Ethiopia's Beginning Of Diversion Of Blue Nile For Africa's Biggest Dam Has Egypt On Edge

[hatrack]

EDIT

Ethiopia this week started diverting the flow of the Blue Nile for construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

Eighty-five per cent of Nile waters originate in Ethiopia yet the East African nation whose name has become synonymous with famine thus far utilizes very little of those waters.

Ethiopia's decision challenges a colonial-era agreement that had given downstream Egypt and Sudan rights to the Nile water, with Egypt taking 55.5 billion cubic metres and Sudan 18.5 billion cubic metres of 84 billion cubic metres, with 10 billion lost to evaporation. That agreement, first signed in 1929, took no account of the eight other nations along the 6,700-kilometre river and its basin, which have been agitating for a decade for a more equitable accord.

And Ethiopia's unilateral action seems to ignore the 10-nation Nile Basin Initiative to promote co-operation. Ethiopia is leading five nations threatening to sign a new co-operation agreement without Egypt and Sudan, effectively taking control from Egypt of the Nile, which serves some 238 million people. Mohammed Abdel-Qader, governor of Egypt's Gharbiya province in the Nile Delta, warned the dam spells "disaster" and is a national security issue for the North African nation.



EDIT

http://www.leaderpost.com/news/Egypt+arms+Ethiopia+builds+giant+hydro/8459136/story.html

[quadrature]

1. welcome news.

I hope the Nile delta dries up.

[pscot]

2. Wars have been fought over less compelling issues