#Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

[bitcoinversus]

State-Backed Bitcoin Mining Expands in UAE, Argentina, and Ethiopia

Argentina, the UAE, and Ethiopia have embarked on state-backed Bitcoin mining initiatives, utilizing government resources to bolster their respective economies. According to insights from VanEck, these countries are aligning themselves with others like El Salvador and Bhutan, which have previously engaged in similar ventures. Argentina’s involvement may see the utilization of its state-owned…

[supplyside]

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

[saxafimedianetwork]

Middle Powers Line Up Behind Ethiopia and Somalia

Middle powers realign in #HornOfAfrica: #Egypt signs military pact with #Somalia to counter #Ethiopia-#Somaliland deal. A significant shift in regional dynamics, Cairo & Ankara back Mogadishu, signaling to Gulf States their independent pursuits in the region.

This story—Middle Powers line up behind Addis and Mogadishu—captures some of the main arguments set to dominate debates at the UN General Assembly, which will open on September 23 in New York Egypt and Somalia have signed a military pact to scupper Ethiopia’s trade-off with Somaliland for a port in the Gulf of Aden Nothing better illustrates the radical shift in regional relations than the…

[afrotumble]

Everything you need to Know About The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

[caalaadd]

Egypt’s ‘anger’ at Ethiopia’s Nile dam hides Cairo’s failure to manage its water

Egypt’s ‘anger’ at Ethiopia’s Nile dam hides Cairo’s failure to manage its water – by Martin Plaut Egypt’s ‘anger’ at Ethiopia’s Nile dam hides Cairo’s failure to manage its water “New war looms over Nile water” is the headline on an article reporting on the development of 1,000 Egyptian soldiers into war-torn Somalia, as tension between Ethiopia and Egypt ratchets up over Ethiopia’s use of the…

[paulthepoke]

This Week in Prophecy: Turkey Applies to BRICS; Putin Endorses Kamala; Nile River Politics; Bill Gates Digital ID

This Week in Prophecy: Turkey Applies to BRICS; Putin Endorses Kamala; Nile River Politics; Bill Gates Digital ID

Ezekiel 38-39 Meshech, Tubal, Beth Torgarmah, Gomer… Modern Day Turkey BREAKING: 🇹🇷 Turkey officially submits application requesting to join BRICS. pic.twitter.com/zDDzNnTEbr— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) September 2, 2024 Ezekiel 38-39 Gog of Magog, Rosh, Scythians… Modern Day Russia Putin keeps trolling US Democratic Party, “endorses” Kamala Harris for POTUS: “I once said that if we can name a…

[taarifaleo]

Ethiopia Completes Filling of Africa's Largest Hydropower Plant

Ethiopia has completed the filling of Africa’s largest hydropower plant, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the dam has a generation capacity of 5,150 MW and is expected to boost Ethiopia’s economy and provide electricity to millions of people. However, the dam has also caused a dispute between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan.Egypt is concerned that the dam will reduce its water supply from the…

[streamingthruamerica]

Protecting the Nile

Egypt has relied on the Nile since the dawn of civilization. For over 5000 years, the Nile has pushed nutrient-rich silt through its 6600-km waterway from the wellsprings of Lake Tana in Ethiopia (Blue Nile) and Lake Victoria in Uganda (White Nile)...

[formlab]

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)

[zvaigzdelasas]

Ethiopia said it has more than doubled electricity production from its controversial mega-dam on the Blue Nile after two more turbines started operations.

The multi-billion-dollar Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), long a source of tensions with downstream nations Egypt and Sudan, is now generating 1,550 megawatts of electricity, GERD said in a post on X late Tuesday.

"The overall progress of the GERD has now transitioned from construction phase to operation phase," it said, adding that construction of the concrete dam was now complete.

28 Aug 24

[dailyoverview]

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, located on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia, has been under construction since 2011 and was 90% complete in 2023. It impounds the Millennium Reservoir, which has been filling since 2020, and will harness hydroelectricity to bring power to nearly half of Ethiopians. The dam has created controversy with downriver countries like Sudan and Egypt, who are concerned about drought as the reservoir is rapidly filled.

