ABSTRACT
In Third World countries, where children are dying of thirst, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund make privatization of water services a condition of debt rescheduling, and the poor soon find they are unable to pay for the skyrocketing costs of water and sanitation services. The great majority of the megalopolises in which more than 50 percent of the population has no access to clean water are located in the Third World. In many countries in the world, the elite of society are gaining privileged access to water, to greater and greater degrees. The filth of the maquiladora, its lethal water, and its squalid poverty push thousands of young Mexicans away from their home country. At the northern border, conflicts over water use are bound to grow among the 40 million people from eight US states and two Canadian provinces who share the Great Lakes Basin.
