The Ethiopian authorities have accused the Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi of waging psychological warfare by vowing to prevent Ethiopia from constructing a giant hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile River. A spokesman for Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said Mr. Morsi was trying to divert attention from problems at home. Aleem Maqbool reports from Cairo.
When it’s finished the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be by far the biggest hydroelectric power source in all of Africa. Construction started over two years ago but now the flow of the Nile is starting to be diverted down stream, Egypt has reacted with alarm. In an emotive address President Morsi talked it’d be gift of the River Nile to Egypt and the country’s historical rights to its waters. For its part, Ethiopia has insisted the work to build the dam will go on and that once the reservoir was filled the flow of Nile will return to normal.
In Kenya, hundreds of civil society activists had held a march in the capital Nairobi to protest against fresh attempts by members of parliament to increase their own salaries. Dancing protesters carried a giant papier-mache pig through the street before smashing it to pieces of the gate to the Kenyan parliament chanting ‘help the needy, not the greedy’.
The Argentine football association has banned away fans from attending football matches following the death of a supporter during a top division game near Buenos Aires. The ban will apply to all divisions of Argentine football until new measures are taken to address the widespread problem of violence in the game.