Egypt's live TV coverage of Nile crisis meeting draws fire

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Egypt's live TV coverage of Nile crisis meeting draws fire

Post by DJKeefy »

A host of unguarded statements made at a meeting between Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and political figures held to discuss the Ethiopia dam 'crisis' have prompted a wave of criticism against Egypt's already-under-fire government decision-makers.

Walking into Monday's meeting unaware that the event was being aired on live television, Egyptian figures from across the political spectrum candidly spoke their minds, with many making what were seen as offensive suggestions as to how to deal with the ongoing controversy over Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam project.

While Morsi did not respond to any of the controversial statements made at the meeting, his aide for political affairs, Pakinam El-Sharqawy, has since apologised for failing to inform attendees that the 'national dialog' meeting was being broadcast live.

"It was initially planned that the national meeting would be recorded and aired the following day as is usually the case, but due to the importance of the topic it was decided at the last minute to air the meeting live," she said via Facebook late on Monday. "I forgot to inform attendees of the changes."

Her apology, however, failed to offset her – or the speakers' – embarrassment.

The well-known 'We Are All Khaled Saeed' Facebook page – which played a prominent role in mobilising the public for Egypt's 2011 revolution – said of the affair: "How can a meeting held to discuss a national security issue... be televised live without attendees' knowledge?"

The page also blamed El-Sharqawy, who attended the meeting, for not immediately informing participants – especially once they began speaking bluntly – that the meeting was being broadcast live. "Is this appropriate planning from the presidency of a country with Egypt's status?" page administrators asked.

For his part, leading opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei, who had refused to take part in Monday's meeting, described the statements made at the event as "irresponsible." He went on to issue his "sincere apologies to the people and governments of Ethiopia and Sudan" for what was said by meeting participants.


'Maintaining secrecy'

At the meeting, liberal politician Ayman Nour said that "Sudan's stance on the crisis is disgusting," before suggesting that Egypt spread false rumours about an impending Egyptian airstrike on the Ethiopian dam. Promoting such a rumour, said Nour, "could yield results on the diplomatic track."

In comments made via Twitter following the meeting, Nour, head of the liberal Ghad El-Thawra Party, expressed his "surprise" that the meeting had been televised live. He said attendees had not been informed of this fact, "despite the sensitivity of the situation."

Salafist Nour Party leader Younis Makhioun, who also seemed unaware that the meeting was being aired live, stated that destroying the dam should be a last resort.

First, Makhioun recommended backing Ethiopian rebel movements against Addis Ababa. "We can communicate with them and use them as a bargaining chip against the Ethiopian government," he said.

"If this fails, Egypt will have no choice but to play its final card: using the intelligence apparatus to destroy the dam," said Makhioun, whose Nour Party won roughly one quarter of the seats in parliament in 2011/12 elections.

Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat, chairman of the liberal Reform and Development Party, elaborated on the role that should be played by Egypt's intelligence apparatus, again referring to Ethiopian rebels who might be co-opted by Egyptian intelligence.

"Ethiopia [consists] of multiple tribes, and your Excellency [Morsi] knows that everybody in Africa can be bribed," he said.

After several other speakers candidly spoke their minds, Magdi Hussein, leader of the Islamist-leaning New Labour Party, urged attendees to "maintain the secrecy" of what was said at the meeting – before being told that the event was being carried on live television.


Diplomatic incident?

Due to its Mubarak-era foreign policies, which neglected relations with African nations, Egypt over the last three decades has barely been seen by most African states as part of the continent.

On several occasions, the Morsi administration has pledged to repair Egypt's damaged relations with its African counterparts. Such hopes, however, appear to have been dealt a serious setback in the wake of Monday's unfortunate meeting.

"These are the people who will restore our relations with Africa," veteran journalist and opposition figure Ibrahim Isaa said sarcastically in televised comments following the meeting.

Mostafa El-Guindy, former MP and vice-president of the Pan-African Parliament (the African Union's legislative body), who had been involved in previous talks between Egypt and Nile Basin countries, described Monday's meeting as a "disaster."

"A child would know that such matters cannot be discussed this way," El-Guindy, who is also a member of the 'Popular Diplomacy' initiative (which aims at resolving the current impasse with Ethiopia), said in televised comments.

"What happened is high treason and will turn all African nations against us," he said. "We [the Popular Diplomacy initiative] must hold a popular press conference as a national duty to reject what was said [at Monday's national dialog meeting] and stress that Ethiopians and Africans are our brothers."

Tension between Egypt and Ethiopia escalated last week after the latter abruptly diverted part of the Blue Nile, which represents Egypt's chief source of Nile water. The move, seen as an essential step towards building the country's planned Grand Renaissance Dam, came in the immediate wake of a visit to Ethiopia by President Morsi.

Egypt – fearing the move's impact on its traditional supply of Nile water – quickly summoned the Ethiopian ambassador in Cairo to express its displeasure.

Ethiopian officials, for their part, have attempted to dispel fears regarding the dam's potential impact on downstream states, insisting that the project would ultimately benefit all riparian states.

The Blue Nile provides Egypt with the lion's share of its annual allotment of 55 billion cubic metres of river water.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/73144.aspx


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Egyptian Ethiopian dam gaffe

Post by Bombay »

Egyptian politicians caught in on-air Ethiopia dam gaffe

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22771563

Egyptian politicians are embarrassed after being caught suggesting hostile acts against Ethiopia to stop it from building a dam across the Blue Nile.

They were inadvertently heard on live TV proposing military action at a meeting called by President Mohammed Morsi.

Ethiopia last week started diverting the flow of the river in preparation for the $4.2bn hydroelectric dam.

