From the BBC:
A huge water source has been discovered in the arid Turkana region of northern Kenya which could supply the country for 70 years, the government says.
The discovery of two aquifers brings hope to the drought-hit region, tweeted Environment Minister Judi Wakhungu. They were found in the Turkana Basin and Lotikipi Basin using satellites and radar.
Excellent news indeed!
Whoever is in charge* will be able to drive the peasants away and sell off that now valuable farmland to Western (or indeed Chinese) farming conglomerates and shuffle a few billion quid into their personal Swiss bank accounts as "rainy day money".
With a bit of luck, some of those peasants might even find gainful employment on said mega-farms.
* Being fair to the Kenyans, their country seems to be considerably less corrupt and rather more democratic than most African countries, but that's not saying much.
On being photocopied
1 hour ago
5 comments:
Sod the water, there's oil in them thar arid regions. (Further down the same article:"Massive oil deposits have also recently been discovered in Turkana.")
B, quite possibly, but we can draw up a long list of "natural resources in Africa which have been of f- all benefit to native Africans or indeed Arabs and have mainly funded kleptocrats and western, foreign, imperial interests"
Farmland
Oil
Diamonds
Gold
Uranium
Copper
Nice beaches for tourists
Rubber trees
Coffee
Quite apart from the fact that both coffee and rubber were almost entirely introduced into Africa by said imperial interests, that's not what I meant, which was that the kleptocrats are less likely to bother with water, if they can enrich themselves on the much more lucrative oil, which is a sort of bonus, because the nomadic people of the Turkana region have both the technology to extract and a use for water, but have neither for crude oil.
B, coffee was first discovered in Ethopia (bless them). Whether you count that as "Africa" or "Arabia" is a separate topic.
No, it's definitely Africa AFAIAC, but that was why I said "almost".
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