The New Alchemy of The Global Elite

Turning WATER into GOLD

BLUE GOLD!


Sightings from The Catbird Seat

~ o ~

From If the God’s Had Meant Us to VoteThey Would Have Given Us Candidates, by Jim Hightower:

“BLUE GOLD”

Canadians have something we need, and I don’t mean hockey players.

“Blue Gold,” it’s been dubbed by a Canadian newspaper, but it’s far more valuable than that implies, since the world can actually do without gold.

Water. That’s what Canada has that parts of our country and much of the world might literally kill for.

Hell, you say, water’s everywhere. 70 percent of the earth is covered in the stuff.

Yes, but as Canada’s Maude Barlow points out to anyone who’ll listen, less than one-half of 1 percent of all the water on the globe is fresh water available to drink.

An author and agitator for common sense, Ms. Barlow heads the Council of Canadians and is founding chair for progressive politics and policies. “Worldwide, the consumption of water is doubling every 20 years,” she writes in a stunning report entitled “Blue Gold: The Global Water Crisis.”

Barlow calculates that in a very short while, MOST of the world’s people will face shortages or absolute scarcity. . . .

Canada, on the other hand, has a blessing of agua fresca. . . .

Some 20% of the world’s entire supply of fresh water is in the winding rivers and countless lakes splashed all across the vast land . . .

This is not a reality that has dawned on Canadians alone. Others are casting their eyes northward, thinking, “There’s gold in them thar hills.”

But it’s not countries making invasion plans — it’s corporations.

To get their hands on the gold, the corporate grubbers first have to change the way the world’s supply of drinking water is managed. Instead of letting countries treat it as a resource to be held in common and allocated by the public for the general good, they want it to be considered as just another commodity to be held and traded by private investors strictly for their own profit.

Like oil or pork bellies . . . only this is your drinking water they want to privatize and commodify.

Will it surprise you to learn that those bratty globalization twins, NAFTA and the WTO, contain provisions that advance the commodity concept? Thought not. Both incorporate the bald assertion that “water, including … ordinary natural water of all kinds (other than sea water)” are “goods” that are subject to the new rules of global trade.

We’re talking here about much more than bottled water– Perrier, Evian, Yellow Snow #5, and your other favorite boutique brands. We’re talking about bulk sales, including whole lakes and aquifers being bought and mined, the flow of rivers being siphoned off, the Great Lakes themselves being put on the market.

Maude Barlow and others report that corporations worldwide are already organized to do the deed, using super-tankers, pipelines, canals, the rerouting of rivers, and every other mammoth scheme known to humankind to shift the product from water-rich nations to those markets willing to pay top dollar for it:

>> Nordic Water Company now totes H2-0 from Norway to thirsty European countries by tugging it across the sea in giant, floating plastic bags.

>> Global Water Corp, a Canadian firm, has cut a deal with the town of Sitka, Alaska, to take 18 billion gallons of water per year from nearby Blue Lake and haul it to China, and it is joining with a Houston maritime outfit to ship more Alaskan water aboard bulk tankers to Singapore. “Water has moved from being an endless commodity that may be taken for granted to a rationed necessity that may be taken by force,” GWC says in a chilling statement.

>> The GRAND Canal (Great Recycling And Northern Development Canal) is an engineer’s wet dream, involving the building of a dike across the huge James Bay … to capture the water of the twenty rivers that flow into it … then building a network of canals, dams, and locks to move the water four hundred miles south to Georgian Bay, where it would be “flushed through” the Great Lakes into pipelines that would take it to America’s Sunbelt.

>> McCurdy Enterprises of Gander, Newfoundland, plans to “harvest” some 13 billion gallons of water a year from one of that province’s lakes, pipe it to the coast, pump it into old oil tankers … and ship it to the Middle East for a hefty profit.

>> Monsanto sees a multibillion-dollar business opportunity in the emerging water crisis, with one executive saying bluntly: “Since water is as central to food productions as seed is, and without water life is not possible, Monsanto is now trying to establish its control over water. … Monsanto (has launched) a new water business, starting with India and Mexico, since both these countries are facing water shortages.”

“Canada,” barked editor Terrence Corcoran of the Financial Post in a 1999 editorial, “is a future OPEC of water,” urging that the country begin trading in this rich commodity pronto.

Likewise, Dennis Mills, a member of Canada’s parliament … is pushing for assorted water projects and trading schemes, declaring with gusto, “Fortunes are made by those who control the flow of water.”

Thanks to citizen groups like the two Maude Barlow heads, however, the Great Canadian Water Sale-a-Thon has yet to surge forth, for they have alerted the citizenry and generated a national debate on the wisdom of shouting “y’all come” to every global greedhead with a big bucket. Their vigilance has produced a temporary moratorium across the country on bulk sales.

This might be a good place for me to add that Maud, and Canadians generally, certainly are not saying, “It’s our water and the rest of the world can go suck eggs” … To the contrary, they are the ones pushing for a public policy of sharing their bounty to meet the global water crisis, allocating water particularly to help those people in need. But the pressure is intense to simply turn the water loose and let “the market” decide who needs it.

And that little, nasty Chapter 11 is being wielded to break the dam and turn the water loose.

Sun Belt Water Inc., based in Santa Monica, California, has filed the first NAFTA water case. It had an agreement with a British Columbia company to take water from this far western province and ship it in huge tankers down the west coast to southern California. But such a public outcry ensued when the scheme became public that the provincial government stepped in to protect its water, nixing the shipment by enacting a moratorium on all water exports. Imagine if Sun Belt had quietly worked a deal to sink a siphon into Lake Tahoe and drain it into Los Angeles, and you’ll get a sense of how the people of British Columbia felt about Sun Belt’s raid.

