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Today's Top News
Machu Picchu Train Halted Over Water Protests
Authorities suspend tourist route to ancient ruins amid protests over irrigation scheme that could leave town without water
The train, which ferries about 1,500 tourists to the ruins daily, will be halted today and tomorrow while trade unions, university students, peasants and other groups hold a 48-hour strike in Cusco, a regional capital and jumping-off point for visitors to the archaeological site.
Rail authorities said the train, which is the only way to reach Machu Picchu besides an arduous trek, would be suspended as a precaution until the strike ended and tension eased. In an apparently separate event, a forest fire flared about eight miles from Machu Picchu.
Violent clashes last week between police and protesters left one man dead and 44 injured. Protesters say the Majes-Siguas II irrigation project will leave the town of Espinar, 400 miles south of the capital Lima, without water.
The project envisages a dam and water system to irrigate 95,000 acres of agricultural land in the region of Arequipa, part of a Peruvian government plan to boost agriculture and diversify the economy away from mining. Officials said the irrigation project could generate 150,000 or 200,000 jobs.
Authorities issued a decree guaranteeing Espinar's water supplies but residents's suspicion grew after the state investment agency, allegedly without consultation, awarded a concession to a private consortium called Angostura-Siguas.
"The province of Espinar has its own needs that have never been considered," Nestor Cuti, a protest leader, told reporters. "With this concession we are condemned to have a lack of water for life."
The Peruvian prime minister, José Chang, said the government would negotiate if protests were halted. "We are sure we will be able to reach a solution that will be just for the town of Espinar."
Peru is one of South America's most volatile countries and is regularly rocked by protests. Access to water is especially sensitive given that Andean glaciers are melting and heavily populated coastal areas are near desert.
Authorities were today battling a forest fire in a nature reserve near Machu Picchu. The cause of the fire, which started yesterday, was not known, nor was the extent of devastation, said Nilo Chávez, a tourism and ecology official in Cusco.
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Show AllWhich American corporation will be awarded the Andean Glacier bottled water franchise?
How far we have sunk as a species when we will privatize the necesssities of life and gleefully watch people die needless deaths while the capitalists count profits. Those that won't die quietly will be assited by the military so as to not disrupt the flow of profits.
A number of years ago, T. Boone Pickens appeared on NOW to tell how he had cornered all the water in North Texas. In the same rough time period, The IMF offered to "help" I believe it was Ecuador. Of course one of their 47 points that had to be agreed to was to privatize all of their resources. A subsidiary of Bechtel bought the water rights. The first thing they did was fire most of the maintenance workers that kept city water flowing. The system soon broke down. At the same time, they doubled and tripled the cost of water in the country. Finally, they had armed troops telling the country people that they could no longer use their community wells because Bechtel owned all the water and they now had to pay for it.
Eventually, with the shedding of much blood, that was finally turned around. I wrote quite a number of articles warning what was going on, usually receiving a horse laugh. "That can't happen here! We've got lots of water. They can't buy it all."
Wake ye, wake ye, wake ye!
Machu Picchu is more than an archeological site, it is recognized as a spiritual power center, a pole of spiritual energy. As it happens it is more or less opposite, geographically, to the holy mountain of Arunachala in southern India where many shivite saints have lived, the most recent being Ramana Maharshi, who maintained that there must be such a place as Machu Picchu, although he never knew of it.
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There's a glory in the morning because the earth turns 'round and a promise in the evening when the sun goes down
The privatization of water supplies is cause for civil war. Never, ever, should water be private. There simply is no choice but to engage the forces of control. If there is an attempt to privatize water the killing fields will run red with the blood of tyrants. "The project will leave the town of Espinar, 400 miles south of the capital Lima, without water." Solidarity with the protesters!
If people can see why water should not be privatized, it should not be that hard to understand why FEW of Earths Natural resources should be privatized.
The Aboriginals of the Americas had it exactly right when they scoffed at the notion of some person owning the land, the forests, the mountains the rivers and the worlds fish and birds and bison.
Private ownership of resources is NOT a good thing. The Commons has to return to the people of the Community.
There one little Chapter in "The Grapes of Wrath" that convinced me of this years ago and every time I read that book and look at what happens around us I am convinced even more.
It details how Okies were living in camps at the sides of the roads and how some of them took to sneaking onto land owned by another to grow things to eat like potatoes and carrots and turnips...or to gather eggs from a chicken coop to feed a starving child.
The "Landowners" would tear up these gardens when they found them. The land was THEIRS and no one had the right to use it to grow food but the OWNER. The eggs were THEIRS and Eggs and food are not about filling empty bellies, they are about making MONEY.
People have to eat. They have to drink. They should not be forced to pay for these things with Money because someone else owns the food and water.
"Peru is one of South America's most volatile countries and is regularly rocked by protests. "
If regular rocking by popular protest is the definition of volatile, then the USA need to become a lot more volatile.
Probably what the author means is that in Peru the popular protest is much more likely to be met with elite violence, than for example neighboring Bolivia where the imperial elites hightail it out of the country to avoid being burned to crisps inside their palaces when the natives march down from the mountains.
"Access to water is especially sensitive given that Andean glaciers are melting and heavily populated coastal areas are near desert."
130 million USans voted elitism as usual in Nov 2008, presumably to keep their 5 ton SUVs on the road, to continue melting the glaciers worldwide, including the Andean glaciers.
As Brother Danny O'Keefe sings....."the man who stole the water, shall swim forever more....."
Always be suspicious of projects that promise to "create" X-number of "Jobs".
"Jobs" inevitably involve the performing of activities that are demeaning and unnatural for human beings, with 90% of the benefit derived going enrich the global capitalist elite.
All the comments above: BRAVO. The few elites are good-less, G*D-less, fear-based, money-mad, lunatics -- these are scientific findings -- believe it, or not. As I approach my 7th decade this time, I recall observing how THEY STOLE THE COMMONS, and killed off the career or life of anyone who bothered to observe their crime(s). I am glad the folks of some South American cities have the gumption to Rock the Boat and re-claim their common property. They behave as a few folks in small town America of my youth also behaved. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, people would not put up with bad law, bad cops, or bad times without talking back, and taking back. Now we live in a zombie land of hive minded conformity. Until we don't. Consciousness, furthers!
Two major flaws in capitalist's thinking : Ownership and profit.
History often tells the rest.
Magical thinking does it best.
"Rail authorities said the train, which is the only way to reach Machu Picchu besides an arduous trek, would be suspended as a precaution. "
OMG, Imagine all those fat assed American tourists having to waddle down the foot trails carrying their portable expresso machines and designer backpacks...the horror...the horror!
Indreasingly, the few tourists there who go to Maccu Piccu from the US (what percentage of USAN's have even been just to Canada?) are rich, yuppie, new-age kooks who would claim to support the people in thse water commodificaiton wars, until it inconviences them.