Urgent action, in particular immediate and unimpeded humanitarian access, is required to address the widening famine in Sudan, where almost 25 million people face acute food insecurity.

According to the latest analysis from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), half of Sudan’s population – or 24.6 million people – are facing acute food insecurity levels. This is 3.5 million more people since June 2024.

The latest report by the IPC, a multi-partner initiative for improving food security and nutrition analysis and decision-making, is the worst in the country’s history. Widespread starvation and acute malnutrition have already resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in a country where almost two-thirds of the population depends on agriculture.

Production of key crops such as sorghum, millet and wheat during the first year of the conflict – the 2023/24 season – was down 46 percent from the previous year. This production loss could have fed approximately 18 million people for a year and represented an economic loss of between $1.3 and $1.7 billion.

Restricted humanitarian access is exacerbating the situation, while sustained violence and economic turmoil have disrupted markets, driving the price of staple goods to unaffordable levels.

This marks the fourth time that famine has been confirmed in a country over the past 15 years.

“We must take urgent action to address the famine in Sudan,” said Beth Bechdol, the Deputy Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations told a UN Security Council meeting in New York.

“If we fail to act now, collectively, and at scale, millions of lives are even further at risk, and (…) so is the stability of many nations in the region,” she added.

According to Bechdol, the following actions deserve prioritizing and require the Security Council’s support:

1) political leverage to end hostilities and bring relief to the people of Sudan;

2) immediate and unimpeded humanitarian access, as well as safe reopening of commercial supply routes to address current shortfalls in key hunger hotspots, as stated recently by FAO and its UN partner agencies;

3) the delivery of multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance, especially emergency agricultural support which is key to ensuring local food production, building resilience and preventing further humanitarian catastrophe.

The source of Sudan’s conflicts?

2020 Pew Research Center data estimates that 91 percent of the population is Muslim, 5.4 percent Christian, 2.8 percent follow Indigenous religions, and the remainder follow other religions or are unaffiliated. Some religious advocacy groups estimate non-Muslims make up more than 13 percent of the population.

Sudan ended over a quarter-century of Islamist-military rule with the 2019 overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir, whose rule was based on Islamism, Arab supremacy, and the ruthless application of military power, according to the Jameston Foundation: A joint civilian-military government was formed to lead the transition to a civilian-led democracy. However, an October 2021 coup led by Sudan’s military and security forces ended all progress toward civilian rule, severing at the same time most of Sudan’s economic and financial ties to the West.

The post Sudan is starving and 25 million people face famine appeared first on Green Prophet.

In a strange and surprising twist, Egypt says it will consider participating with its neighbour Ethiopia in the construction of the Renaissance Dam, a project which it had staunchly opposed (and even suggested sabotaging).

The dam known formally as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will provide much-needed hydro-power to Ethiopia, but downstream it is expected to change the face of the Mighty Nile and the Fertile Crescent as we know it.

According to Al Monitor, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced that his country welcomes the participation of Egypt and Sudan in the construction of the dam and stressed that his government considers the dam will be jointly owned by Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt.

Cairo viewed this statement as a positive step toward reaching a consensus on the Nile project, despite its earlier sharp criticism of it.

Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdul Muttalib said: “Egypt doesn’t mind joining the Ethiopian government in building the dam for the service and development of the Ethiopian people. But we must agree on a number of items in a clear way to prevent any damage to Egypt as a result of the dam construction.

“During the coming negotiations with Ethiopia over the dam, we will clarify our position regarding the policy and method of operating the dam, the size of the storage lake attached to it, and how to fill it with water in times of flood and drought.”

He stressed, “Egypt will definitely not participate in the construction unless these policies are agreed upon and agreements regarding them are signed.”

The Renaissance Dam is an under-construction gravity dam on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia. It is located in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia, about 40 km (or 25 mi) east of the border with Sudan.

Currently Egypt gets about 55 million cubic meters of water from the Nile each year through agreements it had signed with Sudan and Ethiopia in 1959. But times have changed, populations have grown and the power needs of the region have outpaced their desire to maintain old contracts.

The majority of the Nile water that Egypt receives comes through Ethiopia, a people who are clearly passionate about how they want to govern their future.