“Screw the people” was the reaction of the California corporation. It sued Canada in 1998, claiming that its future profits were “expropriated” by British Columbia’s export moratorium and that, under the infamous Chapter 11, the nice people of Canada owed it $468 million. . . .

Dealing with NAFTA is trickier than playing hockey in hell, and, for the Canadians, there is another nasty trick in the trade agreement that makes them vulnerable to an all-out corporate raid. Sun Belt and the other water hustlers only need one export deal in any one province to break the dam for all of Canada’s water.

This is because the devils who set up the NAFTA game rigged it with a provision called “proportionality,” which means that if one company gets a deal, the country has to treat every other company the same. So when one company exports even a trickle of water out of Canada, that opens the tap for all other export deals, and the tap cannot be turned off– even if it is later proven that the massive outflow is doing horrible damage to the environment, to other businesses (fishing, tourism, etc.) or to the country as a whole. . . .

This is why Sun Belt Water Inc. is squeezing so hard in British Columbia. Canada’s national government, rather than imposing its own ban on water exports, took the kind of half-assed approach our national politicians would take– they asked each of the ten provinces of Canada to implement their own voluntary moratoriums. . . .

If (or when) one province allows a export deal, all the other provincial moratoriums are immediately null and void — and the “Blue Gold Rush” is on. . . .

* * *

From : “Sam Anderson” <ebontek@earthlink.net>

To : African_Caucus@yahoo.com blackliberationlist@topica.com brc-discuss@lists.tao.ca

CC : soa@yahoogroups.com

Subject : [soa] Help Stop the Privatizing “The Stuff of Life:” Ghana’s Water Commodified By Imperialism

Date : Thu, 21 Mar 2002

THIS IS AN EMAIL ACTION CHAIN. PLEASE FORWARD TO FRIENDS & COPY US at: http://capofwater@netscape.net

= = = = = = =

“Sometimes I will go without food so my grandchildren have water,” says Amadu.

“Water comes before food.”

= = = = = = =

Dear Friends,

At the instigation of the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and World Bank, the Government of Ghana has embarked on a hasty privatisation programme of the country’s public urban water system without proper public consultation. Already, the prospect of privatisation has resulted in a 95 percent hike in water fees and it is feared that the takeover by the exclusively foreign multinational bidders will severely reduce access for the poor and marginalized communities.

Privatisation will hit poor families hard, says Christian Aid’s report (see below), a view supported by a diverse array of international non-governmental organizations, including Public Citizen (US), the International Water Working Group, Africa Action (USA), and Water Aid (UK).

The IMF, World Bank and DFID disagree. They insist that every citizen should pay the full ‘market price’ for water but 70% of Ghanaians earns less than a dollar a day and cannot afford it. Moreover, over 30% do not even have access to safe drinking water. With privatisation, it is feared that this percentage will increase. More poor families will be forced to travel farther and work harder to collect water possibly from polluted streams and rivers. And they will be forced to make daily trade-offs between water, food, schooling and health care. Worse still their children will fall sick and die from the many illnesses caused by drinking unsafe water.

Poor people are resisting. The National Coalition Against the Privatisation of Water, popularly called CAP of WATER has been formed by a broad range of civil society groups and organizations to stop the arm twisting by the IMF, the World Bank and DFID and the multinational water companies. The CAP of WATER campaign is demanding;

a) proper consultation with civil society, and

b) a serious examination of the reform options. CAP of WATER has called for an international fact finding mission, which is due to visit Ghana next month.

~ ~ ~

Please join the campaign by:

1. Sending this message to friends.

2. Please copy us at: <capofwater@netscape.net>. Every message is great news to the campaign.

3. Observing the UN day for Water (Friday 22 March) with a local CAP of Water event of your own.

4. URGENTLY sending a fax or e-mail to the following people, urging them to stop the hasty privatisation of Ghana’s water in order to prevent more people falling into deeper poverty and disease. Please copy your message to us at: <

His Excellency Mr. J.A. Kufuor, President of Ghana
Tel: 233-21-676923/4 ext. 110
Fax: 233-21-676934 or 233-21-666528

Peter Harold, World Bank Representative,
Ghana P. O. Box M27 – Ministries
Accra, Ghana
Tel: 233-724/22037
Fax: 233-72-227887
Email:
pharrold@worldbank.org

~ ~ ~

‘The right to water is a fundamental, God-given right to all people that dwell on this earth.’

– Christian Council of Ghana.

~ ~ ~

SUPPORT the CAP of WATER campaign

Southern Links
Email : kowusu@southernlinks.org

* * * * *

From : “Catherine Austin Fitts” <catherine@solari.com>

To : “Solari Action Network” <catherine@solari.com>

Date : Thu, 7 Mar 2002 18:57:25 -0500

Subject: Transcript of Interview of Greg Palast, Journalist for BBC and Observer, London, by Alex Jones.

(Courtesy of A Great Listener) Alex Jones Radio Show, Monday (PM), March 4, 2002

_______________________________

AJ: This is earth shattering. Can you break it down for us and tell us what the economists have done?

