mr alias quantas airways has become the latest airline to halt flights to china because of the outbreak the u.s. government has announced immigration restrictions on 6 additional countries citing security concerns washington is suspending visas that could lead to permanent residency for nationals from eritrea kurdistan me and ma and nigeria sudan and tanzania will also start receiving diversity visas airstrikes on opposition held territory in northern syria forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee to the turkish border at least 21 civilians have been killed in recent attacks in recent days those are the headlines talk to al-jazeera is up next. the story is just found since i'd like some media angles in this story are too numerous for comfort separate the spin from the facts the misinformation from the journalism the listening post on al-jazeera. would see.

the nile at almost 7000 kilometers it's africa's longest river. its waters run through 11 countries. and for the 218000000 people living along its banks the nile symbolizes life itself just as it did for those who settled along the river centuries ago. but a huge new project in ethiopia has triggered a major dispute with egypt. and scientists warning construction of the rene since dam aimed at massively increasing ethiopia's electricity supply could cause irreversible damage not only in egypt but in the entire region. and it's feared if the dispute is not resolved might he not all could risk drying up. one of the loudest voices fighting to save the river explains exactly what's at stake thoughts

as maggie from the university of southern california and the nasa jet propulsion laboratory talks to al-jazeera. i. as a maggie thank you for talking to out of here thank you very much 1st of all the river nile tell us about its importance historically not only for humanity but for the environment that it fed the night river is a very unique ecosystem it's a very unique hydrogen logical systems mean it very unique water body in our planet 1st of all if you look to earth this is the only river that is a giant of a and it goes from the south to north so it's a vertical flow of the nile that goes across 5 different climatic zones from the ecuadorian to simi equatorial. outed and then to the mediterranean environment. and the uniqueness of the night in that it is a luxury of

a but even though the flow of the night is not bigger than the 2nd of it which is the amazon the amazon quantity a fault of flow across that is about $65.00 bigger than the mine so it's a gentilly flowing. river across different climates mostly in the south which make it unique to see from space so if you look to the sahara there is one green line vertical line that's in the night ever more importantly the night it is 20 to 30000000 years or today we don't know how we can make rivers flow in a constant way this amount of time so the 9 is unique in this what does that mean it means that the ecosystem of the 19 is 20 to 30000000 years old and that make it one of the oldest ecosystem we know on our planet well so the value of the night is just not just not the cup of water we drink it is

a unique and very sensitive ecosystem and water body that its existence help us understand the earth evolution so why civilization have grown and on the night because it's a stable source of water and it actually the night that something amazin it it brought into the. sunny deserts it brought a lot of. sediments from downstream from ethiopia and sudan and other nation downstream and brought fresh water to the sunny areas so it so it provided an easy excellent environment for a greek culture and for civilization to grow so moving forward to the present day what does ethiopia wanting to do with this dam project what will it chief by building it so i think the 9 has a problem with its own perience who live on it it's a great server but in

a very challenging place i think egypt before it's european has built big on the nile and now it will be building another bigger one. and then we have other 14 months on the road to be constructed so this whole conception that you can suffocate the nih and yet benefit out of its resources from the environmental perspective it is wrong. so what if you if you want is a very. high end of it want to generate electricity why there are many ways to generate clean electricity and today are question a source of electricity the only $19.00 if we suffocate the night what is left for your pure for egypt for saddam for the other nation but how do you balance that equation when he thought he would say it was 65 percent of our population have never electricity presently and this is done we'll give it to them. again there are

many other sources who can give electricity went energy nuclear energy. thermal energy and ethiopia is close to your thermo sources and then i also but in in the quick tway went the size of the dam and the filling scenarios of the have big impact on the stability of the ninety's not gini about how much egypt did deserve to get water it's about how much water we need to let flow to keep the night ecosystem of life what kind of environmental damage do you foresee by the building this down and what trouble g.'s the 1st of all we have to see that the night over as it have 100 islands about 100 island 22 of them in egypt have 800 types of fish is live in it. so all of these all of this biodiversity all