11.215278°, 35.093056°

Source imagery: Google Timelapse / Planet

[labutansa]

Egyptian Military Stationed in Somalia

via african_stream

“Egyptian military officers and equipment have landed in Somalia, weeks after a military cooperation agreement was signed between the two countries. The deal involves enhancing military and security cooperation, joint defence efforts, collaboration in military and intelligence operations, combating terrorism and organised crime, as well as sharing information. The Egyptian officers, reportedly the first of 10,000 troops, will be part of an African peacekeeping force in Somalia, once the current arrangement with the African Union lapses.

The move may well worry Somalia's neighbour Ethiopia. Earlier in the year, Addis Ababa agreed to recognise the breakaway region of Somaliland in exchange for access to the sea, angering Mogadishu in the process. Egypt threw its weight behind Somalia, warning against the deal.

Ethiopia also has tense relations with Egypt. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has been a point of friction. Built on the Nile, it is set to be Africa's biggest hydropower dam, but Cairo says its construction will diminish the water available downstream. Egypt is overwhelmingly reliant on the river for its needs. To date, despite multiple rounds of negotiations, an agreement is still beyond reach.”

[mariacallous]

Over the last 10 months, the world’s attention has been focused on Israel and the Gaza Strip. The war that began on Oct. 7, 2023, with Hamas’s attack on Israel has been cataclysmic. But the conflict has overshadowed another crisis enveloping the region: intense heat and water scarcity.

In mid-July, the heat index in Dubai was 144 degrees Fahrenheit. In late June, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, registered a temperature of 125 degrees. This heat coincided with Hajj season. When it was over, more than 1,300 people had lost their lives. And in Egypt, temperatures have rarely fallen below 100 degrees since May.

It was actually hotter in the Gulf region last summer, topping out at an eye-popping real feel of 158 degrees in the coastal areas of Iran and the United Arab Emirates. That reading and the unrelenting heat this season exceeded the “wet-bulb temperature” at which humans, if exposed for six hours, can no longer cool themselves off, leading to heat-related illnesses and death.

The World Bank estimates that by 2050, water scarcity will result in GDP reductions of up to 14 percent in the region. In 2021, a UNICEF report stated that Egypt could run out of water by 2025, with the Nile River coming under particular stress. Water stress in countries such as Egypt is exacerbated by the upriver flow of the Nile being restricted because of the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Syria and Turkey have been at odds over many years because the Turks have built dams along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, cutting the flow south. And among the many issue that divide Israelis and Palestinians is water and who has the right to tap into the Mountain Aquifer of the West Bank.

In addition to the extreme heat’s significant threat to life and livelihood in the Middle East and North Africa, a hotter region has the potential to destabilize politics well beyond its borders.

Before going further, it is important to underscore that this is not a column about “climate conflict.” About a decade ago, there was a spate of articles on this issue, highlighting the Syrian Civil War as an example of what the future would look like as the globe warmed. Even though this idea captured the imagination of a variety of notables including then-Prince Charles, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, and others, the claim about Syria in particular was based on incomplete data, faulty interpretation of that data, over-generalization, and, as a result, erroneous conclusions.

As the October 2021 National Intelligence Estimate on climate change dryly noted, the U.S. intelligence community had “low to moderate confidence in how physical climate impacts will affect US national security interests and the nature of geopolitical conflict, given the complex dimensions of human and state decisionmaking.” Basically, the spies are saying it is hard to make a causal connection between climate and conflict because there are so many variables that contribute to conflict.

A clearer and more pressing problem is how people adapt to rising temperatures and water scarcity. They migrate to places with lower temperatures and more water. According to the World Bank, as many as 19 million people—approximately 9 percent of the local population—will become displaced in North Africa by 2050 because of the climate crisis. And for people in the region, the destination of choice is Europe.