GP: Well, I’ll tell you two things. One, I spoke to the former chief economist, Joe Stiglitz who was fired by the (World) Bank. So I, on BBC and with Guardian, basically spent some time debriefing him. It was like one of the scenes out of Mission Impossible, you know where the guy comes over from the other side and you spend hours debriefing him. So I got the insight of what was happening at the World Bank. In addition, he did not brief me but I got some other sources. He would not give me inside documents but other people handed me a giant stash of secret documents from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. . . .

AJ: Just like you got W199I, from the same folks we got it from.

GP: And so one of the things that is happening is that, in fact, I was supposed to be on CNN with the head of the World Bank Jim Wolfensen and he said he would not appear on CNN ever if they put me on. And so CNN did the craziest thing and pulled me off.

AJ: So now they are threatening total boycott.

GP: Yea right. So what we found was this. We found inside these documents that basically they required nations to sign secret agreements, in which they agreed to sell off their key assets, in which they agreed to take economic steps which are really devastating to the nations involved and if they didn’t agree to these steps, there was an average for each nation that signed one-hundred and eleven items that they are required to sign on to. If they didn’t follow those steps they would be cut-off from all international borrowing. You can’t borrow any money in the international marketplace. No one can survive without borrowing, whether you are people or corporations or countries – without borrowing some money and having some credit and…

AJ: Because of the debt inflation pit they’ve created.

GP: Yea, well, see one of the things that happened is that – we’ve got examples from, I’ve got inside documents recently from Argentina, the secret Argentine plan. This is signed by Jim Wolfensen, the president of the World Bank. By the way, just so you know, they are really upset with me that I’ve got the documents, but they have not challenged the authenticity of the documents. First, they did. First they said those documents don’t exist. I actually showed them on television. And cite some on the web, I actually have copies of some…

AJ: Greg Palast dot com?

GP: Yea, http://www.gregpalast.com . So then they backed off and said yea those documents are authentic but we are not going to discuss them with you and we are going to keep you off the air anyway. So, that’s that. But what they were saying is look, you take a country like Argentina, which is, you know, in flames now. And it has had five presidents in five weeks because their economy is completely destroyed.

AJ: Isn’t it six now?

GP: Yea, it’s like the weekly president because they can’t hold the nation together. And this happened because they started out in the end of the 80s with orders from the IMF and World Bank to sell-off all their assets, public assets. I mean, things we wouldn’t think of doing in the US, like selling off their water system.

AJ: So they tax the people. They create big government and big government hands it off to the private IMF/World Bank. And when we get back, I want to get to the four-parts that you elegantly lay out here where they actually pay off the politicians billions to their Swiss bank accounts to do this transfer.

GP: That’s right.

AJ: This is like one of the biggest stories ever, Sir. I’m sorry, please continue.

GP: So what’s happening is – this is just one of them. And by the way, it’s not just anyone who gets a piece of the action. The water system of Buenos Aires was sold off for a song to a company called Enron. A pipeline was sold off, that runs between Argentina and Chile, was sold off to a company called Enron.

AJ: And then the globalists blow out the Enron after transferring the assets to another dummy corporation and then they just roll the theft items off.

GP: You’ve got it. And by the way, you know why they moved the pipeline to Enron is that they got a call from somebody named George W. Bush in 1988.

AJ: Unbelievable, Sir. Stay right there. We are talking to Greg Palast.

< BREAK >

AJ: We are talking to Greg Palast. He is an award-winning journalist, an American who has worked for the BBC, London Guardian, you name it, who has dropped just a massive bomb-shell on the Globalists and their criminal activity. There is no other word for it. You link through at inforwars.com, you can link to his web site – gregpalast.com, or any of the other great reports he has been putting out. He now has the secret documents. We have seen the activity of the IMF/World Bank for years.

They come in, pay off politicians to transfer the water systems, the railways, the telephone companies, the nationalized oil companies, gas stations – they then hand it over to them for nothing.

The Globalists pay them off individually, billions a piece in Swiss bank accounts. And the plan is total slavery for the entire population.

Of course, Enron, as we told you was a dummy corporation for money laundering, drug money, you name it, from the other reporters we have had on. It’s just incredibly massive and hard to believe. But it is actually happening. Greg Palast has now broken the story world-wide. He has actually interviewed the former top World Bank economist. Continuing Sir with all these points.

I mean for the average person out there, in a nutshell, what is the system you are exposing?

GP: We are exposing that they are systematically tearing nations apart, whether it’s Ecuador or Argentina. The problem is some of these bad ideas are drifting back into the U.S. In other words, they have run out of places to bleed. And the problem is, this is the chief economist, this is not some minor guy. By the way, a couple of months ago, after he was fired, he was given the Nobel Prize in Economics. So he is no fool.

He told me, he went into countries where they were talking about privatizing and selling off these assets.

And basically, they knew, they literally knew and turned the other way when it was understood that leaders of these countries and the chief ministers would salt away hundreds of millions of dollars.

AJ: But it’s not even privatization. They just steal it from the people and hand it over to the IMF/World Bank.

GP: They hand it over, generally to the cronies, like Citibank was very big and grabbed half the Argentine banks. You’ve got British Petroleum grabbing pipelines in Ecuador.

I mentioned Enron grabbing water systems all over the place. And the problem is that they are destroying these systems as well. You can’t even get drinking water in Buenos Aires.

I mean it is not just a question of the theft. You can’t turn on the tap. It is more than someone getting rich at the public expense.

AJ: And the IMF just got handed the Great Lakes. They have the sole control over the water supply now. That’s been in the Chicago Tribune.

GP: Well the problem that we have is – look, the IMF and the World Bank is 51% owned by the United States Treasury. So the question becomes, what are we getting for the money that we put into there?

