Prior to Wetpaint, Elowitz co-founded Blue Nile (NILE).
BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, declared, "This agreement unlocks a new phase in realizing the huge potential of the Nile Delta basin".
Fine suggests a number of reasons that the Athenians may have been willing to engage themselves in Egypt, despite the ongoing war elsewhere; the opportunity to weaken Persia, the desire for a naval base in Egypt, the access to the Nile's huge grain supply, and from the viewpoint of the Ionian allies, the chance to restore profitable trading links with Egypt.
The city faces the river with a fine riverside promenade, lots of ferries and pleasure boat traffic, huge hotels facing the Nile, and a market comprised of a single long street-its first half completely touristy and its distant half as local as can be.
More recently, we took a cruise down the Nile with a huge gathering of family and friends, a weeklong trip that I would later write about for this newspaper and that would provide a memorable introduction to our new home.
The Nile perch, a huge exotic fish that was introduced there in a misbegotten experiment in the nineteen-sixties, has become a predator that has eliminated more than two hundred other species, and has turned a mixed economy that flourished around the lake into a voracious mono-economy.
Yet, according to the World Bank, it has provided a bulwark against flooding for buildings and crops, a huge expansion of farming and Nile navigation (lots of tourism) and enough electricity for the whole of Egypt all of which amounts to the equivalent each year of 2% of GDP in net benefits.So would the World Bank today lend money for an Aswan dam if it did not already exist?
"My big concern is that West Nile virus is killing huge numbers of birds, and the numbers are going to leap," he said.
The anchor projects in this move beyond the Nile valley are the two huge agro-industrial irrigation schemes: the Al-Salam canal in the north-east and the Toshka canal in the far south.The Al-Salam canal, which will feed Nile water into the Sinai peninsula, is the more advanced of the two schemes: reclamation of 420,000 acres should begin next year.
With substantial oil reserves, huge amounts of arable land and the Nile flowing through its center, South Sudan could grow into a prosperous, self-sustaining nation capable of providing security, services and employment for its population.