A number of caveats are in order: First, the bank is extrapolating. It is possible that there may be political, economic, or technological changes that limit the number of migrants. Second, not every person on the move will be migrating because of the changing climate. And finally, some of those displaced people will remain somewhere in the region given the resources necessary to make it across the Mediterranean. (That presents its own set of problems, however. Internally displaced people, who generally settle in urban areas, will put pressure on the budgets and infrastructure of places whose resources and capacity to absorb migrants are limited.)

All this said, in the abstract migration is positive for countries in the European Union, which have aging populations and need workers to pay into generous social safety nets. Yet the claim that migration provides benefits to society remains unconvincing to a significant number of Europeans who oppose large (or perceptively large) numbers of newcomers into their countries.

France’s National Front party, which long flirted with fascism and a coy version of Holocaust denial and rebranded itself as the National Rally in 2018 in an effort to shed this ugly legacy, has become a major force in French politics in large part due to its opposition to immigration, especially from Islamic countries. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the avatar of European illiberalism, built his authoritarian system on fears of the threat that migrants pose to Hungarian society.

Brexit, which British voters approved in 2016, was about a lot of things, but immigration propelled the United Kingdom’s imprudent decision to leave the European Union. More recently, the proximate cause of the recent riots in England was the allegation that an immigrant was responsible for the murder of three young girls at a dance class in the seaside town of Southport. Despite the allegation being demonstrably false, the ensuing street violence suggests that simmering resentment toward migrants within a segment of the marginalized English working class stoked by, and combined with, right-wing populism is dangerous and potentially destabilizing.

Then there is Germany, where in 2015 hundreds of thousands of Syrians sought refuge from the violence enveloping their country. Then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel made the decision to grant Syrians entry. It was a decision that many Germans embraced, but it also produced a backlash that has helped drive the emergence of the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party. The AfD is different from other right-wing populist parties in Europe given its provenance. Although it began as a party based on Euro-skepticism, it has moved steadily toward embracing fascism, downplaying the atrocities of the Third Reich, spreading Islamophobia, and inveighing against foreigners in general. Of course, there is a whole host of reasons for the rise of the AfD and other fascist, illiberal, right-wing populist parties in Europe. But scholars agree that migration is the through line in this phenomenon.

The Unites States has a compelling interest in a Europe that is stable, whole, free, and prosperous. The emergence and success of xenophobic, fascist, or fascist-adjacent parties that make common cause with the enemies of Western liberalism are a threat to that core U.S. interest. That’s why Washington needs to help head off mass migration to Europe. There is not a lot that the United States can do about conflicts—such as the one in Sudan—that drive migration, but U.S. policymakers can help when it comes to the climate crisis, which will contribute to the increasing numbers of people seeking refuge in Europe.

This requires not increasing financial assistance or green infrastructure projects but something both more cost-effective and influential: creative diplomacy. High heat makes the problem of water scarcity worse, which is why people migrate. Using its own experience and technical expertise from managing resources in the increasingly hot western United States, the U.S government can play a useful role in helping countries in the Middle East do a better job managing what water they have.

The conflicts that span the region make assistance harder, given the fact that water sources often cross boundaries. But that is a challenge that can be overcome. Not only are there technical solutions to the problem of water scarcity, but there are also political incentives to come to agreement even across conflict zones.

Leaders across the region may disdain their citizens, but they have a political interest in satisfying at least their people’s minimum demands, including access to water. Even with all the nationalist huffing and puffing of their governments, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed have a strong interest in sharing the waters of the Nile. Without such an agreement, the political and economic problems of both countries will deepen, threatening both leaders.

Of all things, the maritime border agreement between Israel and Lebanon can be a template of sorts for the way U.S. officials approach the problem of water sharing in the region. There was a range of critics of the agreement in the United States, Israel, and Lebanon, but the actual substance is less important than the way U.S. diplomats brought it about. They separated Israeli concerns about Lebanon and Lebanese concerns about Israel and focused instead on the upside for each country. Once that became clear—the exploitation of gas deposits off the Israeli and Lebanese coasts—it was hard for the two countries that nonetheless remain in a state of war to not agree to a boundary. Despite 10 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the agreement has not been breached. That is important and suggests a way forward for negotiations over water.

