DEVELOPMENT: NGOs Turn Up Pressure Against Water Privatisation

An alliance of development groups is challenging the European Union and developed countries over their plans to promote water privatisation in developing countries at a key international meeting later this year.

FINANCE-SERBIA: State Takeover Raises Questions

After making much of privatisation, the Serbian government has taken over one of the biggest private firms, the cell phone company Mobtel.

WTO-SPECIAL: EU Preparing Privatisation Push

The charity Christian Aid has cited leaked documents to say that the European Union (EU) will push developing nations to privatise services such as water, healthcare and banking at the trade ministers meeting in Hong Kong this week.

ECONOMY: Thai Power Utility Privatisation Awaits Court Ruling

A master plan that the Thai government has drawn up to privatise the country's state-run power utility faces its litmus test in a Bangkok court room next week.

POLITICS-INDIA: Right to Information Exposes World Bank Water Deal

India’s new right-to-information laws have drawn first blood - secret deals involving the World Bank to privatise water supply and sanitation in the Indian capital.

DEVELOPMENT: NGOs Challenge Water Privatisation

Several non-governmental organisations have come together to challenge water privatisation policies.

SOUTH AMERICA: Blocking the Wave of Privatisation of Water

The nations of South America must urgently take steps to guarantee that water is legally considered a social, not an economic resource, and to block the advance of transnational corporations, which are increasingly gaining control over public utilities in the developing South, warned the French foundation France Libertés.

ECONOMY: Thailand Reaps the Whirlwind of Populist Policies

From enjoying a status of near invincibility for almost four-and-a-half years, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is waking up to a reality that makes him look like any other local politician - vulnerable and on the defensive.

RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Push to Privatize Community Land in PNG Rebuffed

A group of Australian academics have accused a conservative think-tank of using inaccurate data to underpin claims that customary land in Papua New Guinea should be privatized because it was frustrating agricultural production.

MALAYSIA: Flood of Protests Damns Water Privatisation

Malaysian civil society groups scored a stunning victory recently when the government announced it was scrapping plans to federalize and privatise the management of water.

PAKISTAN: Unions Roused to Reject Privatisation of Phone Firm

Pakistan's sell-off of its state telecommunications company has lit a fire under the country's languishing labour movement and sparked the creation of an anti-privatisation group of other civil society actors.

G8 SUMMIT: Privatisation Hangs Over Debt Relief

The G7 finance ministers agreed Saturday to write off the debt of 18 of the poorest countries, but firm prescriptions of privatisation hovered over the debt relief offer.

DEVELOPMENT-PERU: Lima’s Poorest Want Water Privatisation

Some residents of the Peruvian capital's poorest neighbourhoods, united in the 'Frente de los Sin Agua' (People Without Water), are demanding privatisation of potable water and sanitation services because they say the government has let them down.

ENVIRONMENT-CHILE: Something Stinks in Privatised Sewage Treatment Plant

A sewage treatment plant that began to operate two years ago in the Chilean capital, touted as the most modern of its kind in Latin America, has become a source of foul odours and constant traffic of trucks hauling sewage through lower-income neighbourhoods.

INT’L LABOUR DAY: Malaysian Workers to March Against Privatisation

Malaysia's workers will mark International Labour Day on May 1 with a strong protest against globalisation, which they feel is gradually eroding away their rights and making poor Malaysians poorer.

WORLD WATER DAY-ASIA: Private Sector Still Eyeing to Own Every Drop

Selling water rights to private institutions and then having people buy them back again is an issue that keeps rearing its ugly head at every World Water Day, which falls on Mar. 22.

WORLD WATER DAY: EU Urged to Stop Privatisation

Civil society groups are calling for a change of course in the European Union's approach to water and sanitation in developing countries.

BOLIVIA: Water Rates Hard to Swallow

A multinational corporation that provides water and sanitation services is at the centre of tensions in the Bolivian city of El Alto, where residents are demanding that the company leave the country.

ENERGY-NIGERIA: Power Cuts Leave Country in the Dark – And in the Grave

Four days after moving into a new house in Sango Otta, a suburb of Nigeria's commercial hub - Lagos - Soji Alawiye, his pregnant wife, two children and another family member died in their sleep. The cause of death: fumes from a portable generator that was left on overnight after a power cut.

ENVIRONMENT-HEALTH: Water – Bottles Versus Faucets

Four large corporations control much of the world's booming bottled water industry and pose a threat to public water utilities, according to a report by the Canadian non-governmental Polaris Institute.

ECONOMY-BURKINA FASO: For Workers, Privatisation Has Little Appeal

More than a decade ago, Burkina Faso embarked on privatisation of the country’s state-owned companies. This process does not appear to have won the confidence of government employees, however – and with another group of public enterprises coming up for sale, their concerns have sharpened.