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dam-l Massive Congo water project planned/LS (fwd)
This is on water issues, not dams specifically.
-Dianne
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From owner-irn-safrica@netvista.net Fri Jan 28 12:27:17 2000
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Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 09:22:13 -0800
To: irn-safrica@netvista.net
From: lori@irn.org (Lori Pottinger)
Subject: Massive Congo water project planned/LS
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> +++++++++++++++++
>
> Congo River Water For Middle East
>
> January 27, 2000
>
> DAKAR, Senegal (PANA) - Plans are underway to build pipelines to
> transport water to the Middle East and southern Africa from the Congo
> River in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
>
> The project, initiated in 1999, seeks to build a 2000-km pipe via
> Port-Sudan to the Middle East while a 1,000-km pipe will go down via the
> Delta of Okavango in Angola and Namibia, according to a news release
> from the initiators.
>
> The release said the project was initiated by a joint venture between
> Western Trade Corporation, a Congolese company based in Kinshasa, and
> Sapphire Aqua Corporation, a US firm based in Florida.
>
> The project is known as the Solomon Pipelines.
>
> The release said Western Trade Corporation was given the rights by the
> Congolese government to build and operate the pipelines to deliver the
> much-needed water to those two arid regions.
>
> "Water will be given free as a humanitarian gesture by the Democratic
> Republic of Congo government to help alleviate the dangerous political
> tensions in those regions caused by the critical scarcity of water and
> to promote world peace," it added.
>
> The Congo river water is expected to off-set Israel's water scarcity
> after the return of the Golan Heights to Syria. The Golan Heights
> provide 40 percent of all the water used in Israel.
>
> "Israel and Jordan are high on the list of water-scare nations where the
> potential for continued conflict in the Jordan River valley is no longer
> a question," according to the release.
>
> Upon its completion, at 25 m3 per second in phase I with production
> increasing to 200 m3 per second as demand dictates, the Solomon
> pipelines will bring a solution, in a very near future, to the
> water-related problems.
>
> According to the release, the project will cost in billions of dollars
> and will generate thousands of jobs for local economies in the
> Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa Republic, Sudan, Angola,
> Botswana and
> Namibia.
>
> It will also generate huge business opportunities such as electricity
> and communications supplies from the Inga and the Mobayi-Bongo dams, and
> fiber optics along the toll ways that will be positioned along the
> pipelines.
>
> Social and environmental development programmes, such as the building of
> churches, mosques, hospitals, parks, housing, commercial centres and
> schools, are envisaged under the vast water project.
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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