Safety concerns of the future dam, which will generate 6,000 MW, have been brought up; lasting effects to the people who sustain themselves with the Nile are an obvious concern especially for Egyptians.

Meanwhile the media speculate that this move by Egypt is less goodwill than playing its cards while the political turmoils that have taken over the country simmer down.

While dams are a straightforward and somewhat “green” source of hydro-power, there are lessons to be learned from countries that construct them. Thailand, China, Canada, the United States have all constructed major hydro-electric dam projects which have resulted in massive changes to the natural and built environment.

For a country like Egypt which seems to be hanging precipitously by a thread, a change to its precious Nile could spell out disaster.

There is a wonderful historical and academic article here on Origins if you want to delve deeper into the significance of the Nile to countries like Egypt and Sudan.

According to Origins, “Since the twelfth century C.E. Christian Ethiopian kings have warned Muslim Egyptian sultans of their power to divert waters of the Nile, often in response to religious conflicts. But these were hypothetical threats.

“Today, however, Ethiopia is building the Grand Renaissance Dam and, with it, Ethiopia will physically control the Blue Nile Gorge—the primary source of most of the Nile waters.”

Any changes to the Nile will force world powers in the region to adjust. This Green Prophet would rather see Ethiopia (defiant about its dam) develop solar power than to make sweeping changes to the ebb and flow of the mighty Nile.

When completed, the Renaissance Dam – formerly known as the Millennium Dam and sometimes referred to as Hidase Dam – will be the largest hydro electric power plant in Africa.

Egyptian, Sudanese and Ethiopian ministers will soon meet to discuss the dam, hopefully under civil terms.

According to Wikipedia Egyptian tactics weren’t so diplomatic in the recent past: “On 3 June 2013 while discussing the International Panel of Experts report with President Mohammad Morsi, Egyptian political leaders suggested methods to destroy the dam, including support for anti-government rebels.”

The speakers didn’t realize they were being televised live. Oops.

Image via seeker

The post The Dam that May Damn Egypt’s Future appeared first on Green Prophet.

The world’s driest region, the Middle East* and North Africa (MENA), is getting drier at an alarming rate. And yet, despite massive population growth (the Middle East’s population grew 61 percent from 1990 to 2010 to 205 million people) predictions of so-called “water wars” have failed to materialize.

So how has a region that water experts say ceased to have enough water for its strategic needs in 1970 proved so resilient to water scarcity?

“Trade is the first means of being resilient; it’s the process that enables an economy to be resilient. The ability to trade effectively depends on the strength and diversity of the economy,” Anthony Allan from King’s College London and the School of Oriental and African Studies told IRIN, the UN’s humanitarian news source.

That does not literally mean that countries import water directly; it is rather that because so much water is used, not for drinking, but for agriculture (around 90 percent), by importing food staples like wheat you are in effect importing water, something Allan calls “virtual water”.

As a result, the region’s growing population imports around a third of its food – a figure that shoots up in the Gulf states where arable land is negligible.

But while such resilience may “miraculously” solve extreme water scarcity and make life that exists today possible in the Middle East, it can create its own vulnerabilities; countries need economies that can generate enough foreign currency to pay for imports.

That may be easy in oil-rich countries with small populations like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar, but it is far more difficult in places like Egypt, which struggles to find the reserves to pay for wheat imports for its 84 million citizens in a context of declining crude oil exports and a slump in tourism.

Such trade “resilience” is also largely unaffordable in a place like Yemen – the region’s poorest country, which has 25 million people in an extremely water scarce (and hence food scarce) environment.

Each Yemeni only has access to about 140 cubic metres of water annually and the capital, Sana’a, is on track to be the first in the world without a viable water supply.

While trade, an abundance of historically cheap food on international markets, and for some oil – sold at high prices – have combined to create an unexpected resilience in the face of water scarcity, such lessons may not travel well in the developing world.

Trade may have reduced dependency on local water supplies, but it has shifted dependency to international markets and exposed people to fluctuating world prices.

“Water scarcity is not new to the region”
It has also hidden the gravity of the water scarcity situation in the Middle East and made it easier to neglect the development of other solutions to a problem that shows no sign of going away.

