World Water Day meetings & demos in Turkey

Yesterday was World Water Day. Here's an account of the goings on in Istanbul, Turkey by the World Water Council (industry), the People's Water Forum and the police by Wenonah Hauter of Food and Water Watch, Mary Ann Manahan of Focus on the Global South, and Maude Barlow, the senior adviser on water issues to the United Nations General Assembly.

Water Rights Activists Blast World Water Forum as "Corporate Trade Show to Promote Privatization"

Maude Barlow: They basically say that they are the collection of people around the world who care about water, and they come together every three years to have this great big summit. And every single year, the police presence gets more and more like the World Trade Organization, every single year, from the very beginning, when there was none, to this. But basically, the World Water Council, which puts this on, is really the big water corporations and the World Bank and some UN agencies and some northern development agencies, some academics, the odd small NGO -- small as in, you know, NGOs, but really, it is the corporations, and it's a big trade show.