The Blue Nile is one of two major tributaries of the Nile.

On completion, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam would be Africa's largest.

It is expected to produce 6,000 megawatts, and its reservoir is scheduled to start filling next year.

Apology
As the participants did not know that the meeting was being aired live by state TV, they spoke their minds unreservedly.

Their suggestions centred around military action as a decisive response to what one of them called a "declaration of war".

One of the politicians suggested sending special forces to destroy the dam; another thought of jet fighters to scare the Ethiopians; and a third called for Egypt to support rebel groups fighting the government in Addis Ababa.

"This could yield results in the diplomatic arena,'' liberal politician and former presidential candidate Ayman Nour told the gathering.

Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat, the leader of the secular Reform and Development party, said the presidency should have warned the participants in advance that the meeting would be broadcast live.

"I am afraid most of the politicians who attended the meeting were not well informed about such a sensitive topic," he told the BBC.

"But the statements made during the meeting do not represent the Egyptian official stance. It was just a chat between politicians who were angered by the Ethiopian plans."

A presidential adviser apologised for failing to warn politicians.

"I am sorry for any unintentional embarrassment," Bakinam al-Sharqawi said in a statement.

Egypt is the most populous country in the Middle East and highly dependent on the water of the world's longest river.

Ethiopia's decision to construct the dam challenges a colonial-era agreement that had given Egypt and Sudan rights to the Nile water, with Egypt taking 55.5 billion cubic metres and Sudan 18.5 billion cubic metres.

That agreement, first signed in 1929, took no account of the eight other nations along the 6,700km (4,160-mile) river and its basin.

Those countries have been agitating for a decade for a more equitable accord.
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Re: Egypt's live TV coverage of Nile crisis meeting draws fi

Post by Chocolate Eclair »

Oh Dear, reading this it's understandable why Egypt is in such a terrible state...

Next thing will be digging a second Suez around the side of he Dam so the water bypass's it.........
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Re: Egypt's live TV coverage of Nile crisis meeting draws fi

Post by Hafiz »

Read the al Ahram article carefully. Note the statement in the first paragraph that the indiscretions are a government problem. Note also the frequent mention of the government assistant who failed to tell the others about the TV coverage.

However when you read it a second time you notice that no government official nor government politician made any of these mad statements. They were all made by liberals and one Salafi type, but that's not the impression you get from a first read.

The journalist could just as easily written the story up as the opposition parties are all mad and the Government has the good sense, on this occasion, to stay stum.

The tone of the story is not to attack those opposition figures but to imply that the whole fiasco is the Government's responsibility. This seems odd and against the evidence.

The sly twisting of the truth to reflect badly on the Government is pervasive in the Cairo press.

A small digression. To think that the Egypt Air Force could hit Ethiopia, let alone a dam, on a clear day could be optimistic. Decades of drip feeding of military aid from Uncle Sam has done the same damage as drip feeding to a nephew from a rich uncle. You get used to it, you have to do nothing to get it and you are accountable, in Egypt's case, to neither Uncle Sam or the Egyptian people or government.

These political lunatics are pigmies compared with their 'fathers' who had big visions and worked with the neighbors. In the 1950's Egypt part financed the Owen Falls Dam in Uganda to regulate (?) the Nile flow and benefit the Ugandans. Their 'children' want to bomb the neighbors.

On one view the news story shows that the alternatives to the brothers could be worse. :sd
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Re: Egypt's live TV coverage of Nile crisis meeting draws fi

Post by Bombay »

Hafiz wrote:Read the al Ahram article carefully. Note the statement in the first paragraph that the indiscretions are a government problem. Note also the frequent mention of the government assistant who failed to tell the others about the TV coverage.

However when you read it a second time you notice that no government official nor government politician made any of these mad statements. They were all made by liberals and one Salafi type, but that's not the impression you get from a first read.

The journalist could just as easily written the story up as the opposition parties are all mad and the Government has the good sense, on this occasion, to stay stum.

The tone of the story is not to attack those opposition figures but to imply that the whole fiasco is the Government's responsibility. This seems odd and against the evidence.

The sly twisting of the truth to reflect badly on the Government is pervasive in the Cairo press.

A small digression. To think that the Egypt Air Force could hit Ethiopia, let alone a dam, on a clear day could be optimistic. Decades of drip feeding of military aid from Uncle Sam has done the same damage as drip feeding to a nephew from a rich uncle. You get used to it, you have to do nothing to get it and you are accountable, in Egypt's case, to neither Uncle Sam or the Egyptian people or government.

These political lunatics are pigmies compared with their 'fathers' who had big visions and worked with the neighbors. In the 1950's Egypt part financed the Owen Falls Dam in Uganda to regulate (?) the Nile flow and benefit the Ugandans. Their 'children' want to bomb the neighbors.

On one view the news story shows that the alternatives to the brothers could be worse. :sd
Set-up :?:
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Re: Egypt's live TV coverage of Nile crisis meeting draws fi

Post by Dusak »

I received a preemptive strike on this and the other post. :cry: I've been working on how I see Luxor in the year 2035 due to this damn dam for the last two weeks, but will still post it later on tonight.
Life is your's to do with as you wish- do not let other's try to control it for you. Count Dusak- 1345.
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Re: Egypt's live TV coverage of Nile crisis meeting draws fi

Post by Hafiz »

For Bombay. In the land of conspiracy theorists anything is possible except that stuff-ups happen and that people sometimes say stupid things when they are threatened.

I've always favored the stuff-up theory of history. People are much more successful in making mistakes than they are at conspiring to set up others for failure.
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