before miss leigh introduced pure life bottled water was a rare sight in pakistan. now nestle dominates a vast market that it created itself i grew up in a city where you could go just like anyone else but also water and you would get a glass of water for free without any fear of its quality or it sounds and what's happened over the last ten to fifteen years i mean in my own consciousness is that i have seen and witnessed a replacement of drinking water a commodification of drinking water. i would say that it's nestle that's done it it's been a confluence of factors nestle appeared on the scene it started providing your life drinking water and all of sudden coca-cola shows up he shows up and then a whole bunch of private manufactured watersports shows up as well all producing clean water clean water because of the terribly old and creaky infrastructure of the sanitation authority and then before you know it everywhere you go if you ask for a glass of water i have to be fifteen rupees. the

most out of this water is not drinkable we have to drink it as this is the only water available once we drink this water we get different stomach diseases. the water is too dirty you have to boil it hilter it. out and then drink it. if you have a meal you have to rush to the toilet because the water can't be digested when you're out there along the water warms inside they are moving inside we don't show this water to the children otherwise they won't drink it and everything will be a mess. this tape you know life is the safe alternative delivered directly to. the service for the well to do. we film at

the home distribution station in the upmarket area but. i introduced myself to the station manager and asked for permission to film. what is a problem to get on. your life what you put up with what you said it's ok to reveal rodeo. so. university of management sciences in lahore and this elite institution hardly anyone drinks tap water and your life is a success story. i think a lot of the success of your life is nestle's marketing. that was good it was targeted to words but income people because assuming that

you can always get water fleet who would pay a premium for it so most probably the poor people will not. in any case they can't afford the prices so it is you know. class of pakistan or upper middle class and leslie brodsky and the skin was because of their marketing and i see their distribution muscle you know the ads were very interesting lot of emphasis on quality and a model that you can trust. for a lot of beauty. it was fashionable to be walking around with field life in hand. you know it was making a statement about themselves also so it was not just functional benefits it was position on that it's that if you are you know a modern person if you are. you know person who's health conscious. in some sense the jetset as a pikestaff. i think honestly and more to the water companies have been able

to effectively appeal to a part of the pakistani psyche that. likes things like it's appeal to a lifestyle. i read somewhere recently that a lot of the coal and manufacturers decided to go into making bottled water because they knew that the market for cool i was limited because it's so clearly unhealthy for you but the market fall drinking water is unlimited it's a constant supply so it's just a question of being able to effectively commodified drinking water and i mean i've seen it happen before my eyes in the last twenty years and it's not necessarily was not this is within the realm of your conspiracy theory i'm short some level this is part of a business plan put forward by a company that look here's a market where there's nobody drinking bottled water if we go in and do this this this all of the sudden we have ten million consumers how's that. really.

about forty kilometers from business news cheap computer factory. when the company introduced people in life to pakistan some ten years ago it was not just from here. right next to the factory the wellings of the deal one village. instance a village population cannot recall show. the arrival of nestle brought extra employment but the factories also blamed for the biggest problem in the village. is a lack of clean drinking water.

out other in our opinion nestlé has taken our water from us nestlé puts its own tube well in the factory and now the water has become very dirty. all of the way of the water level used to be one hundred feet now the level is down to three hundred to four hundred feet. we worry a lot. of the wells used by the population no longer reach deep enough. around the factory several wells from trying. to. do. a lot of the relating to groundwater is unclear it's unclear who owns the groundwater who has a right to do it whether the state has a right to regulate groundwater where the people who own land over the groundwater

have a right to the resource or whether a company can come in before the rights of groundwater these issues haven't been thrashed through legally economically or on any sort of policy for of yet and it remains to be done. because nestlings booming business with pure life the company has been pumping water out of the ground. but what effect is this having on the ground. and on the quality of the more to a drunk by the people of the village. i asked nestle pakistan about to start a countdown. to cook no reply. what. do i mean that it is a medical people tell us the water is not safe. for our kids shouldn't drink it this girl is always sick one is monday if you keep on giving water to the kids they keep on going to the toilet. if they can't digest the water. they tell

