Waters of the Nile
Aa, the same, the results of the Israeli election strike a mildly encouraging note and so does the news from next door. To reach agreement on the division of the Nile waters it seems that the Sudan dropped her demand for a conference that would include the other two riparian territories, Uganda and Ethiopia, and that at the ensuing bilateral con- ference Egypt, in return for not having been put in a minority, allowed the Sudan a very much greater share in the river's discharge than she had been prepared to offer a couple of years ago. Professional (and discreet) diplomacy has triumphed—and in the nick of time, for work on Egypt's Aswan High Dam is due to begin next month, and needs agreement on compensation for the flooding of Sudanese territory, while assistance front the World Bank for Sudan's Blue Nile Dam would not have been forthcoming until agreement had been reached. No doubt these con- siderations facilitated diplomacy, but so much
good sense has been shown, after so much lack of it, that it seems unlikely now that the two con- tracting powers will treat Uganda and Ethiopia inconsiderately.
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