The Dead Sea is sinking

Human activity is drying up the briny lake LIVING waters will go from Jerusalem... Its water will be healed and made fresh.

Jordan ministers quit over water contamination

Water contamination led to the resignation of two ministers in Jordan following pressure from media and opposition parties. Jordan's water minister Mohammad al-Alem and health minister Saad Kharabsheh resigned on July 29 after being held responsible for hundreds falling ill with diarrhoea and high fever earlier in the month in Mansheyet Bani Hassan village, 70 km from the capital Amman.

New lease of life

The Dead Sea could end up living up to its name in less than 50 years. The saltiest water body in the world may cease to exist if its surface level continues to recede at the present rate of one metre every year. In order to arrest this trend, Jordan has sought to revive cooperation with Israel on a project that would boost the receding water level of the sea.

The colour of trade

us president George W Bush's position on a recent trade agreement with Jordan sends mixed signals on the issue of whether his administration will enforce the use of labour and environmental safeguards in trade relations. The us-Jordan Free Trade Agreement (fta) was negotiated in October 2000.

Foot in mouth

following an outbreak of the foot-and-mouth (fmd) disease and the authorities' incapability to handle the situation, the Indian meat exports have declined dramatically -- from 30,000 tonnes per month in February 2001 to less than 15,000 tonnes in March 2001, according to trade sources. Among other reasons, the 50 per cent decline is attributed to a ban on Indian meat by Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

For a few drops

in the recent months, water has become a major bone of contention between Israel and Jordan. Recently, a ceremony to inaugurate a peace park on the border between the two countries was cancelled because Jordan insisted that Israel should fulfil its commitment, under the 1994 Jordan-Israel peace treaty, to supply a certain amount of water each year. Most of the water from the river Yarmuk and its tributaries is controlled by Israel.

Lord of the skies

The largest flying creature ever- a pterosaur called Arambourgiania philadelphiae that lived some 65 million years ago -has been identified by British and German palaeontologists as the owner of an elongated neck bone which was found in Jordan in 1943. The pterosaur had a wingspan of 12 metres. Wrongly identified as a wing bone in 1954 by the French palaeontologist Camille Arambourg, the bone is 62 cm long, but is incomplete; its full length would have been some 77 cm, making it significantly larger than any other known pterosaur neck bones (New Scientist, Vo1150, No 2029).

River jordan on the other side

Although a great deal of hype surrounds the Israel-Jordan peace treaty signed in mid-October envisaging cooperation in many areas, adequate water supply still seems a distant mirage for Jordan. With fast dwindling underground water resources and stringent water rationing, the only straws which Jordan can clutch at is, Israel's commitment to divert 50 million cubic water annually to Jordan.

Water squabbles

CLOSE on the heels of the bitter land wars in the West Asia comes the bitter conflict over water. Israel and the West Bank Palestinians are at odds over scarce water; its Arab neighbours - Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria all contend that they have considerable legal rights to the water now controlled by Israel; Jordan and Syria accuse each other of stealing from a border river; and Turkey is under fire for hijacking water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Water occupation is even more precious than land in