Mexico

World Water Forum Opens in Mexico
As delegates from the 121 countries gather Thursday for the IV World Water Forum, demonstrators plan protests against privatization, dam projects and water extraction from impoverished Indian communities.

Water Privatization and the Local Poor
"We used to be happy here,” he says. “Here by the shore on the water, there used to be thousands of lobsters, thousands of shrimp, thousands of clams and things, and we used to be able to fish and live off of that.” But now things are different. As the World Trade Organization creates policies to increase foreign investment in Mexico, Cancún’s Hotel Zone drains resources from neighboring communities. Waste from the resorts is dumped in Puerto Juarez, polluting the waters that locals depend on for fish. The privatization of water has been particularly devastating for the people of Puerto Juarez. Suez, a transnational water company based in France, now controls 50% of the municipal water supply. While vacationers in Cancún’s resorts enjoy fresh water from the tap, residents of Puerto Juarez pay alarming rates for water that is unreliable and unclean.

$2.2 billion water plan to help Mexico repay US
A series of measures to help preserve shrinking water supplies was launched in a move that could help Mexico pay its Rio Grande River water debt to the United States, the Associated Press reported.

Avoiding a Water War
The politics of water threatens to wash away some of the current amity in US-Mexican relations.