Posts filed under ‘Water’
Major new energy issues are about to transform
Major new energy issues are about to transform still further the strategic balance of the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, with foreseeable consequences for the global energy market over the coming decade. Soon-to-be-evident new wealth in the Red Sea/Horn of Africa region will transform the intensity of conflict there, which in turn will affect not only the region, but the world’s most important trading route: the Red Sea/Suez sea line of communication (SLOC). Read more: http://oilprice.com/Geo-Politics/Africa/Energy-and-Security-Issues-in-the-Red-Sea-Transforming-as-the-Age-of-Gas-Begins-in-Earnest.html
The Threat of a water war
Egypt and Sudan draw battle lines with upstream nations over access to the Nile
NATIONS FIGHT over water, especially when access is curtailed or threatened, and there are the ingredients for a battle over the 4,100-mile long Nile River. Egypt and Sudan have counted on the abundance of the Nile’s life-giving flow. Now upstream nations want to keep more of the abundance for themselves. Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda are asserting their rights to more of the river’s relentless flow. Washington needs to intervene to forestall hostilities between the countries.
Britain conquered Uganda and Kenya in the 19th century in part to protect the precious Nile waters from being diverted away from their critical possession of Egypt, the Suez Canal, and the Red Sea route to India. Without the yearly sustaining floods of the Nile, agriculture and settlement in the valley of the river from Luxor to Cairo and Alexandria would have been impossible.
When Britain in the 1920s controlled all of the waters of the Nile, bar those sluicing down the Blue Nile from Ethiopia, it signed a pact that gave Egypt and Sudan rights to nearly 75 percent of its annual flow. This 1929 agreement was confirmed in 1959, after Egypt and the Sudan had broken from Britain but while the East African countries were still colonies.
A new 2010 Cooperative Framework Agreement, now signed by most of the key upstream abutters, would give all riparian states (including the Congo, where a stream that flows into Lake Tanganyika is the acknowledged Nile source) equal access to the resources of the river. That would give preference to large scale upstream energy and industrial, as well as long-time agricultural and irrigation uses.
Egypt and Sudan have refused to sign the new agreement, despite years of discussions and many heated meetings. Given climate change, the drying up of water sources everywhere in Africa and the world, Egypt, which is guaranteed 56 billion of the annual flow of 84 billion cubic meters of Nile water each year, hardly wants to lose even a drop of its allocation. Nor does Sudan, guaranteed 15 billion cubic meters.
About 300 million people depend on the waters of the Nile. The upstream countries, with still growing populations, believe that their socio-economic development has long been unfairly constrained by Egypt’s colonial-era lock on the river. Ethiopia and Uganda have not been able to support agricultural schemes. Nor have they been able fully to harness the river or its tributaries for industry and power. Both have suffered from major hydroelectric shortages in recent years.
Egypt has declared the continued surge of the Nile waters a “red line’’ that affects its “national security.’’ There is discussion in Egypt about the use of air power to threaten upstream offenders, especially if Ethiopia becomes too demanding. In theory, Ethiopia could divert much of the Blue Nile to its own uses. Or Ethiopia and others could charge Egypt for water that has largely escaped modern pricing.
Egypt is sufficiently disturbed by Ethiopia’s potentially aggressive water designs that it has recently made friends with Eritrea, Ethiopia’s arch enemy. In 1998, Ethiopia and Eritrea went to war over slices of insignificant mountainous territory. Although the shooting ended in 2000, a peace settlement handed down by the World Court in 2006 has still not been observed by both sides. If Egypt attacks Ethiopia, Eritrea might join in. Egyptian generals claim that Israel is on the other side, helping the upstream nations by encouraging their thirst for water and by financing the construction of four hydroelectric projects in Ethiopia.
All these issues provide conditions for a war over water. Washington, Egypt’s largest donor, has significant leverage to de-escalate tensions and mediate between the haves and have-nots. After all, Washington supports both Egypt and Ethiopia lavishly and militarily. It needs to demand that all sides stand down.
