Trump suggests Egypt 'blow up' Ethiopia dam

[left-of-center2012]

US President Donald Trump on Friday voiced anger at Ethiopia over its construction of a huge dam on the Nile River and appeared to suggest that Egypt may destroy it. Trump made the remarks as he announced a breakthrough normalization deal between US ally Israel and Sudan, which like Egypt fears that Ethiopia will use up scarce water resources.

"It's a very dangerous situation because Egypt is not going to be able to live that way," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office with leaders of Sudan and Israel on speakerphone. "They'll end up blowing up the dam. And I said it and I say it loud and clear -- they'll blow up that dam. And they have to do something," Trump said. "They should have stopped it long before it started," Trump said.

Trump -- a close ally of Egypt's general turned president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi -- had agreed to Cairo's pleas to mediate over the dam, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin leading talks. The State Department in September said it was cutting off aid to Ethiopia due to its decision to begin filling the dam despite not reaching an agreement with the downstream nations.

Ethiopia says that the $4 billion project is indispensible for its electrification and development needs and has voiced hope of beginning operations in early 2021. Egypt depends on the Nile for about 97 percent of its irrigation and drinking water.

https://www.yahoo.com/now/trump-suggests-egypt-may-blow-203914115.html

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. That's pretty terrible.

Trump sucks.

[Eugene]

2. Ethiopia blasts Trump remark that Egypt will 'blow up' dam

Source: Associated Press

Ethiopia blasts Trump remark that Egypt will ‘blow up’ dam

By ELIAS MESERET
October 24, 2020

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia on Saturday denounced “belligerent threats” over the huge dam it has nearly completed on the Blue Nile River, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said downstream Egypt will “blow up” the project it has called an existential threat.

Without naming Trump or the U.S., the statement by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office came amid an outcry in Ethiopia over Trump’s latest threat over the dam. The $4.6 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a source of national pride, aimed at pulling millions of people from poverty.

“The man doesn’t have a clue on what he is talking about,” Former Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn tweeted, calling Trump’s remark reckless and irresponsible.

Trump made the comment while announcing that Sudan would start to normalize ties with Israel. Downstream Sudan is a party to the talks with Ethiopia and Egypt over the disputed dam. “They (Egypt) will end up blowing up the dam,” Trump said. “And I said it and I say it loud and clear … they’ll blow up that dam. And they have to do something.”

The U.S. president earlier this year told the State Department to suspend millions of dollars in aid to Ethiopia because of the dam dispute, angering Ethiopians who had accused the U.S. of being biased during its earlier efforts to broker a deal on the project among Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan. Ethiopia walked away from those talks.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ethiopia-egypt-abiy-ahmed-sudan-4a71496ab630c5cc6dbd242be894d24a

[Marcuse]

3. Reminiscent of the Colorado River being all used up before crossing into Mexico.

Not more than 80 years ago the mighty Colorado River flowed unhindered from northern Colorado through Utah, the Grand Canyon, Arizona, and Mexico before pouring out into the Gulf of California. But as one can see in this image of the Colorado River Delta taken on September 8, 2000, by the Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), flying aboard the Terra spacecraft, irrigation and urban sprawl now prevent the river from reaching its final destination.

The Colorado River can be seen in dark blue at the topmost central part of this image. The river comes to an end just south of the multicolored patchwork of farmlands in the northwestern corner of the image and then fans out at the base of the Sierra de Juarez Mountains. A hundred years ago the river would have cut through this entire picture and plowed straight through to the Gulf of California, the mouth of which can be seen in solid blue at the lower righthand corner of the image. Nearly all the water that flows into the Colorado River is now siphoned off for use in crop irrigation and for residential use. In fact, roughly only 10 percent of all the water that flows into the Colorado makes it into Mexico and most of that is used by the Mexican people for farming.

The bluish purple river that appears to be flowing from the Gulf of California to the north is actually an inlet that formed in the bed of the Colorado River after it receded. The island at the entrance to the Gulf of California is the Isle Montague. The gray areas surrounding this inlet and the gulf itself are mud flats created by sediments once carried by the river. The Hoover Dam built in 1935 and the Glen Canyon dam built in 1956 now trap most of the river's sediments long before they find their way to the Gulf of California.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Well, this must make him a shoo-in for next year's Nobel Peace Prize, eh?

Or maybe a record-breaking Ig Nobel 2 years in a row - he shared the Ig Nobel for "Medical Education" this year, and "let's you and him fight" is certainly a novel direction for diplomacy ...