A recent study of NASA satellite data published last month found that parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran along the Tigris and Euphrates river basins had lost 144 cubic kilometres of water from 2003 to 2009 – roughly equivalent to the volume of the Dead Sea.

An analysis of the data published in the Water Resources Research journal attributes about 60 percent of the loss to the pumping of groundwater from underground reservoirs – reserves people fall back on when rivers dry up.

Underground reserves can only last so long, and importing ever increasing amounts of food to feed a growing population is not an option for poorer countries.

Nevertheless, there are other lessons in water scarcity resilience from the Middle East – either measures that have been shown to build resilience, or that water experts have come to understand would improve the strength of the system to further shocks if they were broadly implemented.

Some of these solutions are not new.

For a start, though the region may be drying, it has been dry for a long time.

And to this date, this Middle East region is not the only one facing the phenomenon of drought. Australia is considered as the earth’s driest lived-in continent, with only the smallest parts of the region as regular wetland, compared to the rest of the continents. Solutions are invested in to help the citizens cope up with chronic drought, like rainwater harvesting. In this area the government gives education and incentives. One solution is Supatank, a tank manufacturer, which helps disseminate solutions and lessens the installation burden for households.

Factbox
The Arab region is projected to face severe water shortages as early as 2015, when annual per capita water availability will be less than 500 cubic metres. This is less than one-tenth of the world’s average (currently estimated at over 6,000 cubic metres), according to a 2010 report by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED).

The region faces the worst water scarcity in the world – up to 100 million people could be under water stress by 2050.

Because of its reliance on rain-fed agriculture, the region’s agricultural output could decrease 20-40 percent by 2080. “Water scarcity is not new to the region,” Hamed Assaf, a water resource management specialist at the American University of Sharjah in the UAE, told IRIN. “It has been the norm for thousands of years and people have adapted their survival strategies to changes in rainfall and temperature,” he told IRIN.

With scientist predicting an increase in extreme weather events, adaptability has become increasingly important. It is also true that there remains a degree of unpredictability in the system, particularly in Egypt where it is not clear if future rainfall will increase or decrease.

Resilience is about being strong in the face of whatever happens. And in any situation, strong water systems make the most of what they have – including through treating and reusing waste water like at the Al Gabal Asfar water treatment plant in Egypt.

Rainwater harvesting

One old technique is rainwater harvesting. “In Jordan there are indications of early water harvesting structures believed to have been constructed over 9,000 years ago,” Rida Al-Adamat, director of the Water, Environment and Arid Regions Research Centre at Jordan’s al-Bayt University, told IRIN.

Jordan harvests 400-420 million cubic metres of water annually, according to Ministry of Water and Irrigation spokesperson Omar Salameh.

“We have 10 major dams with a total capacity of 325 million cubic metres, in addition to hundreds of sand dams in different locations to develop local communities and recharge groundwater.”

Water harvesting can be done at the household level especially in areas that get enough rainfall during the rainy season. “If your area gets 500mm of rain per year, you can collect enough water for household use,” said Assaf.

“In Lebanon, people used to build ponds to collect water during winter and use it later on for irrigation and breeding animals,” said Assaf.

“The main idea of water harvesting is to increase green water or soil moisture… Farmers in the region used to build small sand barriers on slopes to prevent the water from going down and thus recharge the area. Then they used to plant in the areas behind the barriers,” he added.

Water management solutions with data

A key aspect of efficient water use is data collection – important for sound water management at the country level.

“As the saying goes: what you cannot measure you cannot manage,” Heba Yaken, water and sanitation operation analyst at the World Bank office in Cairo, told IRIN. “It is important to know how much you are consuming in order to manage it in a good way.”

Jordan, which some say has one of the most monitored water scarcity situations in the world, has gained widespread recognition for its data collection.

“Jordan’s data is relatively well organized, especially when it comes to agriculture. The volume of water consumption is precisely known in every area. They have installed measuring tools in every area so they know what kinds of crops are being cultivated and the amount of water they consume,” Hiba Hariri from the Arab Water Council told IRIN.

Data-sharing in the region is limited, according to Yaken. “Countries are not as transparent as they should be,” she said.

