At UN, Global Compact's Coke and Nestle Under Fire, Advisor Barlow a Transparently Cheap Date

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1barlow120908.html

UNITED NATIONS, December 9 -- Coca-Cola's claim to be water neutral is not credible, and the UN's Global Compact is little more than "blue-washing," the UN's new water adviser, Maude Barlow, told the Press on Tuesday. Inner City Press asked her and General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann if during this year they will take on the Global Compact, to try to make it have some standards. Doesn't the Compact ultimately answer to the General Assembly? Video here, from Minute 15:08.

Barlow denounced not only Coke but also Pepsi, as well as Nestle and other "water hunters," as she called them, which take water from aquifers and "put it in plastic and sell it all over the world." Barlow said she opposes bottle water. D'Escoto said that the "murky" role of corporations in the field of water must be clarified or distilled. But what about the Compact?

But Barlow did go further than other advisors and UN envoy in clarifying finances. Inner City Press asked her what part of her travel and mandate are paid by the UN. Hotel and airfare, she answered, adding "I'm a cheap date." Unlike, it must be said, the UN Millennium Project's Eveline Herfkens...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1barlow120908.html