of all of the vegetation like. up it was for instance that very sensitive to the change in the flow so once you start to build such a big change the flow of the night the flow rate you change the amount of water flowing all of this by the start to suffer and then you have the domino effect you can one type of fishes and you can other you're change one type of vegetation and other vegetation will flow and you can the vegetation the bird migration will flow you change the both my vision you start to have diseases like the flu so it is a complex set and generating electricity cannot justify messing with such a large river and putting all the basin into any predictable ecological tonight but it's happening isn't that it's being billed it's about the telephone line so let me give you an example these exaggeration i mean someone can say these are exaggeration because i mean people want to put maybe sticks in the weeds of

others it is not egypt has built the us won the dam of us on the hide in the late sixty's it was presented as the project that would revolutionize egypt at that time it produces about 100 percent of the power in egypt they say from 90 to 100 percent it was the glorious project it had the names of presidents and people visiting it today in 2020 this only produce 5 percent 5 to 7 percent which is a city and the worst of it egypt has become the biggest power or exporting it to a city but what has happened because of the dam of us want the flow of sediment which used to to nourish the dent of the nile up north started to stop and the delta of the night is now shrinking and it is sinking underneath the sea and sea

water is getting into it and it is that the. greenest area of egypt so we are losing food production migrating millions of people and you are seeing great cities as an example being surrounded by walls to protect it from water invasion so the price is only 50 years and then now egypt is paying the price very hard and you are saying that will get worse because of this new deal with this new them this price is going to be in source in sudan because egypt is already losing the sediments from the for from the dam of us one so what the lesson learned if that generating electricity is illiterate is illegitimate and of but the size of the the feeling of the need to protect the 9 need to belong vision to protect that river right but as i say it is being build it is happening there's nothing that can stop it now so what do you suggest is done to try and mitigate i am suggesting that

you are talking i am suggesting from the europeans to look to the egyptian experiment with the highest on that we now see egypt mitigate the damages with billions of dollars exceeding the price of the of us on when it was but. to mitigate the issues in the nile. so i'm saying that we have to look to the ecological and environmental impacts and not to minimize them because we want to start to generate electricity we have to look to the long before at least to late. egypt would point to the fact it's not so much environmental concerns it's more about the immediate impact on the agricultural sector and that's a sad think so everybody is disputing the wrong resource i mean denial is more than just water i mean you can look at it from a very engineering perspective that we have a lot of the budget that we are sharing but the truth is the night is just more

than the shares of water it is it is that environment that keep all these nation to life and today it is a threat and this is not an issue between ian punnett europea if we lose the nile we lose an important. it's a human heritage. it's a scientific heritage of our planet and it's the quota door by which we have the bird migration from the ecuadorian area and africa to them in the sea so we going to see changes and only nature can then tell us what these changes are and nature is very unpredictable so this is one war with nature that africa doesn't need a big issue that egypt has is with the rate that the reservoir is filled every mass of it could take up to more than 20 years but it could also be done in 7 years explain that a little bit for us and the different impacts of the different timings we'll have so the scenarios between fitting this down from 3 years up to 20 years and the

slowest we build. the slowest we feel that the better if these 2 men tame the flow of the river constant and to avoid any. easy versus environmental an ecological damages despite of the water issues now the water issues can be dissolved egypt reserve behind the us what the democrats want and can play with the reserves to mitigate different filling scenarios but if we have to build dams on the river we have to be coordinated and it have to be ecologically sustainable and it has to be an african project and not a nationalism project. egypt did this mistake again in the sixty's when say us on them is egypt national project and now if you're pursuing the european national