Other innovative solutions for water management

A whole range of solutions are being piloted and recommended in the Middle East.

In Egypt, the Arab Spring has encouraged farmers to become more outspoken in demanding their water rights, says Yaken from the World Bank.

Farmers have come together in “water users’ associations” to help manage supplies and become more aware of water scarcity issues.

“Farmers are now responsible for the `mesqas’ [canals]”, Yaken told IRIN.

“People at the tail of the `mesqa’ don’t get as much water as the people upstream. People are receiving much more training so that they can manage those disputes between the different farmers, and different demands,” she said.

Elsewhere, capacity building is being carried out by the German Agency for International Cooperation, which is running a climate change adaptation scheme designed to help Arab states climate-proof water systems.

While trade provides substitutes for much agricultural water use, the remaining 10 percent of water needs are increasingly being met by desalination, half of which globally is carried out in the Middle East.

Recent years have seen a large increase in desalination, clearly useful in a region without any landlocked countries, but it is an energy-intensive phenomenon almost entirely powered by fossil fuel power, which raises other environmental concerns.

Saudi Arabia uses 1.5 million barrels of oil a day to power its desalination plants, although it is looking to develop solar-powered plants.

Solar is a largely unexplored option for desalination, but also for increasing the efficiency of water systems, through technologies like solar-powered water pumps.

Water consumption

But although desalination may become an increasingly affordable, and renewable, solution, water experts say it can only be used as part of wider reforms.

A more resilient water system will also need adaptions on the demand side, including more efficient consumption of water, as well as cooperation between countries on the sustainable use of current resources.

“The problem is that we have short-term plans that change with the change of personnel or ministers,” said Hariri from the Arab Water Council.

As climate change and population growth increase pressure on water systems, the MENA region will need to be increasingly efficient in its use of water – and may have lessons for other parts of the world.

*The definition of Middle East used in the OECD/World Bank figures is Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, Yemen, but not Israel or OPT.

This story is reprinted from IRIN, a UN news agency. Photo of Egyptians fetching water. Water scarcity has already become a fact of daily life for Egyptians © Amr Emam/IRIN

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Deep sea mining for minerals is the next frontier for the extractive industry, and the Red Sea risks becoming a victim

Sudan and Saudi Arabia are targeting to start deep-water mining of a Red Sea basin, rich in zinc, copper, silver and gold, by 2014. This decision revives from a mutual agreement signed in 1974 to exploit the Red Sea’s resources, which at the time failed to materialize as global ore prices dropped in the early 1980s. Recent hikes in ore prices and high demand from emerging economies have renewed interest in exploiting deep-sea metal deposits. In 2010, Manafa International Trade Company of Saudi Arabia and its joint venture partner Diamond Fields International Ltd of Canada received a license from the joint Saudi–Sudanese Red Sea Commission to explore hydro-thermal basins ,  Atlantis II, some 2,000 meters below sea level in an area 115 kilometers (71 miles) west of Jeddah. Turns out there are billions-worth of minerals to be culled from the sea. What about the dolphins, coral reefs and fish?

A paper published in March 2011 by the Kiel Institute for World Economy confirmed the feasibility of such a project, and estimated the total value of known seabed minerals in the Red Sea basins to amount up to US$8.21 billion.

As usual, the justifications for such a project highlight the benefits deep sea mining will bring to the Saudi Arabian and Sudanese economy, while failing to highlight the environmental impact (disaster) this would have on the Red Sea and its ecosystems.

The Red Sea is suffering innumerable environmental disasters from increasing sea temperatures, to oils spills, to decimating endangered species sometimes through unnecessary aggressive cultural practices, to waste disposal, to exorbitant construction ideas and monster bridges – deep sea mining would be an additional destructive practice.

However, Sudan’s mine minister Kamal Abdel Latif sees this project as a necessary investment to replace Khartoum “ lost oil revenues”, referring to Sudan’s attempt at trying to boost exports of gold and other non-petroleum products after the separation of South Sudan left Khartoum without three-quarters of its crude oil production.

The Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Ali Al-Naimi, brings forward the determination of the Saudi government to diversify its economy and provide Saudi Arabia with other sources of revenue when its petroleum reserves are depleted.

