What is happening in Europe and Africa, and the people and culture thereof?

You would have to tell the average ex-colonist where Morocco is as geography outside the country is a no-no.

Portugal Dominated Angola for Centuries. Now the Roles Are Reversed.

LISBON -- How the roles have reversed: The colonizer, some Portuguese contend, has been colonized.
On the Portuguese coast of Cascais, where the nation's royal court used to summer, a new 14-story condominium building looms confidently by the sea. So many of its apartments have been bought by Angola's ruling class -- sometimes a handful at a time -- that the development has a nickname: the "Angolans' building."
Along the grandest shopping boulevard in the capital, Lisbon, Angola's elite buy designer suits and handbags by the armful. And on one corner, above Louis Vuitton, sits the local office of Africa's richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, a billionaire from Angola who has become one of Portugal's most powerful figures by buying large chunks of the country's banking, media and energy industries.
The money flowing into Portugal comes from the colony it dominated, often brutally, for hundreds of years, Angola. Now, the African nation is a major oil producer that has been led for the last 38 years by Ms. dos Santos's father, President José Eduardo dos Santos.
Angola's ruling class has profited so much during his tenure -- and channeled so much of that money into Portugal -- that when Angola threatened to cut off ties in recent years in response to reports that Angolan officials were being investigated for corruption in Portugal, Portugal's foreign minister promptly apologized, setting off an intercontinental debate about the changing power dynamics between the nations.

It seems Neto dos Santos and his kleptomaniac klan has fallen in disgrace, Being substituted by whom'? His Vice of course.

Portugal remais silent, as well as the rest of the world.  So much oil to profit from there.

Hey maybe if Angola can have a Head of State that long maybe Portugal should get it's king back........

New elections in Zimbabwe, this time without Mugabe, only his comrade-in-arms.

Zimbabwe election: tensions rise amid vote rigging fears 

Zimbabwe election: tensions rise amid vote rigging fears

Will Putin rig the election in Zimbabwe too? 

What propaganda mind swallowing is that comment about Putin. The US is world champion on interference.

Peace might break out in South Sudan. Then again, it might not.

What are the prospects for South Sudan's new peace agreement? Here are the critical next steps.

What propaganda mind swallowing is that comment about Putin. The US is world champion on interference.

He was being sarcastic.

The visitors to read the content of this genus have not fully make up for the lack of explanation as to take part in.

Armistice day. It has been a wild century.

Nobody cares...

Hardly anyone, rather. The three wars, First and Second World Wars, and the Cold War, ended empires and colonies.

Started with the US a great colonial power, ended with it the hegemon. It started with China an Afghanistan, ended with it a great power. The fall, rise and fall of the Russian Empire.

The First World War gave us the Spanish Flu and modernity, at a non-negligible cost. We got Communism, Fascism, and Libertarianism. We got peace in Europe and strife in North Africa and the Middle East.

Things probably happened in Portugal too.

Things in Portugal are beyond your capacity of comprehension,

I'd never suggest otherwise.

Likewise the EU is taking over the G5 Sahel as a European issue will have long term consequences. 

What does the coup mean for Mali's spiralling security crisis?

In the weeks leading up to the coup, tens of thousands of opposition supporters had taken to the streets to protest against a disputed parliamentary election, persistent economic woes and a spiralling security crisis that erupted in 2012, when a previous coup allowed northern Tuareg separatists, allied with an al-Qaeda offshoot, to take advantage of the political instability and briefly seize large swaths of land in the north.

That loss of territory precipitated the currently devolving situation, with armed groups linked to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda capitalising on intercommunal tensions as they jockey for control of Mali's semi-arid centre.

But along with the hope of the social and political reforms demanded during the mass anti-Keita protests, the reality of the continuing conflicts in the country's vast north and central regions remains. And while the coup has cast into uncertainty Mali's political future, it has also raised fears the effects of the upheaval could further spill beyond the country's borders and threaten the wider region.

...as an Amer-ee-can, I'm expected to be a little slow on the uptake, no?
Thank for all the info, jax. I agree the area and its united front organization is important and worthwhile. Which makes the latest coup in Mali problematical...
(Imagine Algeria opposing the organization! The country that taught France its hard-won expertise in COIN... )

Even this old paleoconservative is glad that the U.S. overcame its reticence, to offer funding. A good use of "foreign aid" and certainly better than any U.S. military involvement!
Thanks to Google Translate, I read the French article... Is it just me, or just French, or has Google Translate really got better? (Serious question, folks!)

Thanks to Google Translate, I read the French article... Is it just me, or just French, or has Google Translate really got better? (Serious question, folks!)

It has greatly improved, but you should go to DeepL for even better machine translation.

...as an Amer-ee-can, I'm expected to be a little slow on the uptake, no?
Thank for all the info, jax. I agree the area and its united front organization is important and worthwhile. Which makes the latest coup in Mali problematical...

To me Sahel looks set to be the Central Asia of the twenty-twenties (and if unlucky, as likely as not, the twenty-thirties as well). Everyone has to be there, nobody knows why, nor how to get out of there. But much like Afghanistan back in the good old days, looking the other way, and forgetting about it, will lead to more trouble in the long run.

I don't know how long the US will have the stamina to continue the War on Terror, but Sahel is the happening place to be, and it is going to be worse before it gets better. It is also likely to export trouble to coastal West Africa, which would worry the EU, particularly as one of the goals is to stem immigration.

If the US goal instead is to counter China, this G5 is not the place to be. China has for natural geographical reasons more interests in East Africa, particularly with the Belt and Road Initiative.

Among UNDP's 189 countries on the Human Development Index (2018), non-landlocked Mauritania is ranked 162, Burkina Faso 182, Mali 184, Chad 187, and Niger 189.

I don't know how long the US will have the stamina to continue the War on Terror

Or the requisite understanding...
For your consideration: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/fighting-terrorism-focus-on-extremists-radicalizing-next-generation/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-09-03&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart

Not surprised at a coup. The African Continent is a groan and much is a farce.

Now, now, Howie! Don't over-complicate things. Keep your analysis clear and to the point!

The cables that link up Europe and Africa are very limited at the moment. 

The power cables between Spain and Morocco are expected to nearly double to 1500 MW. The Malta-Sicily interconnector is at a mere 200 MW (supplying power to Malta), and there is no Malta-Tunisia cable. 

The biggest project under construction is EuroAfrica, a HVDC connecting Egypt with Cyprus then Crete (then eventually the Greek mainland).

EuroAfrica at a glance

The EuroAfrica Interconnector is the official project developer of the 2,000MW electricity interconnector between Egypt, Cyprus, Greece and Europe. The EuroAfrica Interconnector is an "electricity highway" connecting the national electricity grids of Egypt, Cyprus and Greece through a 1396 km subsea HVDC cable.

Shows how much you don't know about the mess of a place Africa is on progress Oakdale. As so much of you place is in a groan of a state can understand how you can be head banged!