us to boil the water first and to kill the germs johnny. yes you are not what you are poor people we can't afford to boil all the time money. here in the deal what nestle has no good neighbor policy but the villages have sent a petition to the company they too would like to have access to the clean water deep down under their village nestle has turned their request if we've asked them for to boil. least they should provide us with a small pipe with an outlet of water through the wall be able to go to the. if such a solution we the villagers could fetch water this way with cans in the flooded about the little nothing of what they could show us a little juster of respect destiny in the end is really stealing the local water

sources from people and that's their life their livelihood and the livelihoods and lives of their children don't forget that border is relatively small businesses. so we had a fake or that was. selling it cows for ciro point sera sera sera ninety percent or so freshwater being used. i mean it's look look even at its even a little. bit to what they should have the sixth international human rights forum opened this morning in the cern although the event is usually a peaceful affair but this year is different because of the participation of nestle's chairman peter brown back next week to members of the swiss workers union said that nestle itself violates human rights and has no place in such a forum you could catch people have to buy expensive bottled water but poor people

cannot afford it this is not a body human rights. have to face the main thing is to simply say the border is a human right is perhaps not enough in reality it is not a matter of whether water is a human right because quite clearly it is it's more a question of how we can implement the human rights. we shouldn't reflects so much on whether water is a human right but rather reflect on how to ensure permanent access to water in daily life. that says there are also a few other basic problems which need solving. the most important point without question is the more must be invested in. water infrastructure. and secondly there should be no subsidies for the owners of swimming pools and golf courses and for biofuels produced from plants cultivated specifically for this purpose. but there

should be subsidies for water for the purposed and for nature. lagos is the biggest city in africa here there is no such thing as tree. everybody has to buy. the poor rely on the sachet more locally produced but also with dubious quality. the city where the public water supply has failed is an opportunity for those who want to sell. videos and multinationals and invest into what's up i miss lee is empty and have also got i just want to a many of us with a muscle of fun so you see. these. multinationals.

understand the importance of what they know that in one jury. is still it's you know if i'm biased age side the government has already taken hold of providing enough wonderful nationals on for the citizens industry is indeed profiting and exploiting the weakness of the. time and indeed it's the present who is awarded the wrong end of the stick is the other not a citizen who is helpless to live above the law is expensive and the belly many nigerians. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like sleep you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big

picture. it.

and. cut. cut cut. cut . located in the goodness of lagos is makoto it's a slum neighborhood built on stilts. will give the human rights to water is nothing but a phrase that. the slum dwellers have to buy their drinking water

from businessmen who have set up water stations in the slums. like. this no it's not easy to fetch water. that's it's a long way to the water stations. doing sometimes the pumps don't work because there's no petrol. then you have to go to another station that is even further away. and there are only four stations around . for a family of twelve the daily budget is six dollars half of that we used to buy water. in the marketplace empty pet bottles all sold pure life the cocoa style.

the slum continues to grow on its own rotting garbage. the reality in the global south is so powerful now it is such a life and death issue i mean more children die every day from dirty water than from a child the more traffic accidents and malaria put together it's the number one killer and so when you have that kind of life and death situation and then a company like nest it comes in and says oh we've got the answer here life is yes or i'm over in this water that we're going to take from your very own aquifers when there are no public taps and when you turn the water on half the time nothing comes out the. other half when it does it's polluted and you wouldn't use it then they're there you know then i i have to go beyond saying that is irresponsible to say that this is almost a criminal act. new york city has one of the best public water supplies in the you list. it still.

is on the riots in this town. live. from untouched nature direct to the downtown apartments poland spring has become the top selling spring. with its population of eight million new york is the biggest beverage market on the american east coast. every year in the usa alone the beverage industry uses up more than eight hundred cells and tons of plastic. four out of five bottles in the u.s.

end up as garbage along roadsides in the city. the shelves in the shopping centers of today are piled high with the garbage of tomorrow. new yorkers drink bottled water when they have access to the cleanest best water in the world it comes from the catskills it is the cleanest safest water you could possibly drink it's just marketing it suddenly became cool and they connected it to health and they even told us we needed a classes a day which by the way is not true and they and they told us that we had to always have it on our little hydrating tool that we had to have it on us at all times so i talk to kids now and they'll say ok i'm trying to understand what you're saying but . how would i get from my house to my school without water i mean this is brilliant marketing and you know they've made tons of money telling us basically a lie. from new york i head off again to maine. i need to know the latest on the legal wrangling about the pumping stations

welcome to a special edition of radioactive grass roots environmental and social justice new. topic is on large scale corporate action and community control nestle the world's largest food and beverage company. spring maine extracting from the state with intentions to expand. objecting to the sale of their water in positions of limited recourse with current regulatory processes. in the town of friedberg the bulldozers are in action. the battle around the second pumping station went up to the highest court in the state of maine. the. last.