Furthermore,  the uneven distribution of mineral resources across the globe is pushing countries, like the Saudi kingdom, to seek independent sources of minerals. The Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, possesses more than 50% of the world’s cobalt reserves; about 30% of the world’s copper reserves are located in Chile; and about 50% of the world’s manganese reserves are shared by Ukraine and South Africa, China controls over 95% of the world’s extractable rare earth metals.

Diamond Fields International’s chairman and director, Wayne Malouf believes the mine will bring more than direct profits for both countries. Malouf envisions employing Sudanese scientists trained in terrestrial geology and “training them up” to work in the marine basin. The University of King Abdulaziz, in Jeddah, on the Red Sea coast, runs a marine geology programme in partnership with the Kiel Institute, to train scientists. Malouf said he would like to work with the university to create a training programme for Saudi and Sudanese scientists and workers.

However there are severe transparency issues regarding the environmental impact of such a project. Since the 2011 paper was written, Proelss, co-author of the paper, says that there is no evidence the commission has monitored the Red Sea environment in a publicly accountable manner.

Why deep sea mining in the Red Sea is not sustainable:

The subsequent 2012 Atlantis II feasibility study, is a commendable 190 page effort at delineating a “sustainable deep sea mining” attitude towards the proposed project. However, given deep sea mining is a relatively new subject, they admit that scientific data and research on the specific environmental impacts of such activities has been very limited and should be completed before the project is realized.

Nevertheless, through theory and observational science, the Environmental impact assessment in the feasibility study clearly highlights the potential dangers of this type of mining.

Justifying that deep sea mining is “more environmentally friendly” compared to land based mining is a misleading argument – the scientific proof is missing, and theory says otherwise.

First we must remember that biological and chemical processes in water mediums behave in very different ways compared to in air or on land. Any disruption of the bio-chemical, physical and chemosynthetic processes in oceans can result in severe unintended consequences far away from the mining location simply because of water currents and because, unlike on land, anthropogenic impacts in water are harder – if not impossible – to control.

Additionally, the Red Sea is 7 to 8 times more saline than normal seawater, so any acidic fluids (waste water) from the chemical extractive processes of metalliferous ores can cause severe impacts on sea water acidity. Second, precisely because relatively little is known about the bio-chemical and physical processes that maintain the myriad of ocean’s ecosystems healthy – we should adopt a precautionary attitude towards disrupting such systems.

A very brief and simplified  overview of the possible environmental impacts of the Atlantis II project on the sea surface, the water column and the sea bed, bring to light the challenges that such projects will face.

First the transport vessel and processing platforms disturb the sea surface and water column by noises, vibrations and emission of fuels and processing waste materials and liquids, toxic heavy metal liquids are sometimes used to process such minerals (such as mercury).

Second, the water column is affected by discharges and plumes that might occur during the transport of nodules and sediments to the surface. Discharges also refer to the exchange of oligotrophic, low nutrient, deep-sea water and sediments with other water zones, as the materials are transported to the surface. This would radically alter the chemical and biological processes across the water column, severely affecting several micro-ecosystems which are extremely sensitive to changes – this would then create a series of chain reactions affecting food systems and trophic levels of benthic communities.

Finally sediment plumes and dusts created by the collector machinery on the sea floor can transport benthic communities and sediments over far distances due to the water currents, having significant impacts on benthic communities and ecosystem processes in other areas of the sea.

It does not take a scientist to realize and highlight just how severely disrupting such processes in the Red Sea could be. Of course scientific evidence is needed, however in the meantime deep sea mining in the Red Sea should not begin.

Images of  Deep sea mining from  “Nautilus minerals”

The post Deep Sea Mining the Next Frontier for Sudan and Saudi Arabia? appeared first on Green Prophet.

Since then, Israel has hosted Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi of Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara, Ghana’s King of the Ashanti tribe, Otumfuo Osei Tutu, and South Sudanese Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Dr. Betty Achan Ogurau, to name a few.

In July, South Sudan’s Minister of Water and Irrigation Akec Paul Mayom attended a ceremony in Israel celebrating the first economic agreement between Tel Aviv and Juba, capital of Africa’s newest state. It was a collaboration focused on water infrastructure.

