Egypt’s Potential Presidential Candidate Threatens to Use Force Against Ethiopia’s Dam

An Egyptian potential presidential candidate hopeful announced today that he will order the use of military force against Ethiopia if the latter does not suspend the construction of the Grand Renaissance dam.
In announcing his presidential bid at a press conference on Sunday, lawyer Mortada Mansour said that “water for Egypt is Egypt’s life”.
“There are signed international conventions… .There are two agreements, one in 1929 and the other in 1959 to regulate water usage between Egypt and Sudan,” Mansour added.

ማንሱር

The controversial figure, who was elected last week as head of Cairo’s Zamalek Club, accused Israel of standing behind the Ethiopian dam project and dismissed popular initiatives to resolve the dispute with Addis Ababa.

“There are international organizations that failed [to mediate] and Ethiopia stuck to its position. Just like they threatened to use their army, Egypt has an army. If Israel which is inciting Ethiopia learned a lesson from the Egyptian army in 1973 [war], you are threatening my life. I will not allow you to build your dam and block water from me and in the end famine occurs among the Egyptian people and we kill each other for a drop of water,” Mansour said.
“Just like they showed off and brought their generals around the dam and said if Egypt can come. No we also have generals and planes O’ Ethiopia that can reclaim Egypt’s rights because we will not allow a drop of water to be cut, to have drought in the country, in agriculture, people can’t find a drop of water. This is vital for us. I thought that for subsequent Egyptian administrations that the issue of water is a life or death issue. This is not up for discussion” he added.
Egypt fears that the $4.6 billion hydropower plant will diminish its share of the river’s water flows, arguing its historic water rights must be maintained.
Ethiopia is the source of about 85% of the Nile’s water, mainly through rainfall in its highlands, with over 90% of Egyptians relying on water from the Nile’s flows.
In June 2012, a panel of international experts tasked with studying the impacts of the Ethiopian dam on lower riparian countries, including Sudan and Egypt, found that the dam project will not cause significant harm to either country.
Cairo remains unconvinced and has sought further studies and consultation with Khartoum and Addis Ababa.
If Mansour’s candidacy is endorsed by the presidential commission he will face the former Egyptian defense minister Field Marshal Abdel-Fatah El-Sisi who is widely seen as almost certain to win. The leftist political figure Hamdeen Sabahi has also pledged to compete in the elections.
Mansour has made a failed bid to run for president in the 2012 elections but was disqualified by the elections committee.
According to a profile by the Daily News Egypt, Mansour said in 2011 that he did not “have the right to run” for president because he is “ill-tempered”.
In April 2011, Mansour was accused of being involved in Tahrir clashes commonly dubbed “the Battle of the Camel” on 2 February, which left 11 demonstrators dead and hundreds injured. He was later acquitted of all charges however.
He ran in four parliamentary elections in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2012, but only won in the 2000 elections. In 2012, he lost to an opponent from the Muslim Brotherhood.
He is well known for his hot temper and was taken off air in TV phone interviews a number of times for using obscene language.
Mansour is also seen as someone who is obsessed with filing numerous police complaints and lawsuits against figures he has disputes with.
Source Sudan Tribune

Ethiopia: 2.7 Million People Facing Hunger

Why are Ethiopians starving Again? The answer rests on its successive autocratic rulers and tribalist leaders. Ethiopia today forced hundereds of thousands of Indigenous Peoples off their fertile lands to make way for foreign investors that came in to grow foodstuffs and bio-fuels for export. Having lost their land and their ability to produce their own food, the indigenous Peoples are being forced to become dependent on aid handouts.
By Addis Fortune,
ETHIOPIA finds itself in critical need of food aid in order to feed 2.7 million people. This announcement comes not long after its leaders were upbeat, reporting a bumper harvest of231 million quintals of grain for the current fiscal year.
When donors and Ethiopian authorities met on January 24, 2014, to agree on the projection of the volume of humanitarian aid needed for 2014, the resultant crucial document – the joint Government and Humanitarian partners’ Document – showed that 2.7 million of the 91 million people in the nation, according to the latest estimate by the World Bank, are in need of humanitarian assistance.

The total food requirement is estimated at 388,635 metric tonnes (MT). This is broken down to 314,684 MT of cereals, 31,468 MT of pulses, 9,441 MT of oil and 33,042 MT of blended or supplementary food.

This comes against the government’s recent announcement that agricultural productivity in the nation is projected to grow in leaps and bounds.
Despite the normal and above normal 2013 ‘meher’ rains, which further improved the food security situation in the country, humanitarian challenges will continue in 2014 in north eastern Amhara, Afar and the southern Tigray regions. These are all areas that receive inadequate seasonal rainfall. There is also a focus on other areas that could be affected by various hazards, like – floods, conflicts, crop pests and diseases, stated the report.
Water shortages persist in the drought-prone areas in northeastern Afar, South Region, southeastern Tigray and the lowlands of the southern pastoralist areas.
The nation’s 12.27 million hectares of land was covered with cereals during the year 2012/13. This was a 1.52 pc increment compared to that of the previous year. The government planned to produce 22,907,055 tons of cereal, but exceeded it by 310,555 tons. However, the amount was not able to feed the nation. In the 2013/14 fiscal year, Ethiopia is planning to exceed last year’s cereal production by 2,300,000 tons.
The alarm for the Ethiopian government is clear despite the number of beneficiaries decreasing compared to that of the previous year.
Crop production, according to the document, will most likely be affected in the major producing areas of Amhara and Tigray for the third consecutive year. This will worsen the food security situation in these areas.
But the number of beneficiaries is particularly high in Oromia and the Somali regions, which account for 27 and 25 pc, respectively. Tigray and Amhara follow close behind with 19pc and 16pc, respectively.
Oromia has 766,336 people out of its population of 31 million (according to the CSA’s estimate of 2012) in need of humanitarian assistance. In the Somali region, on the other hand, 691,978 people are projected to be in need of food assistance out of a population of five million (according to the CSA’s estimate of 2012).
The alarm for the government is going to remain intact if weather conditions do not improve, says Rahel Asfaw, a senior Resource Mobilization Expert at the Disaster Prevention Preparedness & Food Security Sectoral Office.
“It all depends on whether or not there is timely rain,” she said.
In the remote Somali Region where the meher season was rain-deficit, the number might even grow, she says.
The total food requirement for 2014 amounts to 388 million dollars. This includes 314,684 tonnes of pulses, 9,441 tonnes of oil and 33,042 tonnes of blended food.
The problem for the government is that it only has 51.6 million dollars. This total represents just 12.8pc of what is required.
While the remainder is expected from the international community, previous contribution trends show that a portion of the required amount is left to be filled by the government itself.
Last year the donors contributed only 68 pc of what was required.
“The contribution from donors may not be any different from the previous year,” says Rahel.
For another food security expert, the international community’s contribution might not even amount to 68pc. He cites priorities elsewhere in the continent and the world.
“This will worsen the situation,” he fears.

Ethiopia synonymous to hunger.    A map showing areas that are critically affected by hunger.