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DAM-L Two Orange River stories/LS (fwd)
----- Forwarded message from Lori Pottinger -----
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Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 08:38:31 -0800
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From: lori@irn.org (Lori Pottinger)
Subject: Two Orange River stories/LS
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Two stories on the Orange river.
IOL Online
Lesotho pulls plug on river pact
August 05 2000 at 04:17PM
By Ben MacLennan
Windhoek - The signing of a four-country agreement on the management of
Orange River water was scuppered in Windhoek on Saturday after last-minute
objections by Lesotho.
The pact, to set up a commission representing Lesotho, South Africa, Namibia
and Botswana, was to have been signed by the countries' water ministers at
9am at the Southern African Development Community summit in Namibia.
But with copies of a text already duplicated and bound, media waiting and
equipment set up at the venue for a slide presentation, the ceremony was
called off.
Officials said that though the other three countries had been ready to sign,
Lesotho had raised a number of last-minute objections, and had refused to
sign.
After a hastily-arranged meeting between the ministers - who included South
Africa's Water Affairs Minister Ronnie Kasrils - a media briefing was called
to announce that the signing had been postponed.
Namibia's Minister for Agriculture and Water, Helmut Angula, said some
sections of the agreement had been overtaken by an overarching SADC protocol
on shared watercourses, expected to be approved at this weekend's summit.
The text of the agreement would be amended, and the ministers would meet
again to sign it as soon as possible after their governments had approved
the changes.
"We will be coming back here to Namibia in the not-too-distant future to do
the signing on the dotted line," said Lesotho's Minister of Natural
Resources, Munyani Moleleki.
Officials said Lesotho had also earlier objected to calling the body the
Orange River Commission, saying this was not the name the river was known by
in the mountain kingdom.
As a compromise, it was renamed the Orange-Senqu Commission.
Officials said the commission would deal with all shared-water issues
relating to the Orange, which rises in the Lesotho highlands and empties
into the Atlantic on the South Africa-Namibia border.
Countries would use the commission to anticipate and warn each other of
potential flooding, to deal with drought, and to manage social, economic and
environmental issues related to the river. - Sapa
--
24.com
05/08/2000 19:27 - (SA)
Ambitious plan to link Congo and Orange rivers
Windhoek - An ambitious proposal that could see water from the mighty Congo
River running into the Orange is to be investigated by experts from the
Southern African Development Community.
Botswana's Water Affairs Minister Boometswe Mokgothu announced in Windhoek
on Saturday that the experts would be asked to explore whether it was
feasible to make his country's dry rivers, the Nossob and the Molopo, run
again.
He said if Namibian negotiations with the Democratic Republic of Congo for
access to Congo River water were successful, some of that water could be
channelled into the Nossob, which runs on the boundary between Namibia and
Botswana.
Water from the Vaal could be channelled to the upper reaches of the Molopo,
which joins the Nossob before emptying into the Orange.
Mokgothu said the area this would benefit was at the moment "basically
desert".
"We need a lot of water in our country," he said.
"Agriculture will come into force, wildlife will come up and tourism will be
revived."
He warned however that the project would be very expensive, and said the
feasibility study would take several years. - Sapa
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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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----- End of forwarded message from Lori Pottinger -----