THE DATE FOR THIS EVENT HAS CHANGED TO WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 29TH, 2006.

The Global Media Research Center is proud to announce that Professor Hussein Amery of the Colorado School of Mines will make a presentation entitled "Media in the Politics of Water Development". The presentation will take place on Thursday, November 29th, 2006 from 4:30-6:30 in Communications 1032.

The Hasbani River of Lebanon is one of the tributaries to the transboundary Jordan River. Lebanon initiated a water extraction project from the Wazzani spring which meets the Hasbani a short distance before the latter enters Israel. The first phase of the project was installed in March 2001 and was expanded in the summer of 2002. The latest $3.5-million project entails pumping 10,000 cubic meters (cu.m.) of water per day from the spring and conveying it to a reservoir near the village of Taibe, 10 kilometers to the west of Wazzani. The project will supply drinking water to some 60 border villages which are being repopulated and rebuilt after having been militarily occupied by Israel for 22 years. Despite its small scale, this project has triggered much fury in the media and in political circles in Israel, and hence this controversy has drawn much international media coverage. The war of words has become so inflammatory that the United States, France and the U.N., including the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, have stepped in to mediate. Dr. AmeryÔøΩ presentation outlines the Wazzani projectÔøΩs historical and hydrological contexts, and critically analyzes how this controversy has been covered in the print media in both Lebanon and Israel.

Hussein A. Amery is an Associate Professor at Colorado School of Mines - Golden, Colorado, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on political economy of the Middle East, global hydropolitics, geopolitics, geography of the Middle East, and war and peace in the Middle East. Dr. Amery has written about water management and politics in the Middle East, and in Lebanon. He published a book titled Water in the Middle East: A Geography of Peace (2000 -- with A.T. Wolf; University of Texas Press) and has also published articles or chapters on Islam and the Environment, the role of dams in LebanonÔøΩs water management, Islamic water management, and the looming threat of water wars in the Middle East. Additionally, Dr. Amery is an Associate Editor of the Arab World Geographer, and the Director (2004-2006) of the Asian Geography Specialty Group within the Association of American Geographers (AAG).

This is a free event and all are welcome. For more information, please contact Laura Germann at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 618-453-6876.

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