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Drought in China leaves millions thirsty
Associated Press
While parts of China have been rocked by record snowfalls, a drought in northern China has left more than two million people without sufficient drinking water, a state news agency says.
The drought has led to loss of arable land, livestock and drinking water, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
China’s south and central areas has been hit by China’s worse snow storms in more than 50 years, but in the north 2.43 million people have been left without sufficient drinking water and 11.1 million hectares of arable land and 1.89 million livestock have been affected, Xinhua said.
(25 February 2008)
The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
Maude Barlow, Foreign Policy in Focus
The following is an excerpt of Chapter 5 in Maude Barlow’s latest book, Blue Covenant.
The Future of Water
The three water crises – dwindling freshwater supplies, inequitable access to water and the corporate control of water – pose the greatest threat of our time to the planet and to our survival. Together with impending climate change from fossil fuel emissions, the water crises impose some life-or-death decisions on us all. Unless we collectively change our behavior, we are heading toward a world of deepening conflict and potential wars over the dwindling supplies of freshwater – between nations, between rich and poor, between the public and the private interest, between rural and urban populations, and between the competing needs of the natural world and industrialized humans.
Water Is Becoming a Growing Source of Conflict Between Countries
Around the world, more that 215 major rivers and 300 groundwater basins and aquifers are shared by two or more countries, creating tensions over ownership and use of the precious waters they contain. Growing shortages and unequal distribution of water are causing disagreements, sometimes violent, and becoming a security risk in many regions. Britain’s former defense secretary, John Reid, warns of coming “water wars.” In a public statement on the eve of a 2006 summit on climate change, Reid predicted that violence and political conflict would become more likely as watersheds turn to deserts, glaciers melt and water supplies are poisoned. He went so far as to say that the global water crisis was becoming a global security issue and that Britain’s armed forces should be prepared to tackle conflicts, including warfare, over dwindling water sources. “Such changes make the emergence of violent conflict more, rather than less, likely,” former British prime minister Tony Blair told The Independent. “The blunt truth is that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic conflict we see unfolding in Darfur. We should see this as a warning sign.”
(25 February 2008)
Also at Common Dreams.
Interview with Maude Barlow at Democracy Now, Feb 27.