And it looks like we are getting mayhem in several nations. Indonesia is in flames.

He was telling me, the Chief Economist, Stiglitz, was telling me that he started questioning what was happening. You know, everywhere we go, every country we end up meddling in, we destroy their economy and they end up in flames. And he was saying that he questioned this and he got fired for it. But he was saying that they even kind of plan in the riots. They know that when they squeeze a country and destroy its economy, you are going to get riots in the streets. And they say, well that’s the IMF riot. In other words, because you have riot, you lose. All the capital runs away from your country and that gives the opportunity for the IMF to then add more conditions.

AJ: And that makes them even more desperate. So it is really an imperial economy war to implode countries and now they are doing it here with Enron. They are getting so greedy – they are preparing it for this country.

GP: I’ve just been talking to, out in California just yesterday, from here in Paris, the chief investigators of Enron for the State of California. They are telling me some of the games these guys are playing. No one is watching that. It’s not just the stockholders that got ripped off.

They sucked millions, billions of dollars out of the public pocket in Texas and California in particular.

AJ: Where are the assets? See, everybody says there are no assets left since Enron was a dummy corporation – from the experts I’ve had on and they transferred all those assets to other corporations and banks.

GP: Well yea, this stuff has really gone just like a three-card Monty game. I mean remember that there is money at the bottom. You did pay California’s electric bills according to the investigations, they are telling me that they were pumped up unnecessarily by 9 to 12 billion dollars. And I don’t know who they are going to get it back from now.

AJ: Well they actually caught the Governor buying it for $137 per megawatt and selling it back to Enron for $1 per megawatt and doing it over and over and over again.

GP: Yea, the system has gotten completely out of control and these guys knew exactly what was happening. Well, you have to understand that some of the guys who designed the system in California for deregulation then went to work for Enron right after. In fact, here I’m in London right now and we have, the British has some responsibility here. The guy who was on the audit committee of Enron, Lord Wakeham. And this guy is a real piece of work, there isn’t a conflict of interest that he hasn’t been involved in.

AJ: And he is the head of NM Rothschild.

GP: There isn’t anything that he doesn’t have his fingers in. He’s on something like fifty Boards. And one of the problems, he was supposed to be head of the audit committee watching how Enron kept the books. And in fact, they were paying him consulting fees on the side. He was in Margaret Thatcher’s government and he’s the one who authorized Enron to come into Britain and take over power plants here in Britain. And they owned a water system in the middle of England. This is what this guy approved and then they gave him a job on the board. And on top of being on the board, they gave him a huge consulting contract. So you know, this guy was supposed to be in charge of the audit committee to see how they were handling their accounts.

AJ: Well, he is also the head of the board to regulate the media.

GP: Yes, he is, because I have run into real problems, because he regulates me.

AJ: They are also trying to pass laws in England where you’ve got an 800-year old well, or in some cases a 2000-year old well that the Romans built that’s on your property and they say we are putting a meter on it. You can’t have your own water.

GP: Yea, and that’s Lord Wakeham. I mean this is the guy from Enron. He is a real piece of work. He can’t be touched here because like I say he actually regulates the media. So if you complain, he’s got his hand on your pen.

AJ: Burrow into NM Rothschild, you’ll find it all there. Go through these four points. I mean you’ve got the documents. The IMF/World Bank implosion, four points, how they bring down a country and destroy the resources of the people.GP: Right. First you open up the capital markets. That is, you sell off your local banks to foreign banks. Then you go to what’s called market-based pricing. That’s the stuff like in California where everything is free market and you end up with water bills – we can’t even imagine selling off water companies in the United States of America. But imagine if a private company like Enron owned your water. So then the prices go through the roof. Then open up your borders to trade – complete free marketeering. And Stiglitz who was the chief economist, remember he was running this system, he was their numbers man and he was saying it was like the opium wars. He said this isn’t free trade; this is coercion trade. This is war. They are taking apart economies through this.

AJ: Well look, China has a 40% tariff on us, we have a 2% on them. That’s not free and fair trade. It’s to force all industry to a country that the globalists fully control.

GP: Well, you know Walmart – I did a story, in fact, if you read my book. Let me just mention that I’ve got a book out, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” about how, unfortunately, America has been put up for sale. “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” is coming out this week. But I have a story in there about how Walmart has 700 plants in China. There is almost nothing in a Walmart store that comes from the United States of America, despite all the eagles on the wall.

AJ: Exactly, like 1984, then they have big flags saying “Buy American” and there’s hardly anything — it’s Orwellian double-think.

GP: What’s even worst is they will hire a factory and right next to it will be the sister factory which is inside a prison. You can imagine the conditions of these workers producing this lovely stuff for Walmart. It’s really….

AJ: And if an elitist needs a liver, they just call.

GP: (Laughs) I know, it’s grim. In fact, I talked to a guy, Harry Wu, is his name and, in fact, he broke into, he’s been in Chinese prison for 19 years. No one believed his horrible stories. He actually broke back into prison, took a camera with him and took pictures of the conditions and said this is the conditions of factories where Walmart is getting its stuff made at, it’s all….

AJ: I was threatened to be thrown off TV here in Austin when I aired video of little girls 4-years old chained down, skinnier than Jews in concentration camps, to die. And I was threatened, if you ever air that again, you will be arrested.

GP: Well you know, it is horrifying stuff that, unfortunately, I have been handed and Stiglitz, was very courageous for him to come out and make these statements. Like I said, he didn’t provide me the documents. The documents really sealed it because it said this is what really happened. They really do say sign on the dotted line agreeing to 111 conditions for each nation. And the public has no say; they don’t know what the hell is happening to them. All they know….

