Bond needs rehab, but stops cronies from getting Bolivia's water

I just came back from the new bond movie. I really don't know what to think of it. I'm not big on American movies anyways, but I think I liked Casino Royale more.

In Quantum of Solace, Bond (Daniel Craig) can't get over the 21st Bond girl, Vesper (Eva Green). This ultimately leads him to shoot random people and then drink everything off. This also affects M (Judi Dench), who throughout the movie is just paranoid-delusional and schizophrenic. The bad guy, Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric) is just ugly and fucked up, so is his Jewish-mommy's-boy cousin, Elvis (with a hairpiece that looks really wrong). The best part, for me, was my sexy compatriot Olga Kurylenko, who plays Camille (the 22nd Bond girl).

What was particulary interesting about the plot, which sometimes takes useless twists, is the similarity with something that actually took place. In the movie, Bond uncovers Greene's plot to control and monopolise Bolivia's water resources.

In the 90's, the World Bank forced Bolivia (as usual, through blackmail and threats to withhold debt relief and aid) to privatise the water resources of its third largest city, Cochabamba. In a miraculous single bid, US corporation Bechtel (who was benevolent enough to donate my university's Engineering building, which is obviously named after it) got the contract: a 40 year lease to completely control the water resources of Cochambaba. That also included rainwater. Water rates, in some cases, went up by 100 to 200 percent. People who lived on less than $100 per month had to pay around 25% of their monthly income just on water.

I don't know if Bechtel actually believed that it could get away with that. In January 2000, there was a four day general strike against the price hikes. Protests continued, until in February the Bolivian government deployed its army, declared a state martial law and banned the protests. This did not stop the people from going out to the street and protesting. The clashes left 175 people injured, two blinded and one killed. In April 2000, the company finally abandoned the project.

Bechtel demanded $50 million from the Bolivian government, but dropped the charges in 2006.