of the company will be loading up its tankers with local spring water legally. was granted only the right to limit the number of trips. set its limit at thirty six thousand. this is sad sad tragic commentary on. what's legal and what's that you know is it legal to steal is it ethically morally it. was legal and was ethical and morally two different things. you don't betray people you know it's like the courts that are supposed to defend you be trading in you feel you feel betrayed.

they're orchestrating the process so that they will eventually went with their wind because people are beat down and there they are tired of the fight or they don't even have the money to pay for the lawyers. now if lee has unlimited funds you know we don't have the legal funds we don't have the the p.r. machines behind us but if you look at their message in freiburg they're good neighbor policy and you look at their message throughout the country they're all very self-serving they have a project called project wet for water education in the community school systems well old sheeny they did a pilot program in freiburg isn't that interesting and then they can say look we did a pilot program for project wet for water education look we're helping the community well you're helping the community conserve water while you're taking one hundred fifty million gallons out of the community.

in the wildlife because of the storm we had another ending here nestle has been defeated. the company must remove its test wells from the protected area the towns of shapley and infield have to plan to hold water in their territories to be a fundamental right. belongs to nature and may be

used by the local residents. for. launch scale pump. and commercialization of them is no longer permitted. both sadly and you feel have cited the right to local self-determination. a right which is anchored in the constitution of the usa. all of us had the same passion and once we found out that we couldn't you know work under the regulatory approach we had to find something in order to keep them out and that's how we found that were the right space and we want to around again to educate the people about the right space and we pretty much said if you want nestle into your community then go with a regulatory approach that will regulate them if they come in fill out the permit cross or t.'s dot their i's you can not say no to this large company and god forbid

if you ever want to regulate anything stricter with them once they're ran because you will never win in court as freiburg now you have to as an instrument with choose what you would describe based ordinance is something. new and stating here this is where shopping is board of selectmen since meetings in fact the board had opposed the local women's demand to carry their fight to constitutional level so we wanted to get the right space ordinance on the town warrant where everybody would vote it well the selectmen again said no we're not going to do it and you know this is a majority of citizens there the who elected these people so they said no we're not going to do it so they refuse the citizens petition they refused to allow the citizens to the water that they gave to their own select right so there's a loophole in the law which lori about where we can call our own tell me to hire

a voter went up to shout we water rights of all the government to shout what at this time although think they were without because we're going to we're so indicate by raising your reality with one. hundred and fourteen votes to sixty six the women won the day for water as a fundamental right and against nestle. to shapley neighboring new field voted likewise. the wildlife preserve will remain untouched. but everybody a reason why we're here today is to celebrate our victory our awesome victory in the new field and chad thank you really was a whole grassroots af it and if it's i think it's just unbelievable because many of us were never activists and it's all thanks to you when i just want to say that i'm very humble having that experience and i think of all of you as as friends and again thank you very much

thanks. for. her. it's a small victory achieved by two small towns in the hinterland of maine. but who can resist in countries where there is little democracy and even less water in pakistan or in nigeria. plain drinking water is becoming increasingly precious some can afford the luxury of bottled water. but the others.

too who does the water on our planet.

interview.

with the economic ups and downs in the final months the london new york sang night and the rest look like it's going be a single day every week the lead. role . play.

good speech. very little. speech language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on. reporting from the trucks full of interviews intriguing story for you. to. visit.

as iran's new president calls for a dialogue with the west seeking to ease crippling sanctions the u.k. general gration. possibile that the tycoon's the penalty. american. russian vodka in protest of the country's law against homosexual propaganda. the fact from fiction and what's being widely as a crackdown on gay rights. nearly three hundred people in turkey a facing imprisonment a court preparing to judgment on an underground network accused of masterminding a revolution these are live pictures for you just west of the crowds outside the riot police are coming to us and the camera.