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Monday, 24 May 2021

Last Night’s Talk Shows: Ever Given compensation + more on GERD

The latest on the Suez Canal Authority’s court battle with Ever Given owner Shoei Kisen led the conversation on the airwaves last night, as authority boss Osama Rabie phoned into several shows to recap and defend the authority’s position in the lawsuit. We have chapter and verse in the news well, above.

Coming in second place, negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam’s second filling: Irrigation Minister Mohamed Abdel Ati sat down with Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi to discuss the most recent updates and the extent to which Egypt’s water supply could be affected.

There are no concrete updates on the stalled negotiations, even after US Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman and African Union Chairman and Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi each paid a visit to Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan to discuss the issue and listen to the countries’ positions on the matter, Abdel Ati said. Egypt wants an agreement with Addis Ababa that would allow Ethiopia to continue building and filling the dam for its own needs, but would still provide Egypt and Sudan with the ability to ask Ethiopia to release some of the water in the dam’s reserve if they were to face shortages (watch, runtime: 4:26).

If the second filling moves ahead as Ethiopia is currently planning, the average Egyptian isn’t going to suddenly find themselves without running water, because authorities habitually hold water reserves to be able to offset naturally occurring water shortages, Abdel Ati explained. Nonetheless, the government really, really wants everyone to be more conscious of their water consumption. Making this reserve water available is also a difficult management operation, particularly when it comes to ensuring the water quality is up to par and that there are no periods of low water supply, the minister said (watch, runtime: 5:40).

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