EUROPE IMAGES INTERNATIONAL - M5

Synopsis

Since the dawn of time, Egypt has ruled supreme over the Nile River. Is Egypt, as Herodotus claimed, not a gift of the Nile? The supremacy of this downstream country is today called into question by the riparian countries upstream.
Due to the 1959 Nile Waters Treaty between Sudan and Egypt, they are not allowed to use the waters of the Nile without the agreement of the river's two major powers.
This situation is unacceptable for these eight upstream countries which are some of the poorest in the world and need water to survive.
To Egypt, this matter is not open to discussion as its continued development requires ever more water from a river whose rate of flow has no chance of increasing.

In addition, one should bear in mind:

- the significance of the USA which gives Egypt huge quantities of subsidized wheat to buy its silence over American military initiatives in the Near East

- the importance of the World Bank and all the economic and political players who are guided solely by their own interests and ideologies

This already explosive situation is not helped by the rise of radical Islamism in the region.

So, is there any hope of finding solutions?

As Boutros Boutros-Ghali put it:
"The next war in the region will be over water".

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