“We see great potential in Africa, stability and openness to foreign investment,” said Avi Granot, head of the Africa Division of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “In the last year we’ve seen deeper connections being made.”

In June, Israeli Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Orite Noked, visited Rwanda and declared that Israel would soon establish a Centre of Excellence, a hub of agricultural development and innovation, in Kicukiro District, Rwanda.

“Israeli companies are looking to follow the lead China has taken in Africa,” said Schler. “From green energy to infrastructure and agriculture.”

Central Bank Governor of Swaziland, Martin Dlamini, spoke hopefully of ongoing cooperation with Israel after a meeting with Israel’s Minister of Finance, Yitzhak Cohen, in June.

“We are an agriculturally dependent economy,” Dlamini told the press. “It is important for us to meet with agricultural innovators in Israel and businessmen who would be willing to invest in developing our agricultural market.”

However, Middle Eastern investment has not always benefited African peoples.

In recent years, Arab and Jewish businessmen alike have been participating in the “African land grab.” Foreign businesses and elites now own much of Africa’s natural resources, such as mines, arable land and oil.

According to the Africa Report, Israeli diamond oligarchs – Dan Gertler, Beny Steinmetz, Lev Leviev and Arcadi Gaydamak –still dominate Israel’s public commercial presence in Africa.

For more on Israel’s increasing influence throughout Africa read:

Israel Strengthens Environmental Ties to Africa: Part 2

Agriculture and Water Connect Israel to Africa

Israeli Business Boosts Agriculture in Kenya

Image of water and rural agriculture in Africa via Shutterstock

The post Israel Strengthens Environmental Ties to 44 African Nations appeared first on Green Prophet.

Agriculture and water are becoming the foundation for a new era of Israeli relations with African states. In July, South Sudan made its first official agreement with Israel, a pact to cooperate on water infrastructure and technology development. Some of these programs involve the Nile. Neighboring Arab nations are concerned but preoccupied. In his recent Al Jazeera editorial, Ramzi El Houry alluded that Israel’s new involvement with the hydro-politics of the Nile might give the Jewish state leverage over Egypt.

Director of the African Division at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Avi Granot, recently told Ynet that many African leaders visited Israel this year, seeking to revive the ‘golden era’ of close relations with Israel.

“This last year they expressed disappointment at the promises made by Arab nations in the ’70s and ’80s, when African countries were pressured to cut off diplomatic ties with Israel in exchange for development aid,” he said.

Granot believes that recent revolutions in the Middle East have made Africa more open to Israel. There are also an increasing number of Israeli businesses investing in African agriculture.

Israel recently launched a mission to Ghana and is considering reopening its embassy in RDC Congo. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s trip to Africa, cancelled three months ago, has now been rescheduled for the coming summer.

::Ynet

Image of the Nile flowing by Juba, South Sudan, via Shutterstock

Read more about the environment and Israel’s international relations:
Israel-Palestinian Joint Ecopark
NaanDanJain’s Irrigation Technology Strengthens Ties Between India and Israel
Israel’s Mekorot Builds Global Connections Through Water

The post Agriculture and Water Connect Israel to Africa appeared first on Green Prophet.

Can mega well bring peace to Sudan?

At least 300,000 people died and almost three million were displaced by the Darfur conflict in Sudan. Egyptian-American geologist Farouk El-Baz believes that limited access to water is one of the root causes of this conflict. Doctor El-Baz is director of Boston University’s center for remote sensing. He is known for his use of satellite images to search for water in the Mideast and North Africa. His work led to the discovery of a large underground water source in Egypt’s East Uweinat region near the borders with Libya, Chad and Sudan. This Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) contains over five million cubic feet of groundwater and is already bringing life and prosperity to a desolate part of the Eastern Sahara.

In 2007, Dr. El-Baz (left) used satellite-based ground penetrating radar to discover an ancient lake in the northern Darfur region of Sudan. At over 19,000 square miles this “Northern Darfur Mega-Lake” is vast– approximately the size of Lake Erie in North America.