Robert I. Rotberg directs Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict and is president of the World Peace Foundation. 
Ethiopia-UNICEF’s Clean Water for Ethiopia Project
BURLINGTON, Mass. & BRUSSELS, Jun 15, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE)
StreamServe, Inc., a leading provider of business communication solutions for document efficiency and customer experience management, announced today that they have joined again with SAP AG /quotes/comstock/13*!sap/quotes/nls/sap (SAP 45.41, +1.03, +2.32%) in co-sponsoring the Clean Water for Ethiopia project. At the SAP(R) Conference for Utilities 2010 for Europe, Middle East, Africa, and India being held June 14 — 16 in Brussels, Belgium, StreamServe and SAP together committed to donating an additional 10,000 Euros to UNICEF, which will use the funds to dig additional wells, build latrines and educate the population in Ethiopia on proper hygiene. This sponsorship adds to the 20,000 Euros the companies together donated to UNICEF’s Clean Water for Ethiopia project in October 2009.
Ethiopia is one of the driest countries on earth and the water supply is extremely poor, especially in rural areas. Close to 80 percent of Ethiopia’s population does not have access to enough clean water to support basic living requirements. To meet the pressing need for clean water, UNICEF is currently drilling 80 new wells that transport ground water from a depth of 40 to 50 meters. The result is in less polluted water sources and wells that continue to work during periods of drought. Through these efforts, almost 40,000 people will be supplied with clean drinking water. Furthermore, an investment is being made to construct toilets for 30 schools in the area, and many educational training sessions have been set up. These sessions are aimed at teaching hygiene basics and the skills required to build latrines. UNICEF also helps maintain existing wells and invests further in educating and empowering locals with the skills needed to maintain the wells themselves.
The continued sponsorship of UNICEF by StreamServe and SAP is part of SAP’s global corporate responsibility program, which focuses on education and the environment, among other issues. In addition, it expands StreamServe’s commitment to the environment that it established through its StreamServe Sustainability Program, which helps businesses become more cost-efficient while aiding them in achieving their goals of becoming less reliant on our planet’s resources. The StreamServe Sustainability Program offers a series of research, best practices, and tools designed to help businesses determine the eco-savings that can be achieved through StreamServe’s business communication solutions.
“StreamServe and SAP have a long-standing, solid partnership that has provided utilities and other businesses around the world with solutions that help them simplify business communications, reduce costs and become more sustainable,” said Dennis Ladd, StreamServe’s president and CEO. “Both of our companies are also extremely committed to helping improve the world around us through our corporate social responsibility and sustainability programs. UNICEF’s Clean Water for Ethiopia program is such a noble and needed cause, and we are thrilled to be sponsoring it once again with SAP. In addition to helping to improve the health conditions in Ethiopia with clean water and education, we hope that this sponsorship serves as an example for other businesses to consider ways in which they can give back as well.”
Since its founding in 1997, StreamServe has provided businesses in the financial services, utility and supply chain sectors with business communication solutions that meet the demanding challenges for producing and delivering highly customized documents in any format. StreamServe Utilities(TM), an SAP-endorsed business solution, offers utilities an easy way to improve their customer and business communications through the delivery of highly-personalized documents and invoices in either paper or electronic format.
About StreamServe
StreamServe is a leading provider of enterprise business communication solutions. Simple to deploy and maintain, the company’s dynamic composition, document process automation and enterprise output management solutions meet the demanding challenges of today’s global businesses for producing and delivering highly customized documents in any format.
StreamServe’s advanced software solutions ease the process of composing and automating business communications, enabling organizations to increase the value and profitability of their business relationships. This is done all while leveraging existing business applications such as ERP, CRM and ECM.
