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NewSecurityBeat

World Water Forum Receives Icy Welcome From Protesters

March 16, 2009 By Geoffrey D. Dabelko

It is somewhat ironic that the 5^th World Water Forum in Istanbul opened with protesters clashing violently with police. Predictions of “water wars” between nation-states typically grab the headlines despite limited-to-no evidence for countries going to war over water.
As Ken Conca has written in an ECSP Navigating Peace brief, this kind of small-scale, social conflict over water—around privatization, access, pricing, and the human right to water—is the new face of water conflict.

Topics: conflict, water