The Protection of the Nile and its Riparian
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Waters wars: How aquatic scarcity sparks conflicts between states — RT News
As they say, ‘water is life’, with its shortage continuing to fuel conflicts around the world. Since the mid-20th century, the planet has seen nearly 180 disputes connected to water resources, and among the latest is the problem in Egypt.
For centuries, the protection of natural resources has been tied to wars and conflicts around the world. So it’s unsurprising that when Ethiopia, the source of around 85 percent of the Nile’s water, raised the possibility of building a high dam on the Blue Nile, some Egyptian experts suggested going to war with the country.
“If you cut water we’d be dying” political scientist at the American university in Cairo, Said Sadek, told RT. “We have to remember that Egypt has only 6-7 percent of arable land. The western Egyptian territory is a desert, so that can be a serious problem, affecting national security.”
By 2050 Egypt will contain 150 million people and the country will need an extra 21 billion cubic meters of water in addition to the current 55.5 billion, Sadek noted.
In June, Ethiopia's parliament ratified a treaty that grants permission to upstream countries to implement irrigation and hydropower projects without Egypt's approval. The agreement replaces a colonial-era treaty which granted Egypt and Sudan the majority of Nile River water rights.
“If you cut water we’d be dying” political scientist at the American university in Cairo, Said Sadek, told RT. “We have to remember that Egypt has only 6-7 percent of arable land. The western Egyptian territory is a desert, so that can be a serious problem, affecting national security.”
By 2050 Egypt will contain 150 million people and the country will need an extra 21 billion cubic meters of water in addition to the current 55.5 billion, Sadek noted.
In June, Ethiopia's parliament ratified a treaty that grants permission to upstream countries to implement irrigation and hydropower projects without Egypt's approval. The agreement replaces a colonial-era treaty which granted Egypt and Sudan the majority of Nile River water rights.
‘Intl law has no answer to water disputes’
Journalist and commentator on the Middle East Adel Darwish told RT that in this case international law proves itself inadequate in defending the equal use of shared water.
“The international law is not clear about water and water usage. If it’s a river it’s a different law from whether it’s a lake or a sea. So when water crosses borders then you have reasons for conflicts because international law is not clear on what to do on water disputes.”
Nations should rationally share their common supplies and not politicize their disputes, he added.
“The international law is not clear about water and water usage. If it’s a river it’s a different law from whether it’s a lake or a sea. So when water crosses borders then you have reasons for conflicts because international law is not clear on what to do on water disputes.”
Nations should rationally share their common supplies and not politicize their disputes, he added.
“Now between Egypt and Ethiopia a very dangerous situation is about to explode because the Egyptian, the Sudanese and the Ethiopians are playing a political game rather than trying to find an economic investment that is a win-win for everybody. Perhaps the Sudanese and the Egyptians should give the Ethiopians some type of subsidized crops, grains, give them even subsidized power so they would build a smaller dam rather than building a huge one. Politics seem to be blinding politicians to see the actual economic needs that could divert the conflict.”
Among other conflicts is the problem in Syria as its major water sources travel through Turkey and Iraq , making the country vulnerable, Darwish noted.
“You have the whole area of Syria, Iraq and Turkey that nearly came into conflict with each other in the late 1980s when the Turkish had the Southern Anatolia project, the Ataturk Dam. We don’t know what the outcome of the Syrian war is going to be. We might actually have some kind of a hostile regime to Turkey, so the Turks could use some kind of water weapon there.”
Growing population and industrial demands have tripled water withdrawals around the world over the last 50 years, UN figures show. As the world’s per capita water supply is expected to drop by one third in the next 20 years, the worst strain will be in Africa and the Middle East.
For more, watch the report by RT’s Paula Slier.
Among other conflicts is the problem in Syria as its major water sources travel through Turkey and Iraq , making the country vulnerable, Darwish noted.
“You have the whole area of Syria, Iraq and Turkey that nearly came into conflict with each other in the late 1980s when the Turkish had the Southern Anatolia project, the Ataturk Dam. We don’t know what the outcome of the Syrian war is going to be. We might actually have some kind of a hostile regime to Turkey, so the Turks could use some kind of water weapon there.”
Growing population and industrial demands have tripled water withdrawals around the world over the last 50 years, UN figures show. As the world’s per capita water supply is expected to drop by one third in the next 20 years, the worst strain will be in Africa and the Middle East.
For more, watch the report by RT’s Paula Slier.