AJ: Go back into privatization. Go through these four points. That’s the key. It sends billions to politicians to hand everything over.

GP: Yea, he called it briberization, which is you sell off the water company and that’s worth, over ten years, let’s say that that’s worth about 5 billion bucks, ten percent of that is 500 million, you can figure out how it works. I actually spoke to a Senator from Argentina two weeks ago. I got him on camera. He said that after he got a call from George W. Bush in 1988 saying give the gas pipeline in Argentina to Enron, that’s our current president. He said that what he found was really creepy was that Enron was going to pay one-fifth of the world’s price for their gas and he said how can you make such an offer? And he was told, not by George W. but by a partner in the deal, well if we only pay one-fifth that leaves quit a little bit for you to go in your Swiss bank account. And that’s how it’s done.

AJ: This is the ….

GP: I’ve got the film. This guy is very conservative. He knows the Bush family very well. And he was public works administrator in Argentina and he said, yea, I got this call. I asked him, I said, from George W. Bush. He said, yea, November 1988, the guy called him up and said give a pipeline to Enron. Now this is the same George W. Bush who said he didn’t get to know Ken Lay until 1994. So, you know…..

AJ: So now they are having these white-wash hearings. You know I was at Enron yesterday in Houston because I’m now here in Austin. We were like 30-feet from the door, right on the sidewalk and I have it on video – goons came up and said you can’t videotape. I said go ahead and have me arrested. I mean I’m talking on the sidewalk, Greg.

GP: Well, you know, I was there in May, telling people in Britain you’ve never heard of Enron, but … And these are the guys who have figured out how to (garbled) this government. In fact, we saw some interesting documents, a month before Bush took office, Bill Clinton, I think to get even with Bush’s big donor, cut Enron out of the California power market. He put a cap on the prices they could charge. They couldn’t charge more than one-hundred times the normal price for electricity. That upset Enron. So Ken Lay personally wrote a note to Dick Cheney saying get rid of Clinton’s cap on prices. Within 48 hours of George W. Bush taking office, his energy department reversed the clamps on Enron. OK, how much is that worth for those guys. You know that has got to be worth, that paid off in a week all the donations.

AJ: Listen at the bombs you are dropping. You are interviewing these ministers, former head of IMF/World Bank economist – all of this, you’ve got the documents, paying people’s Swiss Bank accounts, all this happening. Then you’ve got Part 2, what do they do after they start imploding?

GP: Well, then they tell you to start cutting your budgets. A fifth of the population of Argentina is unemployed, and they said cut the unemployment benefits drastically, take away pension funds, cut the education budgets, I mean horrible things. Now if you cut the economy in the middle of a recession that was created by these guys, you are really going to absolutely demolish this nation. After we were attacked on September 11, Bush ran out and said we got to spend $50 to $100 billion dollars to save our economy. We don’t start cutting the budget, you start trying to save this economy. But they tell these countries you’ve got to cut, and cut, and cut. And why, according to the inside documents, it’s so you can make payments to foreign banks – the foreign banks are collecting 21% to 70% interest. This is loan-sharking. If fact, it was so bad that they required Argentina to get rid of the laws against loan-sharking. because any bank would be a loan-shark under Argentine law.

AJ: But Greg, you said it yourself and the documents show it. They first implode the economy to create that atmosphere. They institute the entire climate that does this.

GP: Yea, and then they say, well gee, we can’t lend you any money except at these loan-shark rates. We don’t allow people to charge 75% interest in the United States. That’s loan-sharking.

AJ: Part 3 and Part 4. What do they do after they do that?

GP: Like I said, you open up the borders for trade, that’s the new opium wars. And once you have destroyed an economy that can’t produce anything, one of the terrible things is that they are forcing nations to pay horrendous amounts for things like drugs – legal drugs. And by the way, that’s how you end up with an illegal drug trade, what’s there left to survive on except sell us smack and crack and that’s how….

AJ: And the same CIA national security dictatorship has been caught shipping that in.

GP: You know, we are just helping our allies.

AJ: This is just amazing. And so, drive the whole world down, blow out their economies and then buy the rest of it up for pennies on the dollar. What’s Part 4 of the IMF/World Bank Plan?

GP: Well, in Part 4, you end up again with the taking apart of the government. And by the way, the real Part 4 is the coup d’etat. That’s what they are not telling you. And I’m just finding that out in Venezuela. I just got a call from the President of Venezuela.

AJ: And they install their own corporate government.

GP: What they said was here you’ve got an elected president of the government and the IMF has announced, listen to this, that they would support a transition government if the president were removed.

They are not saying that they are going to get involved in politics – they would just support a transition government. What that effectively is, is saying we will pay for the coup d’etat, if the military overthrows the current president, because the current president of Venezuela has said no to the IMF.

He told those guys to go packing. They brought their teams in and said you have to do this and that. And he said, I don’t have to do nothing.

He said what I’m going to do is, I’m going to double the taxes on oil corporations because we have a whole lot of oil in Venezuela. And I’m going to double the taxes on oil corporations and then I will have all the money I need for social programs and the government – and we will be a very rich nation.

Well, as soon as they did that, they started fomenting trouble with the military and I’m telling you watch this space: the President of Venezuela will be out of office in three months or shot dead. They are not going to allow him to raise taxes on the oil companies.

