Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

Filling of Grand Renaissance Dam on the Nile complete

Summary: The Ethiopian government has announced the completion of the years-long process of filling its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is on the Nile and has sparked all sorts of diplomatic issues between Ethiopia and its downstream neighbors, Egypt and Sudan.

Context: This should, ostensibly at least, be good news, as now that the dam is filled, Ethiopia won’t need to truncate the flow of water on the Nile in order to fill it, which has been a significant source of outrage for the governments of Sudan and Egypt; that said, the Egyptian foreign ministry has condemned the final filling of the dam as illegal, and has said that this could weigh on negotiations between the three countries about Nile water management which were suspended in 2021, but which picked back up last month; the dam should be capable of generating more than 5,000 megawatts of electricity, which would more than double Ethiopia’s existing, total electricity production—only half of the country’s 120 million people currently have access to electricity, and this could go a long way toward providing energy for more of their population.

—Al Jazeera

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Flooding in Libya leaves 5,000 people feared dead and more missing after storm collapsed dams

Summary: A Mediterranean storm has triggered floods across Libya, breaking dams which then amplified the floods, leading to the complete destruction of entire neighborhoods in several costal towns; as many as 5,000 people may be dead according to a government representative, and ten thousand more are still missing.

Context: Libya is in the midst of an ongoing crisis that has left it without a central government since 2011, and that, in turn, has meant little investment in upkeep for public services and infrastructure; the country is currently split between rival eastern and western governments, each with their own collection of militia enforcers, and this long-term conflict and governance disarray, combined with a lack of maintenance, has contributed to the severity of these floods.

—The Associated Press

The antitrust trial against Google Search starts today

Summary: A major court case that pits the US Department of Justice against Google began yesterday, kicking-off a 10-week throwdown between a Justice Department that’s been fairly hands-off with the tech industry for decades and a search provider that’s become one of the biggest and most influential companies in the world.

Context: The big argument from the Justice Department is that Google, by paying big bucks to make itself the default search engine on most browsers and devices, has created an illegal monopoly and should therefore maybe be broken up or otherwise punished; Google, for its part, argues that it maintains a 90% share of the general search market because it’s just better than its opposition, and folks who want to change their default search engine can do so with just a few clicks; there are more specifics being worked through, but that’s the core argument, and this case is being compared to the 1990s case against Microsoft which ultimately, and maybe even somewhat ironically, led to a settlement that allowed the Google Chrome browser to step onto the scene and become dominant.

—The Verge

Germany—usually one of the most potent economies in the world—has been struggling compared to other wealthy nations in recent years, with business activity numbers flagging, manufacturing (usually it’s main thing) numbers stalling from 2018, onward, and its exports to China plateauing or dropping since around the same time.

—The Wall Street Journal

2,862

Number of people confirmed killed by the recent earthquake in Morocco, as of Monday; that number is expected to grow in the coming days.

At least 2,562 people have been injured, according to the most recent numbers released by the country’s Interior Ministry, and though emergency crews have been working hard across the afflicted region, Morocco’s government has reportedly been hesitant to accept outside aid, which may be slowing rescue efforts in some areas.

—The New York Times

Trust Click

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