Recommended
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Nestle CEO: Water Is Not A Human Right, Should Be Privatized ? | True Activist
Is water a free and basic human right, or should all the water on the planet belong to major corporations and be treated as a product? Should the poor who cannot afford to pay these said corporations suffer from starvation due to their lack of financial wealth? According to the former CEO and now Chairman of the largest food product manufacturer in the world, corporations should own every drop of water on the planet — and you’re not getting any unless you pay up.
The company notorious for sending out hordes of ‘internet warriors’ to defend the company and its actions online in comments and message boards (perhaps we’ll find some below) even takes a firm stance behind Monsanto’s GMOs and their ‘proven safety’. In fact, the former Nestle CEO actually says that his idea of water privatization is very similar to Monsanto’s GMOs. In a video interview, Nestle Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe states that there has never been ‘one illness’ ever caused from the consumption of GMOs.
Watch the video below for yourself:
The way in which this sociopath clearly has zero regard for the human race outside of his own wealth and the development of Nestle, who has been caught funding attacks against GMO labeling, can be witnessed when watching and listening to his talk on the issue. This is a company that actually goes into struggling rural areas and extracts the groundwater for their bottled water products, completely destroying the water supply of the area without any compensation. In fact, they actually make rural areas in the United States foot the bill.
As reported on by Corporate Watch, Nestle and former CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe have a long history of disregarding public health and abusing the environment to take part in the profit of an astounding $35 billion in annual profit from water bottle sales alone. The report states:
“Nestlé production of mineral water involves the abuse of vulnerable water resources. In the Serra da Mantiqueira region of Brazil, home to the “circuit of waters” park whose groundwater has a high mineral content and medicinal properties, over-pumping has resulted in depletion and long-term damage.”
Nestle has also come under fire over the assertion that they are actually conducting business with massive slavery rings. Another Corporate Watch entry details:
“In 2001, Nestlé faced criticism for buying cocoa from the Ivory Coast and Ghana, which may have been produced using child slaves.[58] According to an investigative report by the BBC, hundreds of thousands of children in Mali, Burkina Faso and Togo were being purchased from their destitute parents and shipped to the Ivory Coast, to be sold as slaves to cocoa farms.”
So is water a human right, or should it be owned by big corporations? Well, if water is not here for all of us, then perhaps air should be owned by major corporations as well. And as for crops, Monsanto is already working hard to make sure their monopoly on our staple crops and beyond is well situated. It should really come as no surprise that this Nestle Chairman fights to keep Monsanto’s GMOs alive and well in the food supply, as his ideology lines right up with that of Monsanto.
Read more http://www.trueactivist.com/nestle-ceo-water-is-not-a-human-right-should-be-privatized/
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Egypt and Ethiopia leaders meet over Nile row did not reach any agreement- Africa - Al Jazeera English
First talks on Ethiopia's plan to dam the Nile since Egypt's Mansour took power end without agreement in Kuwait.Safeeyah Kharsany Last updated: 20 Nov 2013 17:05      | ||
 Under colonial-era treaties, Egypt is entitled to the lion's share of the Nile's total flow [AP] | ||
| The Egyptian and Ethiopian leaders have met for the first time to discuss tensions over Ethiopia's construction of a huge hydropower dam on the river Nile but the meeting ended without any agreement, sources said. The Egyptian interim president, Adly Mansour, and Ethiopia's prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, met on Tuesday on the sidelines of an Afro-Arab Summit in Kuwait, sources familiar with the meeting told Al Jazeera. It was the first meeting between leaders of the two countries over the Grand Renaissance Dam since the deposed Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, met Hailemariam in May. Ethiopia began diverting the Blue Nile in May to build what will be Africa's largest dam when it is finished in 2017. Thirty percent of its construction has already been completed, according to Ethiopia. The hydropower station will have a 6,000-megawatt capacity when finished.