AJ: Greg Palast, here is the problem. You said it when you first came out of the gates. They are getting hungry, they are doing it to the United States now.

Enron, from all the evidence that I’ve seen was a front, another shill, they would steal assets and then transfer it to other older global companies, then they blew that out and stole the pension funds. Now they are telling us that terrorism is coming any day. It’s going to happen if you don’t give your rights up.

Bush did not involve Congress and the others who are supposed to be in the accession if there is a nuclear attack in the secret government, Washington Post -“Congress Not Advised of Shadow Government.” We have the Speaker of the House not being told. This looks like coup d’etat here. I’m going to come right out with it. We had better spread the word on this now or these greedy creatures are going to go all the way.

GP: I’m very sad about one thing. I report this story in the main stream press of Britain. I’m on the BBC despite Lord Wakeham. I know he doesn’t like me there. I’m in the BBC, I’m in the main daily paper, which is the equivalent of the New York Times or whatever, and we do get the information out. And I’m just very sorry that we have to have an alternative press, an alternative radio network and everything else to get out the information that makes any sense.

I mean this information should be available to every American.

I mean, after all, it’s our government!

http://www.infowars.com/palast.htm

* * *


NOW…if you want to see how the Global Elite are draining off YOUR WATER and YOUR ASSETS

– as well as YOUR GOVERNMENT

UNPLUG YOUR MIND and let YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS flow below

o

o

o




American Water Works Company – The largest US-based, investor-owned water service enterprise (until recently…)

From Hoover’s Online:

Water, water, everywhere and American Water Works wants to own it.

The company, which has been acquired by Thames Water (the water unit of German utility giant RWE), is one of the largest water utility holding companies in the US. Its regulated utilities serve 2.5 million customers, or about 10 million people, in 20 states.

American Water Works also provides wastewater treatment in some of its service areas. Nonregulated subsidiary American Water Services provides contract management for water and wastewater systems that serve another 5 million people in the US and Canada; American Water Resources offers related products and services.

* * *

From their website:

American Water Works Company is the parent company of subsidiaries that provide water and wastewater services to more than 10 million people in 23 states. With coast-to-coast operations, including Hawaii, the Company is the United States’ largest publicly-traded utility enterprise devoted exclusively to water and wastewater business opportunities. American Water Works provides options to communities that are realistic and workable…contract management, public/private partnerships, asset acquisition and a variety of service alternatives that can help a community achieve better results.

Special Interests:

Debt Management, Environment, Infrastructure, International Affairs, Privatization, Public Works, Utilities Issues, Waste Water Treatment.

* * *

May 4, 2000

American Water Works Company, Inc. Shareholders Re-elect Directors, Approve New Compensation Plan and Ratify Appointment of Independent Auditors

Voorhees, NJ – Today at their annual meeting, shareholders of American Water Works Company, Inc. (NYSE:AWK) re-elected 5 Directors of a 15-member classified board, approved a new stock award and incentive plan for management, and ratified the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as independent accountants.

Following the shareholders’ meeting, the Board of Directors re-elected Marilyn Ware, Chairman; Anthony P. Terracciano, Vice Chairman; and J. James Barr, President and Chief Executive Officer.

The five board members re-elected were:

William O. Albertini, Retired Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Bell Atlantic Global Wireless, Inc.;

Rhoda W. Cobb, President, Cobb Foundation;

Ray J. Groves, Chairman, Legg Mason Merchant Banking, Inc.;

Ross A. Webber, Professor of Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania;

Horace Wilkins, Jr., President – Special Markets, SBC Telecommunications, Inc.

American Water Works Company is the largest US-based, investor-owned water service enterprise. The Company’s subsidiaries serve more than 10 million people in 23 states. The Company is committed to continued growth and is involved in a number of industry consolidation and privatization initiatives, including water and wastewater system acquisition, contract operation and other water resource management initiatives….

For more on PricewaterhouseCoopers, GO TO > > > What Price Waterhouse?

* * *

November 7, 2001 (Note this date!)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

AZURIX CORP. CLOSES SALE OF AZURIX NORTH AMERICA

HOUSTONAzurix Corp. announced today that it has completed the sale of its wholly owned subsidiaries, Azurix North America Corp. and Azurix Industrial Corp., to American Water Works Company, Inc.

The contract price, payable in cash, is $141.5 million, subject to customary adjustments. The sale also includes American Water Works assuming $6.1 million of debt.

“This transaction demonstrates the progress we are making in our previously announced decision to sell certain Azurix assets,” said John Garrison, Azurix president and CEO.

“Even though it no longer fits our plans, Azurix North America is an excellent business and we are pleased that its employees and operations are being taken on by American Water Works, a clear industry leader.”

Azurix Corp., an affiliate of Enron Corp., is a global company that owns, operates and manages water and wastewater assets, and provides water and wastewater related services.

With revenues of $1.5 billion, American Water Works Company is the nation’s largest publicly traded enterprise devoted exclusively to the water and wastewater business. Its 6,300 associates provide ongoing water resource management services to businesses and communities in 27 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces.

More information can be found on the Web at www.amwater.com .

* * *

November 28, 2001 (Hope you already sold your Enron and bought American Water Works.)

Markets Down on Enron’s Collapse

By Jerry Knight, Washington Post Staff Writer

The stock market was jolted today by the impending collapse of Enron Corp., the biggest company in the natural gas business and the nation’s seventh largest corporation based on revenue.

Dynegy Inc., another big gas company, backed out of buying Enron at mid-day, leaving the giant gas company teetering toward bankruptcy. Enron’s natural gas trading desk, which dominates that business, was shut down.

