Sources close to Tourism Minister Zoheir Garana say the ministry has approved licenses for 19 new floating hotels to operate on Lake Nasser, bringing the total to 25. The ministry has also agreed to build a new marina to replace the makeshift dock currently used to berth cruise ships. The price tag on the new facility is estimated at LE25 million.

Ahmed Attiya, head of the Hotels Sector at the Ministry of Tourism, says the cruise ship expansion could generate up to LE950 million in direct investment and create thousands of jobs.

Critics have called on the Ministry of Tourism to drop the expansion plan, warning of “catastrophic” environmental consequences if the number of floating hotels on the lake increases. Some of the most vocal opposition has come from within the ministry itself.

Mahmoud al-Qaissouni, environmental advisor to the tourism minister sees the decision to license more floating hotels on the lake as a reckless tourism strategy. In the short-term, the new ships will cannibalize business from the existing ones; in the long-term, they will lead to overcrowding at the lake’s antiquity sites.

He argues that instead of expanding boat traffic on the lake, the government should focus on developing sustainable use of Lake Nasser as a strategic water resource. Efforts should be made to enforce strict environmental controls on the six floating hotels, 4,000 fishing boats and two passenger ferries that currently operate on the lake. It might also be time to think seriously about incorporating Egypt’s main water reservoir–the source of over 80 percent of the country’s freshwater supply–into a natural protectorate.

Excerpted from an article by Cam McGrath for Al Masry Al Youm

The waters of the Nile in Aswan are suffering due to the dumping of waste from fishing boats and river transport between Egypt and Sudan. Such boats produce a type of bacteria which is difficult to eradicate because of the stagnancy of the water.

The poor operation and maintenance of tourist boats and ferries in Lake Nasser behind the High Dam lake is of particular concern, as well as the lack of safety procedures, said official sources in the ministry of transportation.

A comprehensive report on boats and cruise ships, including floating hotels, warned that the six cruise ships which transport tourists from Lake Nasser to Abu Simbel, have many issues with lack of safety procedures, due to absence of modern communication methods.

The Egyptian Organization for the Advancement of Children reiterated the conclusions of the Habi Center for Environmental Rights in its report on the pollution of the Nile waters.  The studies confirm that every year some 17,000 children die from gastroenteritis caused by polluted water.

The same study indicated that kidney failure, also caused by polluted drinking water, is four times higher in Egypt than in the rest of the world. It notes that there are some three hundred floating hotels between Luxor and Aswan which are responsible for the pollution of the river water, due to their lack of efficient water treatment systems.

Al-Masry Al-Youm

A barge carrying 244 tons of gasoline has leaked some 100 tons of the fuel into the Nile River in Upper Egypt.

The vessel was docked in Aswan when part of the barge sank below the surface and began spewing gasoline into the river. The leak has since been stopped.

The chief of the Luxor drinking water company urged people to stockpile water in case the spill reaches the city’s water purification facilities.

AP

An ambitious $100 million canal project to bring water from the Nile river to the Toshka desert 225 km south of Aswan in Egypt to convert arid regions into farmland and boost animal production has been completed.

The Sheikh Zayed Canal project, funded by the Abu Dhabi government, is part of a bigger human settlement plan that aims to construct all modern civic amenities in the desert.

The grant was mainly used in the construction of the canal, three irrigation stations and development of farmland.

The canal has a capacity to irrigate about 100,000 acres within the integrated irrigation system envisaged for the development of the southern valley covering over 24 km.

As part of the larger project, farms, irrigation and road network, agricultural facilities and buildings, laboratories, factories and other amenities will be built.

News-Views

Photo: Supreme Council of Antiquities

Egyptian archaeologists carrying routine excavations at the so-called “Avenue of Sphinxes,” have unearthed the remains of a 5th century Egyptian Christian church and a “nilometer,” a structure used to measure the level of the Nile during floods.

Divided into five sections, the Avenue of Sphinxes is now yielding a number of archaeological remains.