The sources said the Egyptian side had requested the meeting to "negotiate" over the project but that nothing was agreed. Hailemariam, a source said, rejected a request from Mansour that he be involved in discussons about the project. Colonial-era treaties negotiated by the British gave Egypt and Sudan a majority share of Nile waters. Seven other countries through which the river flows argue the agreements were unjust and need to be torn up. Egypt’s only current recourse lies with a panel of 10 experts from Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan and other countries who have been reviewing the social and environmental impact of the dam. The panel has issued a report about the project's potential impact on water levels, which has not yet been made public. At a one-day meeting in the Sudanese capital Khartoum this month the water ministers of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia agreed to form a panel to implement the expert recommendations. But Egyptian objections about the composition of the committee have been delaying its formation, Ethiopia's water minister has said. A second round of negotiations is scheduled for Khartoum on December 8. Perceived insult Egypt has previously sought to delay the construction of the dam and its requests to inspect it have been rejected by the Ethiopians, who say Egypt needs to relinquish its power to veto projects on the Nile, which it was also given as part of the 1929 and 1959 treaties. Under those agreements, Egypt is entitled to 55.5 billion cubic meters a year, most of the Nile's total flow of about 84 billion cubic meters. However, about 85 percent of the river's water originates in the Ethiopian highlands. A new deal signed in 2010 by other Nile Basin countries, including Ethiopia, allows them to work on river projects without Cairo's prior agreement. Egypt has not signed that deal. The meeting on Tuesday, the sources told Al Jazeera, was almost called off because Hailemariam, who is also the current chairman of the African Union, was insulted by a request that he should go to Mansour. The issue was resolved when the leaders ageed to meet halfway - in a corridor. |
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Ethio Egpian coming Water war - Toledo Blade
A dispute is growing between Egypt and Ethiopia over Nile River water, even though the countries don’t share a common border. Ethiopia is building a dam that, Egypt says, will draw heavily on water that feeds the Nile.
Egypt draws an estimated 95 percent of its water from the Nile. Ethiopia, a severely underdeveloped country, claims that it has a right to the water and hydroelectric capacity of the Nile.
The dam it is building is scheduled to come online in 2017. Ethiopia and other headwater countries are advancing a new treaty to take the place of a 1959 Nile accord that tends to favor Egypt.
Given its domestic political turmoil, Egypt is ill-equipped to take military action to defend its position. Egypt and Ethiopia are talking; the countries need to find agreement on Nile water-sharing to improve life and maintain peace in the northeast corner of Africa.
It won’t be easy. It never has been.
Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/Editorials/2013/10/25/Water-war-1.html#ETIMCde55DUb4Qm4.99
Thursday, October 24, 2013
drought-plagued africa faces crisis despite major aquifer finds - UPI.com
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The recent discovery of two vast aquifers in northern Kenya and a third in Namibia has given weight to scientists' claims the African continent is sitting on immense underground reservoirs of water.But the scientists also warn that Africa faces more droughts because of climate change and could have 25 percent less water by the end of the century, setting the state for possible water wars.
Egypt and Ethiopia, for instance, are facing off over the long-contested waters of the Nile River because Addis Ababa is building a giant $4.3 billion hydroelectric dam, which will cut the flow to Egypt, whose 84 million people depend on the Nile to survive.
The U.S. global security consultancy Stratfor cautioned the September discovery of the aquifers in the drought-plagued Turkana desert of northwestern Kenya near the borders with Uganda and South Sudan raises "the possibility of cross-border conflicts over water rights in the future."
The Lotikipi Basin Aquifer and the smaller Lodwar Basin Aquifer were among five aquifers located by Radar Technologies International of France, in collaboration with the Kenyan government and the United Nations with funding from Japan.
The East African aquifers were discovered using advanced satellite technology and confirmed by drilling. The size of the other three Kenyan acquifers still has to be determined by drilling.
Lotikipi, roughly the size of Rhode Island, contains an estimated 7.3 trillion cubic feet of water with an annual recharge rate of 42.4 billion cubic feet through rainfall in Kenya and Uganda.
All told, some 8.8 trillion cubic feet of underground water was found, with an expected annual recharge rate of 110 billion cubic feet -- an amount roughly equal to 15 percent of the 741 billion cubic feet of water currently available to Kenya each year.
The Turkana region is populated largely by nomadic tribes, who lack regular access to water. Kenya's economic hubs of Nairobi and the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa are around the Lake Victoria and Athi basins, which hold around 60 percent of the country's water resources.
So there's likely to be considerable debate over how to use the new aquifers in terms of national development resources that Kenyan officials initially claimed could supply the entire country with water for the next 70 years.
But Stratfor observed that with a growing population already surpassing 41 million, Kenya, riven by tribal rivalries and heavily reliant on foreign aid for development, is likely to find the new water resources not enough to "support continued population and economic growth."
It noted: "Competition for the new reserves can be expected. Currently, agriculture dominates water usage, accounting for roughly 80 percent of Kenya's water consumption, but oil and manufacturing will likely vie for the resource. ...
"Sustainability will require improvements in both infrastructure and resource management, neither of which will come easy. ...
"Overuse of water resources by agricultural, municipal or oil sectors would further limit the region's potential for long-term growth," Stratfor observed.