After credit rating agencies downgraded Enron to the “junk bond” level, the company stopped paying its bills and others refused to do business with it.

Enron’s stock, worth nearly $90 a share a year ago, plunged into penny stock territory — closing down $3.50 to 61 centsand some traders speculated that it might become worthless.

Enron’s collapse pulled down the stocks of Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., which only a few weeks ago gave Enron several hundred million dollars in unsecured loans.

* * *

January 10, 2003 (What, you didn’t buy American Water Works? How come?)

RWE completes American Water acquisition

By Gill Griffith-Jones

FRANKFURT, Jan 10 (Reuters) – German utility RWE AG (XETRA:RWEG.DE – News) said on Friday it had completed its $4.6 billion acquisition of American Water (NYSE:AWK – News), the biggest publicly traded water company in the United States.

The acquisition, which was subject to approvals from a myriad of regulatory agencies, pushes RWE into the number one position in the regulated water market in North America.

Globally, RWE remains number three in water after French titans Suez (LYOE.OA) and Vivendi (Paris:VIE.PA – News), with 70 million water customers in 46 countries.

All American regulatory bodies, the American cartel watchdog, and the shareholders of the company (AWW) have given their approval,” RWE said in a statement.

RWE agreed to buy American Water in September 2001, paying $46.00 in cash per American Water share to put a total equity value of $4.6 billion and an enterprise value of $8.6 billion on the deal, including the assumption of around $4 billion in debt.

It is the last in a spate of acquisitions the Essen-based company has made over the last three years to turn itself into a multi-utility offering power, gas, water and waste services.

Completion of the deal had been expected some time in the first quarter, and the news gave RWE stock a brief boost. It pared gains and fell 2.66 percent to 25.94 euros by 1449 GMT, underperforming European rivals (Zurich:^SX6P – News).

DEBT NIGGLES

RWE has announced a two-year pause in acquisitions to integrate its new businesses. Now new CEO Harry Roels faces the challenge of convincing investors that its multi-utility strategy will work.

Investors remain worried about the company’s debt situation, which it has said will balloon to around 24 billion euros ($25.2 billion) by the end of 2003, leading to a fall in net profit this year.

RWE will finance the American Water transaction through the capital and money markets and through funds of its own.

AWW will be fully consolidated into the RWE Group in 2003, and the water division will then contribute more than 25 percent of the group’s operating result.

AWW operates in 27 U.S. states and three provinces in Canada, providing some 15 million customers with water and waste water services. It posted turnover of $1.7 billion for the period from the beginning of October 2001 to the end of September 2002.

AWW will be incorporated as a full subsidiary of RWE’s water arm Thames and will oversee RWE’s water business in the U.S. and in South America.

* * *

January 10, 2003

AMERICAN WATER WORKS CO INC (AWK)

Form 8-K

Item 1. Changes in Control of Registrant.

On January 10, 2003, Apollo Acquisition Company, a Delaware corporation (“Sub”), merged (the “Merger”) with and into American Water Works Company, Inc., a Delaware corporation (the “Company”), pursuant to an Agreement and Plan of Merger (the “Agreement”), dated as of September 16, 2001, by and among RWE Aktiengesellschaft (“RWE”), Thames Water Aqua Holdings GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of RWE (“Thames”), Sub and the Company, with the Company surviving the Merger.

Pursuant to the Merger Agreement, each issued and outstanding share of common stock, par value $1.25 per share, of the Company has been canceled and converted into the right to receive $46.00 in cash without interest, plus a stub period dividend of $0.2153333 per share. As a result of the Merger, the Company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Thames Water Aqua US Holdings, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Thames.

As part of the Agreement, RWE has caused Marilyn Ware, Chairman of the board of directors of the Company, to be elected as a member of the Thames Water International Advisory Council.

The Company’s Proxy Statement filed on Schedule 14A for the special meeting of stockholders approving the Merger, which was first mailed to shareholders of the Company on or about December 7, 2001, sets forth certain information regarding RWE, Thames and Sub. RWE obtained the approximately $4.6 billion required to fund the merger consideration and pay related fees and expenses from (a) the capital and money markets and (b) internally available funds.

A copy of the press release announcing the closing of the Merger is filed as Exhibit 99.1 to this Current Report on Form 8-K and is incorporated by reference herein….

For about a golden Apollo, GO TO > > > Apollo


Hawaii-American Water Company – A subsidiary of American Water Works Company, Inc..

From their web-site (www.amwater.com):

ALOHA, and welcome to Hawaii-American Water Company

East Honolulu Community Services is now Hawaii-American Water Company

In 1998 Hawaii-American Water Company began operations and a new chapter in Hawaii’s utility landscape was written.

East Honolulu Community Services, Inc. (EHCS) became Hawaii-American Water Company in April 1998 when EHCS was purchased by American Water Works Company, the nation’s largest investor-owned water and wastewater utility providing service to more than 10 million people in 23 states.

Hawaii-American Water Company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Water Works Company….

We provide wastewater service to residents of East Honolulu and process an average of 3.8 million gallons of wastewater per day. The wastewater is treated using state of the art techniques and is thoroughly tested before wastewater is discharged.

A portion of the wastewater we treat every day can be diverted, and reused for landscape irrigation in places like the Hawaii Kai Championship Golf Course.

This is just one example of the care and commitment our employees show for the environment everyday.

* * *

(Catbird Note: Much of East Honolulu is owned, and/or controlled, by the Trustees of Kamehameha Schools.)