It is tempting to want to place efforts to deal with water scarcity in some broader climate agenda for the Middle East. That is exactly what U.S. officials should not do. Washington should focus on issues where it has a realistic chance of making a difference. There is little the United States can do about the intense heat, and mitigation of greenhouse gases is not a pressing problem in the region because it does not actually emit that much greenhouse gas. Water, however, is critically important, and it is an area where the United States has expertise to bring to bear.

Indeed, helping strike agreements to manage water scarcity in the Middle East is a low-cost way the United States can mitigate the perversions of European politics and help shape the global order to come.

[saxafimedianetwork]

Egypt Should Bet on Somaliland, Not Somalia

@mrubin1971: #Egypt's focus on #Somalia overlooks a key ally in the #HornOfAfrica. #Somaliland, a stable democracy with thriving economy & modern infrastructure, is better positioned to support its interests. A strategic shift could yield greater benefits.

Continue reading Egypt Should Bet on Somaliland, Not Somalia

[moneeb0930]

25 Key Insights into Eastern African Nations:

(1). Ethiopia 🇪🇹 boasts the region's largest population, with over 126 million people.

(2). Somalia 🇸🇴 holds the title for the longest coastline among Eastern African countries.

(3). Kenya 🇰🇪 leads in GDP within the region.

(4). South Sudan 🇸🇸 is the primary oil-producing nation in Eastern Africa.

(5). Djibouti 🇩🇯 has the smallest population in the region.

(6). Tanzania 🇹🇿 is home to Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro.

(7). Ethiopia 🇪🇹 boasts the strongest military presence in Eastern Africa.

(8). Ethiopia 🇪🇹 is constructing the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Africa's largest dam project.

(9). Kenya 🇰🇪 houses the world's largest desert lake, Lake Turkana.

(10). Uganda 🇺🇬 supplies electricity to Kenya, Tanzania, and parts of the DRC.

(11). Rwanda 🇷🇼 is renowned for having the cleanest city in Africa.

(12). Burundi 🇧🇮 once had a monarchy.

(13). Ethiopia 🇪🇹 is rich in historical sites, including king's castles and Emperor's Palaces.

(14). Eritrea 🇪🇷 has a female population three times larger than its male population.

(15). Ethiopia 🇪🇹 is home to the Barbary lion, the largest lion species with distinctive dark fur on the neck.

(16). Sudan 🇸🇩, South Sudan 🇸🇸, and Ethiopia 🇪🇹 share a history dating back 3500 years.

(17). Sudan 🇸🇩 features ancient pyramids in its northern region.

(18). Kenya 🇰🇪, Uganda 🇺🇬, and Tanzania 🇹🇿 share Lake Victoria, the largest freshwater lake in Africa.

(19). Tanzania 🇹🇿 and Kenya 🇰🇪 boast the Serengeti and Maasai Mara, famous for the great migration and considered the 8th wonder of the world.

(20). Kenya 🇰🇪's Mombasa Port, established in 1896, was the region's first port.

(21). Somalia 🇸🇴 was the first African country to produce a pilot.

(22). In Uganda 🇺🇬, less than a dollar can sustain you for a day.

(23). Ethiopia 🇪🇹's strong historical leaders resisted colonization.

(24). Tanzania 🇹🇿's Lake Tanganyika is the deepest lake in Africa.

(25). The River Nile, estimated to be 30 million years old, is the longest river globally.

[Photo credit: Devashot Photography]

[caalaadd]

South Sudan's parliament ratifies Nile Basin initiative agreement

South Sudan’s parliament ratifies Nile Basin initiative agreement South Sudan’s parliament ratifies Nile Basin initiative agreement South Sudan’s parliament has ratified the Cooperative Framework Agreement (#CFA) of the Nile Basin Initiative, following months of deliberation. The CFA, which involves 11 countries along the Nile, aims to promote equitable use of the river’s resources. Key…