project and in vienna they disappear and the dumbest stay right when you say to be the look to egypt look what happened to the ass one dime of the implications of that is had for the country what lessons can they learn from that and how can they practically apply it to this time now and all they like to do your ideas happily have any traction at this point in time i think that there is no traction. and definitely everybody want to see you if you have the power it needs and it's a beautiful story of economic and so site and cultural change in africa so nobody want to see 2 people without that power but what we want to see that want to we want to preserve that ever and that would be by making some secular faces in the filling of the way that is being fed and so it's not making the secular

face for egypt but for the nile river to also show that as the largest generator of electricity you should be also the largest reserve of the night because you are the one of the originator of the matter of what will tell us a little bit about the sacrifices that if you should make in the way the reservoir is filled explain that 4 of you i think that is of all should be defaming should be from from anything above 10 years is a good scenario for everybody if you put the flow by little amount of the night you you can still mitigate. the environment and it could logic and also the water resources issues but if you drastically reduce the flow you start to have it reversible damages that you cannot fix so let me give you an example let's say we have this is a wetland and then you have the water to do the agriculture on it and now

you stop at a gating this land so it become dry. then you think that after 3 years when you integrated back again it will have the same fertility this is will not happen because the knife flows through the sahara so these. you know once they die there when will take these sediments and take them away so when you have the water coming back most of these 1st died sediment would have disappeared because of the window erosion and you will never reach back the same fertility you you were in now we have mediation we have the united states and south africa trying to bring the sides together with sudan as well sudan egypt and you know if you they failed to get anywhere with that mediation so far do you see a way through if they fail because we can't resolve a problem we don't understand people looking at this from the top a perspective of drink water drink ability so how much water egypt will drink how

much energy will generate it that matters for the millions and millions of people who. don't like it thought an engineer the version of the nile that goes against nature egypt in ethiopia will be a life if the nile is a life the 9 is dead everybody is dead and so you can defy nature i mean if you go to war against nature you lose and so this mitigation which the happening in the u.s. and the world back is involved but i think it's the top of the iceberg for decades where water research in africa has been an energy source has been not taking in a serious way with the world have looked to the scientific research on these fields in africa as a shot at the program i give you an example i work on water exploration on mars it's a fantastic scientific and of it's a scientific and technological end of that any teenager would like to be in now how

many who really would like to study water in africa it's the same water we find it on monster that go on the 1st pages on science and nature and on the newspaper the same malton africa. people do not the not stick to study decision makers and not just have to put resources in that so we each of the problem what every nation in the nile basin it just looking at it's the gain out of those you out of water and act like that other way and all this is backed by a popular misconception that these projects are good for the long term good for the short term the are very good for the investors but i don't think they're good for the night you talk about the war against the nile the trouble is this could end up being a war between nations if it isn't settled of course we heard about water was all the time i mean there were people when they see once they see water was i mean they

they turned the page saying come on we don't leave in the water was we don't care about this but this is a serious one because unlike any water conflict before which was mostly in areas of food and areas of low population with nation that do not have access to to get fire these 2 have access to huge gunfire and these 2 have a massive population of about 200000000 and these 2 also have back to the war with their needs in water and due to the energy and now how these the sions would be able to find peace with their needs and with that is the big question and i don't think i don't think. egypt. should be considering go to anybody should be considering military action science is the resolution we can see

how the deficit and the budget the g.o.p. . has can be met with a tentative source of energy we can see the deficit and budget water have egypt has how it can be met with him with the renewable resources both can invest in the sustainable and the new world energy and water and can do joint programs on that and that's what i expect from the united states to be supporting i mean we have a program i mean we can look egypt receive each year one point $4000000000.00 of military. aid wouldn't this be better spent on water research and the same aid that it's your people get would be this better spent in science and environment and then energy it's a nice thought isn't it but the trouble is we live in an age where certain world leaders decide well i don't know how is peace between ignorant people if we