* * *

For more about the Kamehameha Schools scandals, GO TO > > > Dirty Money, Dirty Politics & Bishop Estate


Ray J. Groves – Incoming chairman and CEO of Marsh, Inc.; director of American Water Works Company, Inc., Boston Scientific Corp and Gillette Co.; former director of Allegheny Technologies, Inc.

October 2, 2002

MARSH CHAIRMAN & CEO JOHN T. SINNOTT TO RETIRE IN 2003

Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (MMC) announced today that John T. Sinnott, chairman and chief executive officer of Marsh Inc., the company’s risk and insurance services business, will retire from the firm in July 2003.

Ray J. Groves, president and chief operating officer of Marsh Inc., will succeed Mr. Sinnott as chief executive officer in January and as chairman in July 2003….

Mr. Groves has been a member of MMC’s Board of Directors since 1994, when he retired from Ernst & Young after serving 17 years as chairman and chief executive officer. He joined MMC’s management team as a senior advisor in August 2001 and was appointed president and chief operating officer of Marsh Inc. in October 2001….

Source: Marsh & McLennan Companies, Website: www.marshmac.com

For more on Marsh & McLennan, GO TO > > > The Marsh Birds

For more on Ernst & Young, GO TO > > > P-s-s-t, wanna buy a good audit?


RWE AG – A Germany-based conglomerate. (www.rwe.com)

From Hoover’s Online:

Corporate Hierarchy

RWE doesn’t stand for Runs With Electricity, but it could. The conglomerate’s main utility unit, RWE Energie, provides electricity, gas, and water to German residential and business customers and is Germany’s #1 electricity supplier.

The holding company for more than 500 energy and industrial interests, RWE also owns two UK-based utilities: water supplier Thames Water and UK electricity and gas supplier Innogy.

RWE owns oil and gas exploration and production company RWE-DEA; other business interests include companies engaged in mining, construction, and environmental services….


RWE Nukem, Inc. – (Not a joke!)

November 21, 2002

U.S. Energy Corp. Reports the U.S. District Court Grants Motion of Special Master for Extension of Time to Complete Final Accounting

U.S. Energy Corp Press Release

RIVERTON, Wyo., PRNewswire-FirstCall – U.S. Energy Corp. (Nasdaq: USEG – News) and Crested Corp. (OTC Bulletin Board: CBAG – News), d/b/a USECC, reported that on November 19, 2002, USECC received an Order from U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock granting a motion filed by the Special Master to seek an extension of time to file his final accounting report.

The accounting is being conducted on the trades of uranium from three former republics of the Soviet Union (Commonwealth of Independent States, “CIS”) by RWE Nukem, Inc. and its affiliates.

The extension being granted is from December 6, 2002 to March 3, 2003.

RWE Nukem, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of German utility conglomerate RWE AG (OTC Bulletin Board: RWEOY; DAX: RWE GR), is the Trustee for the Sheep Mountain Partners (SMP/partnership) Constructive Trust.

SMP is 50% owned by USECC and 50% by RWE Nukem.

According to an Order issued previously by the U.S. District Court on February 15, 2001, “The only remaining assets of the SMP Partnership are the CIS purchase rights and the profits therefrom.”

The Court appointed Raymond L. Friedlob as Special Master to determine the amount owed by RWE Nukem to the partnership and to file a report with the Court.

The Special Master engaged the Denver-based accounting firm of Cordes & Co. to assist him in conducting the accounting.

At a status hearing held in August 2002, the Court set December 6, 2002 as the deadline for the Special Master to file his report, and ordered a further scheduling hearing for December 13, 2002.

The Special Master’s Motion for extension notes, “The accountant assisting the Special Master, Cordes & Company (‘Cordes’), has notified the Special Master that as a result of a delay in the receipt of certain documentation and information from Nukem and its affiliates requested previously, which Cordes believed would be delivered in October 2002, Cordes will be unable to complete their work on the final accounting by December 6, 2002. Cordes is awaiting information relating to repurchases, cash disbursements and sales transactions, among other items, from Nukem and is unable to complete its work until this information has been received and analyzed.”

“We are not completely surprised that the Special Master will not complete the accounting by December 6, 2002, as ordered by the Court,” commented John L. Larsen, Chairman of both U.S. Energy Corp. and Crested Corp.

“In the past, Nukem has refused to provide an accounting to USECC, as trustee of the SMP constructive trust and we understand the difficult task the Special Master is confronting. We appreciate the diligent efforts of the Special Master and his accountants and eagerly await the pending resolution of this litigation and USECC’s receipt of its share of profits from the constructive trust. We also look forward to the future marketing of USECC’s share of the CIS uranium to enhance our Companies’ profitability and balance sheets,” Larsen concluded….

For more you need to know before you glow, GO TO > > > The Nuclear Nests

# # #


TO WATCH MORE OF YOUR WATER (AND YOUR MONEY) BEING FLUSHED DOWN THE DRAIN,

GO TO

o

o

o

Apollo

Dirty Money, Dirty Politics & Bishop Estate

P-s-s-t, wanna buy a good audit?

The Marsh Birds

The Nuclear Nests

Birds that Drink from Cesspools

The Story of Enron

Spotting the SEC

What Price Waterhouse?




~ o ~

MORE OF THE CATBIRD’S FAVORITE LINKS

THE CATBIRD SEAT FORUM

THE CATBIRD SEAT

~ o ~


###

FAIR USE NOTICE. This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

###


Last update January 17, 2002, by The Catbird
1