Africa's water woes also have been mitigated by the July 2012 discovery of a major aquifer named Ohangwena II under the Namibia-Angola border on Africa's southwestern coast.
On the Namibian side, the 10,000-year-old aquifer covers an area roughly 43 miles by 25 miles.
Because of climate change over the eons that turned the Sahara into a desert, scientists say many of the aquifers deep under the sands were last filled with water 5,000 years ago.
Project manager Martin Quinger, from the German Federal Institute for Geoscience and Natural Resources, says the aquifer could supply northern Namibia "for 400 years" and will help people adjust to climate change.
The 400-year estimate is probably overly optimistic, but scientists writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters recently argued the total volume of water in African aquifers is 100 times the amount found on the surface and probably purer because it's untainted by pollution.
That could be good news for the estimated 300 million people on the planet who are believed to have no access to safe drinking water.
The BBC reported in April 2012 scientists from the British Geological Survey and University College London were able to map Africa's hidden underground water reserves.
Helen Bonsor of BGS estimates there's enough water there to "provide a buffer to climate variability."
Egypt and Ethiopia, for instance, are facing off over the long-contested waters of the Nile River because Addis Ababa is building a giant $4.3 billion hydroelectric dam, which will cut the flow to Egypt, whose 84 million people depend on the Nile to survive.
The U.S. global security consultancy Stratfor cautioned the September discovery of the aquifers in the drought-plagued Turkana desert of northwestern Kenya near the borders with Uganda and South Sudan raises "the possibility of cross-border conflicts over water rights in the future."
The Lotikipi Basin Aquifer and the smaller Lodwar Basin Aquifer were among five aquifers located by Radar Technologies International of France, in collaboration with the Kenyan government and the United Nations with funding from Japan.
The East African aquifers were discovered using advanced satellite technology and confirmed by drilling. The size of the other three Kenyan acquifers still has to be determined by drilling.
Lotikipi, roughly the size of Rhode Island, contains an estimated 7.3 trillion cubic feet of water with an annual recharge rate of 42.4 billion cubic feet through rainfall in Kenya and Uganda.
All told, some 8.8 trillion cubic feet of underground water was found, with an expected annual recharge rate of 110 billion cubic feet -- an amount roughly equal to 15 percent of the 741 billion cubic feet of water currently available to Kenya each year.
The Turkana region is populated largely by nomadic tribes, who lack regular access to water. Kenya's economic hubs of Nairobi and the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa are around the Lake Victoria and Athi basins, which hold around 60 percent of the country's water resources.
So there's likely to be considerable debate over how to use the new aquifers in terms of national development resources that Kenyan officials initially claimed could supply the entire country with water for the next 70 years.
But Stratfor observed that with a growing population already surpassing 41 million, Kenya, riven by tribal rivalries and heavily reliant on foreign aid for development, is likely to find the new water resources not enough to "support continued population and economic growth."
It noted: "Competition for the new reserves can be expected. Currently, agriculture dominates water usage, accounting for roughly 80 percent of Kenya's water consumption, but oil and manufacturing will likely vie for the resource. ...
"Sustainability will require improvements in both infrastructure and resource management, neither of which will come easy. ...
"Overuse of water resources by agricultural, municipal or oil sectors would further limit the region's potential for long-term growth," Stratfor observed.
Africa's water woes also have been mitigated by the July 2012 discovery of a major aquifer named Ohangwena II under the Namibia-Angola border on Africa's southwestern coast.
On the Namibian side, the 10,000-year-old aquifer covers an area roughly 43 miles by 25 miles.
Because of climate change over the eons that turned the Sahara into a desert, scientists say many of the aquifers deep under the sands were last filled with water 5,000 years ago.
Project manager Martin Quinger, from the German Federal Institute for Geoscience and Natural Resources, says the aquifer could supply northern Namibia "for 400 years" and will help people adjust to climate change.
The 400-year estimate is probably overly optimistic, but scientists writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters recently argued the total volume of water in African aquifers is 100 times the amount found on the surface and probably purer because it's untainted by pollution.
That could be good news for the estimated 300 million people on the planet who are believed to have no access to safe drinking water.
The BBC reported in April 2012 scientists from the British Geological Survey and University College London were able to map Africa's hidden underground water reserves.
Helen Bonsor of BGS estimates there's enough water there to "provide a buffer to climate variability."
Topics: Rhode Island
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2013/10/23/Africa-faces-water-crisis-despite-discovery-of-huge-aquifers/UPI-13121382553986/#ixzz2icxsPVKW
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