The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Burlington, Mass., with 14 offices worldwide. StreamServe serves more than 5,000 customers in 130 countries, primarily in the financial services, utilities, manufacturing, distribution and telecom sectors. Customers include BMW, CLP Power Hong Kong, AmerisourceBergen, and Siemens Financial. StreamServe’s strategic partners include Adobe Systems, IBM, InfoPrint Solutions Company, Lawson and SAP AG. To learn how StreamServe’s business communications solutions can help drive efficiency and improve costs within your organization, please visit StreamServe online at http://www.streamserve.com, or join the conversation on StreamShare(TM), StreamServe’s online community forum: http://www.streamshare.streamserve.com/.
StreamServe, StreamShare, and the StreamServe logo are all trademarks of StreamServe Inc. Some software products marketed by StreamServe Inc. and its distributors contain proprietary software components of other software vendors. SAP and all SAP logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. (C)StreamServe Inc. 2010
SOURCE: StreamServe, Inc.
Egypt’s Nile monopoly is starving Ethiopia
By NELSON MARANS
Egypt continues its egregiously selfish actions as it refuses to allow the nations that are at the headwaters of the Nile to obtain their fair share of that river’s supply of precious water (“Cairo keeps water rights to Nile River,” Geopolitics, Thursday).
The result is particularly severe in Ethiopia, where chronic lack of water for crops has placed nearly 60 percent of the population at the starvation level. Despite this, and based on an outmoded 1929 treaty between Egypt and England, Egypt has insisted on taking the majority of the Nile flow, satisfying 90 percent of its total water needs from this single source.
Ethiopia has little choice in the matter. The armies of both Egypt and Sudan enforce this unjust distribution, which gives Ethiopia only 5 percent of the Nile River supply.
This has been the pattern of an autocratic Egyptian government, which we subsidize to the extent of over $2 billion per year with nothing in return except votes against us in the United Nations and other world bodies, as well as continuing persecution of the Coptic Christian population.
Source: Washington Times
Ethiopia rejects Egypt Nile claims
Ethiopia’s prime minister has rejected a threat by Egypt to prevent the building of dams and other water projects upstream on the Nile river.
Meles Zenawi told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that Egypt will not be able to stop his country from building dams on the river.
His comments came nearly a week after Ethiopia joined Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania in signing a new treaty on the equitable sharing of the Nile, despite strong opposition from Egypt and Sudan who have the major share of the river waters.
The Nile flows through 10 African nations, but the distribution of its waters among each Nile basin country has long been a source of tension in the region.
Historic agreements have given Egypt and Sudan veto power over upstream projects that could affect the flow of water.
But the agreement signed last week by four of the Nile Basin countries marked the creation of a new commission to manage the water.
Kenya, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo are expected to sign within a year.
‘Old-fashioned ideas’
Egypt has warned that the agreement lacks legitimacy.
But Zenawi told Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons that Egypt’s approach is out of date.
“Some people in Egypt have old-fashioned ideas based on the assumption that the Nile water belongs to Egypt, and that Egypt has a right to decide who gets what, and that the upper [Nile basin] countries are unable to use the Nile water because they will be unstable and they will be poor,” he said.
“These circumstances have changed and changed forever.
“Ethiopia is not unstable. Ethiopia is still poor, but it is able to cover the necessary resources to build whatever infrastructure and dams it wants on the Nile water.”
The upstream countries want to be able to implement irrigation and hydro-power projects in consultation with Egypt and Sudan, but without Egypt being able to exercise the veto power it was given by a 1929 colonial-era treaty with Britain.
Legal action threatened
Egypt, however, has warned that Cairo’s water rights are a “red line” and itthreatened legal action if a unilateral deal was reached.
But Zenawi dismissed the warning, saying it would not solve the dispute at hand.
“The way forward is not for Egypt to try and stop the unstoppable. The way forward is to seek a win-win solution through diplomatic efforts,” he said.
Al Jazeera’s Amr El Kahky, reporting from Cairo, said Egyptian government officials said such statements undermine the spirit of co-operation between the Nile Basin Initiative countries.