Some time in recent geological history the lake slipped hundreds of meters beneath the desert sands and vanished from sight. Doctor El-Baz believes this underground lake can help restore peace to the Sudanese people so he proposed a 1000 wells project for Darfur.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-XHFZyI9vs&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

The discovery of this lake brings hope, but Sudan’s complex problems will not disappear overnight. El Baz says it took more than a decade to convince the Egyptian government to dig wells in the NSAS region. It will take time to access this newly discovered water beneath Darfur.

It is also true that unequal access to natural resources can fuel conflict. How will Sudan assure that access to this life-giving resource is shared fairly amongst the people who need it? The Nile waters agreement provides a template for a legalistic solution but what are practicalities of pumping this deep water and distributing it across such a large region? Hugon Kowalski of UGO Architecture & Design proposed an award-winning solution in the form of water tower skyscrapers. These multi-use buildings were inspired by baobab trees and would host a water-cooled hospital, school and offices along with the water pumps and treatment plant.

Mr. Kowalski’s dreams are large and bold as they must be for such forward- thinking designers. It is important to refine such ideas to best meet regional needs and to carefully consider the impact of mining fossil water in this part of the world. But the people of Sudan may not have the luxury of time to wait for a perfect solution.

The post Will Ancient Mega Lake Bring Peace to Sudan? appeared first on Green Prophet.

News that Cairo International Airport authorities seized 420 pounds of frozen cow brains last week has flooded the wires. Smugglers buy the brains for less than $1 a pound in Sudan and sell them to Egyptian specialty restaurants for nearly $6 a pound. The fourth such foil in just one week cost the three Sudanese men $1,500 in profit – a massive sum for this struggling country. Airport officials told AP on condition of anonymity that the confiscated brains will be burned. But here’s a question we have to ask: shouldn’t Egyptians think twice about eating fried cow brains?

Fried cow brains for lunch

Fried cow brain dishes are considered a tasty dish in numerous countries, including France, the United States, Italy and Pakistan. In Egypt, according to Global Post, the brains are bathed in batter, fried, and served with a spicy red sauce in pita bread.

Consumption of brain tissue has become more taboo since mad-cow disease swept through the globe in the 1980s and 1990s. The first diagnosis of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was made in Britain in 1986.

Mad-cow disease

Three years later, health authorities banned human consumption of beef brain, spinal cord, thymus, spleen and tonsils. While human beings can’t actually contract mad-cow disease, “it causes Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD), which occurs spontaneously in 1 in 1 million persons but can also be passed on genetically,” according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.

“CJD is a form of brain damage that leads to a rapid decrease of mental function and movement,” according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NCBI).

Variant CJD can be caused by exposure to contaminated beef products and it tends to effect younger people. “However, fewer than 200 people worldwide have had this disease,” the NCBI reports.

Think twice

Although variant CJD is rare, eating beef brains is still risky. In the United States, it is not lawful to eat brains of cows that are older than 30 months. Given the more relaxed sanitary regulations in Sudan, it’s difficult to ascertain whether smugglers are sourcing safe brains from juvenile cows.

And cooking infected brains will not make it safe.

In the News section of their website, researchers at the University of Maryland Medical Center explained that the prion protein which causes CJD can survive extremely high temperatures. “So cooking will not protect anyone from this abnormal prion protein,” they caution.

Fried cow brains for lunch? Not for us.

:: Global Post

image via All That is Interesting

More on Strange Foods in the Middle East:

1 Million Songbirds are Killed for a Pickled Dish in Cyprus

Sheep Tail Fat, Ancient Middle East Smaltz

Moroccan Love Potion Spiced With Pot!

The post 420 Pound Cow Brain Seizure in Cairo Deprives Egyptians of Tasty Dish appeared first on Green Prophet.

The politics surrounding Ethiopia’s Grand Millennium Renaissance Dam changes only slightly more frequently than the project’s name, and we are excited to bring you one of the most positive updates since the saga began. Ethiopia has being posturing against Egypt’s historical monopoly of the Nile river’s waters for months, even though the country lacks the funds to see a potentially environmentally destructive 5,250MW dam to completion without help.

