read MoreCOHA on Cuba
The latest ill-fated salvo in President Bush’s poorly-focused rhetorical war against Cuba, which was just issued, once again fell far
Read MoreOne of History’s Great Atrocities: The Corporate Theft of the Public’s Natural Right to Water
Alternative Strategies: South Africa’s Water Policy
Andrea Arango’s article, entitled Alternative Strategies: South Africa’s Water Policy, will be issued on Thursday, May 1st. This COHA publication is another in the organization’s contribution to the debate over who will control the world’s water supply.
The Growing Debate on who will Control the World’s Water Supply
The current 1.1 billion people worldwide without access to potable water only opens one of the smaller windows on the injustices and the multiple casualties being wrought by private water-related industries. In fact, many are clueless to the magnitude of the victims— present and projected — of the growing water crisis as well as to the inhumane implications of the role of the private sector in regards to treating water as a commodity that can be owned and sold for profit. As of now, 2.6 billion people are at high risk for not having access to potable and an additional 1.8 million children die each year from water-related diseases.
In the mix of chaos, despair, and confusion, which most affects the poorer elements of society, it is important to note the private corporations’ role, which some critics have identified as being among the major culprits in causing the crisis. Within recent decades, water privatization firms such as Suez, Vivendi, and RWE have bought control of a number of communities’ municipal water services, and then drastically increased the price of water; with some of them failing to effectively purify the water resources they had come to monopolize.
An Innate Right
The heightened trend towards water privatization has gone almost undetected by the general public for well over a decade, despite the huge ramifications it is having on many lives. Public water advocates argue that it is a necessity of life and no individual or corporation has the right to seize ownership and place a value on the resource. Water is for life, not for profit. Author Vadana Shiva resolutely states that “water is a commons because it is the basis of all life. Water rights are natural rights and thus usufructuary rights, meaning that water can be used, but not owned.” Water privatization has caused considerable strife around the world, specifically in less industrialized nations. Major water companies, with the help of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), continue to divest communities of their natural right to water, thus undermining the essence of democracy as well as contributing to an insidious form of global deprivation.
Contentious CAFTA – A Turning Point for Costa Rica?
Five of the six countries, including Costa Rica, which signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States, have now ratified it. Oscar Arias, Costa Rica’s Nobel Laureate president, signed the agreement in November 2007, after the pro-CAFTA forces in his country won a hard fought election by a margin of approximately 3 percent. The necessary and enabling legislation is now moving slowly through its National Assembly despite resistance from its opponents. The pro-CAFTA legislative super majority of 38 has managed to hold tight. But, if one member of this center-right alliance becomes ill, or incapacitated, a vote cannot be cast. The opposition has been allowed to present its objections, and then the super majority reacted by holding tenaciously to its pre-ordained position. Although the referendum supporting the treaty revealed a fairly even split in the electorate, it would be fair to say that the majority of the electorate wishes that the opposition would throw in the towel by a margin of about two to one, according to a recent poll taken by La Nación, Costa Rica’s major newspaper. However, a tiny defection would deep six the treaty, and so the majority hopes for a quick ratification of the agreement.
Costa Rica, for all the talk of pervasive corruption on the part of one of its presidents after another, is known as one of Central America’s- perhaps even Latin America’s – most stable democracy, and it has had a successful mixed economy that developed since the end of World War II. There has been a good public health plan at work that has resulted in life expectancy figures equal to those of the United States, a literacy rate of 98 percent, a highly regarded national university, and an efficient electric power and telecommunications enterprises that exports electricity throughout Central America and provides the cheapest cell phone service in the western hemisphere. Costa Rica’s per capita gross domestic product of $12,500 is twice that of such neighboring states as Nicaragua and Panama, 400 percent greater than Honduras, and about the same as that of Chile—another energized social-democracy.
CAFTA and Costa Rica
Previous attempts to privatize or break up the Insituto Costarricense de Electicidad or the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE), the emblematic government entity that controls electricity and telecommunications, as well as convert the pension and public health plans, failed when there were large strikes and public demonstrations by concerned citizens. However, hardly anyone turned out in the beginning of December when the anti-CAFTA forces attempted to marshal their cadres by increasing the tempo of strikes at ICE.
In Cuba, Raúl Castro is Doing Things His Way
Do Reforms Signal Extensive Changes in Havana’s view of the World?
Economic and agricultural reforms in Raúl Castro’s Cuba, though dismissed by those whose ideology prevent them from countenancing any kind of positive change in Cuba, could represent a significant opening up of Cuban society. The cell phone ban—which had prevented Cubans from legally owning such devices or obtaining service for them—was lifted on the 28th of March. Three days later, the hotel ban that had prevented Cubans from visiting or staying in hotels designated for foreign tourists, was also relaxed.
According to Toronto’s The Globe and Mail, Cubans will now be permitted to purchase state-owned housing, and wage limits also have been lifted, allowing Cubans to earn as much as the market allows. It is hoped that this will boost productivity, and will also enable Cubans to buy more of the consumer goods that have now been made available by means of other recent reforms.