“A government official told me that Egypt does not oppose the development of these countries,” he said.
“But at the end of the day, Egypt does not want to see the flow of the Nile and the water share of the Nile being hindered or reduced.”
Water supply fears
The new agreement, the Nile Basin Co-operative Framework, is to replace a 1959 accord between Egypt and Sudan that gave them control of more than 90 per cent of the water flow.
The two countries have expressed fears that their water supply would be severely reduced if the seven other Nile users divert the river with domestic irrigation and hydro-power projects.
The Nile Basin Initiative, which had been spearheading the talks, will now become the Nile Basin Commission and will receive, review and approve or reject projects related to Africa’s longest river.
The commission will be based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, and have representation from all nine Nile Basin countries.
Source : Al Jazeera English
Ethiopia: World Bank Report Recommends Ways to Improve Access to Clean Water
Ethiopia- Clean Water
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Ethiopia, Haiti and Niger are facing the world’s worst water shortages, but 700 million people in 43 countries are under “water stress,” according to a new report released by the World Bank last month.
Almost a third of all the bank’s projects in recent history have been water-related, and a total of $54 billion was spent financing them, the report said. Some, of course, have been controversial, since dams, irrigation projects, flood prevention and watershed-management projects often benefit one group at the expense of others. Also, many projects fail, once built, because the host country is not wealthy or sophisticated enough to maintain them.
Most countries with severe water problems are also so poor that they are “not creditworthy enough to borrow their way out of water crisis,” the report noted.
It detailed several recommendations from the bank’s independent evaluation group for factors to consider in new project proposals.
First, the bank should look for plans that keep water flowing to the most people. It should also “manage the demand” — many projects it supports have raised prices, imposed quotas and tried to stop theft of water, but there has been little success in getting projects to pay for themselves.
It should look for projects that preserve groundwater and restore the environment — although, the report noted, it is not necessary to get landscape back into a pristine state to get major benefits. And it should pay more attention to low-cost plans for toilets and waste disposal to stop sewage from fouling drinking water. Only 10 percent of all bank projects have had health as an objective, the report said.
Is Bottled Water Better Than Tap?
Americans Are Spending Billions on a Drink That’s Virtually Free
Waste your Money
By JOHN STOSSEL
It started with Perrier. Somehow, a French company convinced people it’s cool to buy bottled water. Today, Evian has surpassed Perrier in sales and now it’s the chic French water of choice. Why? It costs about 5 bucks a gallon! Why do people pay so much for something they can get virtually free?
If they’re not buying Evian, they buy Aquafina and Dasani and the dozens of new brands that are jumping into this billion-dollar business, including bizarre ones like Venus, the Water for Women, and Trump Ice, with “The Donald” scowling on the label. I’d have to be very thirsty to buy that.
Many people say they buy bottled waters because they taste better. We spoke with people in New York City, asking them why they liked bottled better than tap water.
“I drink Dasani. It tastes good, it tastes crisp, like — natural,” one girl said.
“I think tap water kind of tastes like sewer,” said another.
People also say they drink bottled water because they believe it’s safer than tap water.
One man told me he’s the only one “who’s brave enough” to drink tap water at home. His family’s afraid to drink tap water because of germs, he said.
At recent Earth Day celebrations, a lot of people told us they believe tap water is unhealthy. “As a parent I feel more comfortable giving her bottled water,” one father told us.
Bottled water, we were told, is cleaner, safer, healthier.
Watching bottled water ads, you’d think that tap water might not be healthy. But it’s not true.
“20/20″ took five bottles of national brands of bottled water and a sample of tap water from a drinking fountain in the middle of New York City and sent them to microbiologist Aaron Margolin of the University of New Hampshire to test for bacteria that can make you sick, like e. coli.
“There was actually no difference between the New York City tap water and the bottled waters that we evaluated,” he said.
Many scientists have run tests like that and have consistently found that tap water is as good for you as bottled waters that cost 500 times more.