believe that we can give billions of dollars and we have an illiteracy of 50 percent the case for egypt for instance and then this will would bring more peace to the area i think this isn't a vision of peace peace only made is only made with people who have knowledge with people who can make the difference between their enemy and their friends and this only happens when you have a brain you alluded to your area of expertise that is looking for water in space on other planets on mars and so forth how important is that research that you'll doing now going to be as we move on to this into this area of climate change and water scarcity well that's where this background is important because. when we understand how water. originated and evolve and this appeared on place like most we can see the long term effect of climate change so marcus is giving us an open window to

understand the future of our planet people tend to think that they live in isolated islands from climate change and the climate change will not happen and he's not happening does not my deal have something more important but when we study these planets we see that climate does change and it's able to make important changes so that is the importance with exploring water in moscow people might think that we are wasting billions of the expanding this planet which is not true every planet we explore it give us a moment in the history of our planet for instance for mars is the future of the earth venus is the history of the earth the icy moon of jupiter to simulate the ice age the earth has has went through so every one of these bodies tell us something about our planet we learned that water stability on earth it's

a very fragile and once you start to mess with it once you start to think that it's a 2nd there you think you can start to have every verse about changes and it might be too late in the scheme of things mankind has been around for a very limited amount of time in the span of history but in the time that we have been on this planet how have we affected the supply of water how serious is the problem right now the problem fault is is super serious problem. and a bigger part of the problem that many people think there is no problem and basically because people go back to their homes they open the faucet and they find there is water so it is there any many places like in the middle east water is even free so why would i care about something that is free and the seriousness of this issue not only that the quantities of fresh water are getting the share of people of this amount of fresh water is degrading but also the quality of the water

is degrading within the 3 to 50 and with pollution and also the amount is changing a function of environment and climatic changes but of them induced by human part of them and by nature and so fresh water is a threat and what do you say to world leaders as they they look ahead to a future which may involve the water supply being cut off and what can they do about it to stop that happening i think we should for water research in desert nation added areas from a shot at the program to the science and technology and just like finding water on mars we need to support water research program to make them scientifically. well designed and to make them scientifically appealing for the youth so i am calling on all the arab leaders 1st in the region because it's one of the missing the water

the 1st to invest in their universities and to invest in water research there is no a turn at the to this and the 2nd thing i'm calling the ward leaders who look to the arab world and have an influence to the arab world the arab world need the youth of this in this part of the planet they need them to listen to the desire to be educated. they they want they they want it to cation they want the western world to invest in the in the education in in the in the they don't want charity programs and all the warts and all the tension will leave this area people look at that and say oh there it is complex and there is no solution of course there is no solution this is like the brownian motion of god as us because there is no science and because there is no education when you go to any capital in the middle east you

look to the embassies and look to the size of that culture of offices they have you have big game bases and culture offices if it exists in some time in just a room just a room and that embassy you go to europe and you see the same embassies and they have a you don't have a building a separate building which is the cultural office for the top of this embassy and so we also have brains and we also want to be treated as humans not as warriors and as a fight those. one final question if you could spin for 100 years do you think that the novel will be anything other than just a trickle this interview east part of what could happen if no solution is found the the world does not get involved with in this humanitarian crisis this is could generate one of the biggest and within the crisis we know the problem is that you have decision makers who do not believe in any of the what the just said to me they

don't believe inviting to an issue water is an issue they don't believe in any of these things when the people we can't you can't be a president of a country that have such a for ecosystem such environment system and not to believe in environment you can be in a country like it when it's rain variability is impacted by climate change and not to believe in it and climatic issues so that's what we need to change as it has been fascinating talking to you thank you very much thank you very much for. joining me maddy up front as i put from the questions to my special guests and challenge them to some straight talking political debate here on al-jazeera.

who'll. the on

the old. time's up 1st and leaves the european union off the 47 years. this is the bit with the door breaks and the bill goes on on the u.s. great national. committee al this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up america will remember this day unfortunately where the senate did not live up to.