Saturday, May 03, 2008

Leaders agree plan to save Niger

Nine West African countries have agreed an $8bn, 20-year plan to save Africa's third-largest river, the Niger.

The programme, which aims to prevent the river silting up completely, was approved at a meeting in Niamey, Niger.

Since the 1980s, there has been a 55% fall in the river's flow, due mainly to climate change, industrial waste and problems caused by population growth.

The meeting was told fish stocks had declined and that navigation for river vessels was increasingly difficult.

The 4,200km (2,600-mile) long Niger is Africa's third longest river, after the Nile and the Congo, and 110m people live in the river's basin.

In a related story, Jeremiah Wright, retired Pastor and confidant to American Presidential candidate Barack Obama, called for an immediate boycott and condemnation of BBC News for offering so "Blatantly racist a headline that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the left-brained Euro-Centric hatred of all things Afro-Centric, no matter who the person of color was that was in need of saving."

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