On the second section of the path, the archaeologists found the ruins of a 1,600-year-old church. The stone remains revealed that the building was constructed with recycled limestone blocks.

At the avenue’s fourth section, the team also discovered remains of a cylindrical sandstone nilometer with New Kingdom (1569-1081 B.C.) clay vessels at its bottom.

The structure, 7 meters (23 feet) in diameter, was encircled by a spiral staircase descending into the Nile. The steps allowed for a quick reading of increase in water level, thus forecasting floods.

The archaeologists also unearthed a collection of foundation stones used to install the sphinx’ statues. Some of the stones were decorated with scenes depicting King Amenhotep III, who began construction on the avenue.

The fragmented sphinxes are now under restoration. Soon they will be placed on display along a section of the avenue.

Discovery News

Photo from Theban Mapping Project

Dr. Nicole Hansen mentions in her Facebook page that she has received news that Susan Weeks drowned in the Nile late last night/early this morning (13th December) in Luxor. She apparently fell from the dahabiya, a houseboat she and her husband acquired in 2001, and drowned. The police found her and she was identified.

Archaeologists Kent and Susan Weeks have lived in Egypt for four decades. Dr. Kent Weeks is the project director of the Theban Mapping Project, an effort he and his artist wife began in 1978 to create a comprehensive archaeological database of the ancient city of Thebes, modern Luxor.

Susan (Howe) Weeks is the Theban Mapping Project’s artist. She received a B.A. in Graphic Arts at the University of Washington in 1965. Susan was very interested in archaeology and ancient art. When she learned about the Nubian Salvage Project through Kent Weeks, who was a graduate student at the time, she joined the team and has been working on Ancient Egyptian and Nubian sites with Kent ever since.

Susan and Kent raised two children, Christopher and Emily.

The 10-month Corniche Development Project has been designed by Ain Shams University’s Faculty of Engineering and is being implemented by the army. It is budgeted at LE250 million, LE150 million provided by the Tourism Development Fund and the remaining LE100 million in the form of a European grant.

Due to start in January, the Corniche will be divided into three lanes, two reserved for emergency services and the third for horse drawn carriages. The Corniche will be widened in places up to 14 meters, and several luxurious 100-bed hotels are planned. Floating wooden sidewalks will be provided so pedestrians might feel they are walking on the deck of a boat.

The façades of buildings overlooking the Corniche will be made of sandstone and lit in a manner that makes them appear old. Both Luxor and Karnak temples will front directly on the river, as the ancient Egyptians intended, and be accessed directly from the Nile with docks to allow tourists to disembark. The plan is eventually to restrict transit between the monuments on both banks of the river to feluccas.

On the West Bank a dock is already under construction. When complete, it will be able to handle 10,000 tourists a day. Bus and car parks are also being built, alongside places for camels and horses to be tethered, and bicycles chained.

Al-Ahram

Luxor residents evicted for tourism

Residents living between Luxor and Karnak Temples–along the “Avenue of the Sphinxes” have recently been given three-day eviction notices as heavy machinery is quickly tearing down buildings six days a week.

Late October, the governor of Luxor General Samir Farag reported that  “It is our philosophy now to evacuate the whole city here, between the two temples (Luxor and Karnak) to an area west of the railway line”

Residents say it is not clear how much they will receive for their homes; compensation varies from about LE40,000 to LE60,000, according to several interviews.

Egypt News

The company’s plans are in place to convert the 279-room Shepheard Hotel, strategically located along the famous Nile River in the heart of bustling downtown Cairo, to a full-fledged Rocco Forte Collection Hotel after an extensive renovation period.

The Shepheard Hotel was founded by an Englishman called Samuel Shepheard Hotel in 1841 and became the leading hotel in Cairo for much of the twentieth Century. The original hotel was destroyed by fire twice, in 1891 and 1952, and then rebuilt on the banks of the Nile in 1957 where it remains operating today.

