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The Dead Sea is 'dying'

Mon Apr 17, 1:59 PM ET

EIN GEDI, Israel (AFP) - The Dead Sea is dying, with the world's saltiest water body threatened by a lack of fresh water and an increasingly tense political situation, environmentalists have warned.

he bare, sun-baked landscape around the Dead Sea -- the lowest point on earth which is bordered by
Israel, Jordan and the
West Bank -- has since Biblical times been fed by the Jordan river's fresh water.

But that has been systematically diverted for agricultural and hydroelectric projects, while an evaporation basin for farming world-famous Dead Sea minerals has lowered the water level by one metre (three feet) a year for the past two decades.

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