UN's Water Year Is All Wet, Distinguishing Science & Politics, Tajik Sponsors

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, February 11 – The year of 2013 is the year of many things, but according to the UN General Assembly it is the International Year of Water Cooperation, credited to a request by Tajikistan in 2010. Inner City Press covered that 2010 hoopla, here.

  At the UN on Monday Inner City Press asked at the inevitable UN press conference about the Tajik - Uzbekistan water and dam dispute, and if the press conference panel's singling out of Tajikistan for praise didn't constitute taking sides in this dispute. Video here, from Minute 22:13.

  The World Meteorological Organization's Paul Egerton replied that WMO and UNESCO, whose Ana Persic was also on the panel, are both scientific organizations. “The starting point is to focus on scientific and environmental issues,” he said. “There may be discussions at the high political level, in the UN Security Council or other venues, of the political issues.”

   But water cooperation is, of course, a “political” issue. 

   Witness the Nile Basin and an agreement signed by seven countries but not by Egypt or Sudan. Can UNESCO solve this? The Security Council seems unlikely to get involved on the Nile, much less the Uzbek - Tajik conflict.

   Inner City Press began by thanking the panelists on behalf of the Free UN Coalition for Access. Also on the panel was Hungary's Permanent Representative Csaba Korosi, who told Inner City Press that “we as member states cannot decide on behalf of other member states to sort out their bilateral problems.”

   But that is precisely what the Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter purports to do. Sudan, North Korea, Eritrea and others would like what Csaba Korosi said to be true. But it is not.

   Csaba Korosi went on to say that the International Year of Water Cooperation is also “to raise awareness of solutions” and is about the “SDGs and the post 2015 development agenda.” 

  But isn't everything? 

   Still, his answer at least acknowledged that these are political problems, and not only scientific. Now who will solve them? Watch this site.

In UN Water, Questions of Coke and Nestle by Press Prove UN Is Fair, UN Claims

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/uncorp1water110809.html

UNITED NATIONS, November 8 -- "Water is the new carbon," the UN's Nikhil Chandavarkar told the Press on November 6. Following a debate in the UN General Assembly's Second Committee, he told a press conference that it is important to "set a price for water."

Inner City Press asked him about criticism of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's "CEO Water Mandate" for inviting in corporations like Coca-Cola, Suez and Nestle which are accused of negative impacts on lower income people. Video here, from Minute 38:56.

Chandavarkar said the while the CEO Water Mandate came out of the UN Global Compact, it is not the UN's role to assess particular corporations' behavior, including with respect to water. He said that the UN views the private sector of "one of the nine major groups" and tried to give corporations' view an airing.

When Inner City Press followed up asking if corporations really get only one-ninth of the voice and power on the issue, Chandavarkar turned the questions around. That NGOs protested to Ban about his CEO Water Mandate, he said with a smile, is "a tribute to the UN." Video here, from Minute 41:18.

Chandavarkar went further, telling Inner City Press that the "very fact that you are able to raise the issue shows that we are getting the airing from them."

Apparently the argument is that Inner City Press should be so grateful for being "able to raise the issue" that... it shouldn't raise the issue. And the NGOs who wrote to Ban Ki-moon should realize that this is being used by the UN against their position.

They said that "through the CEO Water Mandate, the U.N. is helping to advance corporate control of water.” The UN says that the letter proves that the UN is fair. Only at the UN...

And see, www.innercitypress.com/uncorp1water110809.html