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Maude Barlow Named To UN Post
TORONTO - Canada's internationally renowned water crusader, Maude Barlow, has been appointed senior water adviser to the United Nations president.
Barlow, described by international media as "the Al Gore of water'' and currently chair of the country's biggest public advocacy group, the Council of Canadians, will work directly with president Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, who was elected to the 63rd general assembly in June.
The new position was created to address what Brockmann outlined as one of six priority issues during his tenure: Achieving the goals of the United Nations Decade Water for Life program, which began in 2005 and ends 2015.
"It was the result of her work with the UN, her Blue Planet project and the robust body of work she's done,'' said Dylan Penner, council spokesperson.
Barlow founded the Blue Planet Project, a movement described as an "international civil society movement,'' aiming to protect the world's fresh water from threats of trade and privatization.
Barlow will also work with the UN president to push forward a resolution that would force countries to recognize water as a basic human right -- a motion Canada blocked this year, citing fears of water sovereignty.
About two billion people live in the world's water-stressed regions and a child dies every 20 seconds from water-borne diseases, according to UN statistics.
Barlow is a decorated activist, holding six honorary doctorates and with 16 books bearing her name. Her latest, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, was endorsed by actor Robert Redford. Most recently, she received the Citation of Lifetime Achievement from the Canadian Environment Awards and, in her acceptance speech, denounced sponsor Shell Canada for their environmental record.
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5 Comments so far
Show AllHey, Maude, good on you, girl! It's about time you got a chance at an international profile for your water activism. You are a national treasure.
Congratulations Maude. You would never make it in the USA.
Dafoe
Congratulations Maude, the UN President is wilier than we give him credit for, a good choice, just like Canada's Stephen Lewis was.
This is excellent, and this is a U.S. citizen who's also a Canadian citizen (since 1981) who has known about the Council of Canadians for a little over a year now; and impressed I've been from what I learned of their purpose. It's one of the too few Canadian organisations that helps to keep Canada a place on the map of the Earth, for the political "apparatus" of govt mostly makes this country another partner in hell's enterprises on Earth. There are other good organisations, but the CoC is definitely one to be focused on trying to correct the damn govt up here.
Congratulations to Maude Barlow, and I suppose also CoC!
With that said, I wish to alert readers of the following article. Am just browsing through the Uruknet index or main page now and this is an article I hadn't yet seen. I believe you'll all find this to be of serious importance.
"Video: Depleted Uranium - Iraq's nuclear Nightmare
Campaign Against Depleted Uranium, www.cadu.org.uk
October 20, 2008
A presentation made by Doug Weir of the Campaign against Depeleted Uranium at London Region CND's public Forum on the 3rd Sep 2008"
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m48104&hd=&size=1&l=e
When you see just the picture, alone, you'll surely want to view the video. This is a [must] view item.
Yes indeed, Maude's a force to reckon with. And I have to confess to learning much from her over the years. I've read a lot of what she's written and many of her books sit on my shelves, ready to be pulled off and mined for a pertinent quote or fact, which I've done many times. I have her first book on water, BLUE GOLD. It was an eye-opener. I don't trust the U.N.. I don't believe in it. It's unreasonable to believe though that it can't harbor some well-intentioned individuals. I wonder how Maude made it into this post. The corporatocracy can't be happy about it. Or are they behind it?
One can't say enough bad things about Shell. That company is swimming in blood that it's spilled. I'm reading A GAME AS OLD AS EMPIRE, edited by Steven Hiatt. There's a section in it that details Shell's good work in Nigeria. If you want to experience the shrivelling of your heart and the wounding of your soul, check it out. I like to know. But I sometimes wonder whether there's a point at which knowing more can't help but will only make you feel sick in your soul. And I'm someone who does believe in a higher power who will step in to correct things - soon.