The refurbished Shepheard will emerge as a luxury hotel within The Rocco Forte Collection brand in early 2012 offering 275 large elegant bedrooms, state-of-the-art facilities, outstanding design and the latest technology complemented by the highest standards of service and attention to detail.

zawya

Cairo Airport Private Arrival Transfer

The Egyptian government and several private companies are preparing to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in an ambitious effort to revive shipping along the Nile. Their plans call for at least a half dozen new ports, a series of barrages and extensive dredging. Advocates say the work will help relieve pressure on Egypt’s congested highways and lower transport costs for industry.

The British, during their occupation of Egypt, understood the importance of the Nile as a cheap and relatively hassle-free thoroughfare. To oversee the river, they established the Inland Water Transportation Agency, later to become the River Transportation Authority (RTA). Following independence, budget-conscious state-owned enterprises built river ports to transfer goods from Upper Egypt to Lower Egypt and vice-versa.

The climate changed during the 1970s as custom tariffs dropped and the country opened its doors to imported goods. Merchants demanded faster transportation to cope with intensifying competition. Trucks became an attractive option and the Nile began to decline as a trade route.

Much of the river traffic ended up on the country’s highways. In 2008, there were nearly 515 million tons of goods transferred by land in Egypt. Trucks carried 93% of this amount — nearly 500 million tons — while rail transport’s share was only 6%. Less than 1% was transported by other means, including river ships. The number of trucks has skyrocketed: There are over 1 million on Egypt’s roads, including 600,000 that are considered heavyweight vehicles (those over 30 tons).

A barge will travel from Cairo to Alexandria in three days, while a truck can make the trip in few hours. While slow, barges create their value in economies of scale. They can carry large quantities of heavy goods for much less than a truck. In a single journey a standard barge will haul as much as 30 heavy trucks.

Another economic advantage of barges is infrastructure. Building a 1,500-kilometer road would cost around LE 3 billion, the same stretch of rail would be nearly double that, while preparing 1,500 kilometers of river for sailing costs only LE 800 million.

Egypt has four main river routes connecting the country from north to south. Three of these connect Cairo with Damietta, Alexandria, and Aswan. The fourth route connects Aswan to Halfa on the Egypt-Sudan border through Lake Nasser.

Three years ago, the RTA started dredging the first three routes. A 450-ton barge needs water at least 2.5 meters deep. But in many areas the water drops to less than 2 meters in the winter. The dredging efforts ended in May this year at a total cost of LE 800 million.

The Nile has the potential to be part of a future integrated transportation system in Egypt, but only if the government plays it right. Dredging the channel, building barrages and installing navigation systems are all efforts that will attract investors to the Nile.

Excerpted from an article by Ali El-Bahnasawy for Business Today Egypt

The problem stems in large part from the absence of multilateral agreements concerning water-sharing. The only agreement that does exist lies at the heart of the dispute — the 1929 accord between Egypt and Britain, then the predominant colonial power in Africa. It gave Cairo veto power over upstream projects that could impede the Nile’s flow levels — as Turkey’s current ambitious dam-building program is cutting off the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates to Syria and Iraq.

Britain claimed it had acted on behalf of its African colonies, but its motivation undoubtedly had a lot to do with maintaining strategic control over the Suez Canal to hold its empire together. A bilateral treaty between Egypt and Sudan in 1959 allocated Egypt 55.5 billion cubic meters of water annually — 87 percent of the Nile’s flow — with Sudan getting 18.5 billion cubic meters.

The other riparian states say this is grossly unfair and demand an equitable water-sharing pact that would allow for much wider irrigation for crop-growing (an increasingly vital issue because of global food shortages) and hydraulic power projects.

Egypt argues that the upstream countries have far greater rainfall than Egypt — which has hardly any — and other sources of water than the Nile.

The river provides 87 percent of Egypt’s water resources. An Egyptian government report in July warned that the country’s water requirements would exceed its resources by 2017.

UPI