Loyal Ethiopians unaffected by urging from UNESCO to halt another dam contract awarded to a similar consortium of cronies accused us time and again of turning a blind eye to their distressing energy poverty. But that was never the case. We have always advocated for a fair distribution of the Nile river, as well as for a thorough investigation of the project’s potential environmental impact. We may finally have received our wish, but it’s probably not as altruistic as it seems.

Egypt’s Nile Basin tour

According to our friends at Almasry Alyoum, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr will take a tour of six Nile Basic countries in the second week of January.

Nile Basin Coordinator Maddy Amer said in a statement that solving the Nile river issue is top priority for the country that is still struggling under the weight of political mayhem.

Amer added that while Egypt has not changed its position on the Nile dam, it won’t accept an Ethiopian solution that jeopardizes either Sudan or Egypt, and that Ethiopia has to cooperate if it hopes to receive any funding.

If the dispute over Nile waters has not been settled, then aid groups will be unwilling to put forth financial assistance.

Impartial assessment

But the most promising development we’ve seen is the commitment from Addis Ababa, Cairo, and Khartoum to finally prepare a technical report that evaluates the potential impact of Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam.

6 experts – two from Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan – will choose an additional 4 international experts to help them conduct a year long study that is expected to start as soon as next month.

The team of 10 experts should be able to produce an impartial scientific document which lays out exactly what is at stake if the dam is allowed to continue – without favoring any one country.

One hopes that up and downstream ecological consequences will be considered, as well as the potential effects that climate change will have in the future.

Ethiopia needs power, everyone needs water, but there must be a way to accomplish this without hasty planning. This recent news gives us hope that finally this dispute is taking a constructive, diplomatic turn.

:: Almasry Alyoum

Read more on the Nile River:
American Elections Are Bad for the Nile Delta
In The Face of Nilelessness, Egyptians Protest Water Shortages
Nile Water Kills 17,000 Children Each Year

map via University of Bergen

The post Finally – A Team of Experts to Evaluate Impact of Massive Ethiopian Dam appeared first on Green Prophet.

Following the drought in Russia, Egypt’s resultant shortage of wheat, and high summer temperatures throughout the Middle East, the Egyptian Agriculture Ministry is taking steps to avert another potential wheat shortfall.

Faced with a population of at least 83 million people for whom wheat is a staple, Egypt is planning to increase its yield with a more resilient seed. In order to do so, it will require 3.1 million hectares, of which 50% will be managed by the government, while private enterprises will cover the rest. The question is where?

Egyptians consume 14 million tons of wheat each year, according to a report published by IRIN earlier this year, but is only capable of producing 60% of that. The country is also the world’s largest wheat importer. So when the Russian drought forced that government to withhold exports in August, Egypt panicked.

In September, the country signed an agreement with Sudan whereby private Egyptian companies would grow crops in the Al-Gejira region south of Khartoum.

The IRIN report claims that Egypt has only 1.26 million hectares with which to play, and that the agreement with Sudan would expand that collective plot up to 2.1 million hectares.

Sources close to the Egyptian government told Almasry Alyoum that the government plans to cultivate 3.1 million hectares of a variety of wheat that will better sustain pending climate changes.

The Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaja has commissioned a report on the current cold snap and upcoming summer, which is expected to be even hotter than 2010, that will determine to which extent wheat crops will be affected.

To assuage any concerns about what kind of crops might be considered to boost local supply, the Agricultural Development Bank that supervises wheat supplies promised that any new developments will accord with ministry standards.

Last year Egypt backtracked on a commitment to keep genetically modified foods out of the country. Faced with the possibility that the country’s population could swell to 100 million by 2021, and challenging climate changes, no doubt the idea of a new and improved superpower wheat has crossed their minds.

At least, this is something to watch out for.

:: Almasry Alyoum

More on wheat and the Arab world’s African land grab:

We Are All Connected: Heat Wave In Russia Affects Egypt’s Wheat

Egypt To Grab Sudanese Land To Meet Its Wheat Needs

Peak Wheat? One Tenth of Iraq’s Wheat Attacked by Killer Fungus

image courtesy of mr.bologna

Image of ancient Egyptian wheat mill via eviljohnius

The post Egypt To Grow A New Generation Of Wheat, But Where? appeared first on Green Prophet.