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Electric Scotland News
MyHeritage
During the month of May 2023, MyHeritage added 46 million records from 30 collections around the world, with records from Belgium, Canada, Finland, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. The collections include birth, marriage, divorce, death, military, naturalization, and student records.
You can find a full list of the newly added collections and some sample records from them in their blog post at:
https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/06/...d-in-may-2023/
---------
Works of D. C. Beard page
I added this page a number of years ago to our Pioneering section on the Electric Canadian site. My thinking was as there were so many stories about Pioneering on there and also the many bush craft channels on YouTube that his many books would be of interest to you.
Well recently I've been seeing many more channels on YouTube about building your own home that I thought it would be worth adding a few more books to cover this aspect of things so below you'll see the ones I've added this week to that page in our Electric Canadian section.
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time. Here is what caught my eye this week...
Britain is not the sick man of Europe that accolade goes to Germany
To survive in a modern, digital world, the German economy requires not a green transition but a full-scale revolution.
Read more at:
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment...lfgang-munchau
Planet Holyrood
The panel discuss the collapse of the deposit return scheme and ask Is devolution broken?
You can view this at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHK96sJKPtI
A great deal for Britain
Some things social media forgot to tell you about the UK-Australia trade deal
Read more at:
https://thecritic.co.uk/a-great-deal-for-britain
More than 18,000 people died in Scotland last year while on NHS waiting lists
MORE than 18,000 people died in Scotland last year while on NHS waiting lists, MSPs were told today.
Read more at:
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/new...waiting-lists/
Minimum pricing has no impact on worst problem drinkers
SNP ministers effectively banned cheap alcohol, promising the policy would slash deaths, hospital admissions and worklessness among the heaviest consumers. But five years on, a fresh study suggests they got it wrong.
Read more at:
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/minimum-pricing/
Joining the CPTPP delivers a UK pivot towards the Asian-Pacific powerhouse
IGNORE the usual suspects, the fact is Brexit Britain joining CPTPP is a fantastic long term opportunity, representing a globally significant event. It makes re-joining the EU single market simultaneously less likely and less desirable economically.
Read more at:
https://thinkscotland.org/2023/04/jo...ic-powerhouse/
Rise in out-of-work Scots not seeking jobs
The number of Scots out of the labour market and not seeking jobs has increased, according to the latest official figures. The rate was up to 22.9% for Scotland and down to 21% for the UK as a whole between February and April.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...iness-65887277
Did climate change cause Canada's wildfires?
Isabella Kaminski digs into the science on the role climate change and other factors play in wildfires.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...adas-wildfires
How a UK hydrogen car industry could cut fuel costs and carbon emissions
British car company Jaguar Land Rover’s owner, the Indian conglomerate Tata, is expected to finalise a deal soon to build a multi-billion pound electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in the UK
Read more at:
https://theconversation.com/how-a-uk...issions-201815
Prince William chats to Michael Gove and Keir Starmer as he prepares to launch new project
Prince William is preparing to launch a new project in the coming weeks, around the time of his 41st birthday.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal...s-michael-gove
Electric Canadian
Selkirk Spirit Dancers
Pelly Crossing, Yukon video which you can watch at:
https://www.canadashistory.ca/youth/...017/keyshawn-s
King's Series in Woodwork and Carpentry
Added this popular series of 5 books to our Works of D. C. Beard page.
You can view these at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...eard/index.htm
Practical Mechanics for Boys
In language which every boy can understand, and so arranged that he may readily carry out any work from the instructions given, with many original illustrations by James Slough Zerbe (1914) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...hani00zerb.pdf
Electricity for Boys
A working guide, in the successive steps of electricity, described in simple terms with many original illustrations by J. S. Zerbe, M.E. (1914) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...y_for_Boys.pdf
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 11th day of June 2023 - Spirituality
By the Rev. Nola Crewe
You can view this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...3-spirituality
A practical farm root cellar
by Dept. of Agriculture, Canada (1940) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...mroo00cana.pdf
Carpentry for Boys
In simple language, including chapters on drawing, laying out work, designing and architecture with 250 Original Illustrations by J. S. Zerbe, M.E. (1914) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...boys00zerb.pdf
Electric Scotland
Scottish Society of Louisville
Got in their June 2023 newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...ille/index.htm
Statistical observations on the Health of the labouring population of the district of Kelso, in two decennial periods, from 1777 to 1787 and from 1829 to 1839.
By Charles Wilson, M.D., Corresponding Member of the Medical Society of London, &c., Surgeon to the Kelso Dispensary.
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/agriculture/kelso.pdf
On Home-Brewing and the theory of Fermentation
By Mr Towers, C.M.H.S.
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/agricul...rmentation.pdf
On the Culture of the Onion, the Leek, and the Early Potato
By Mr. Towers, Author of the Domestic Gardener’s Manual (pdf)
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/agriculture/leeks.pdf
Diary of a Western Schoolmaster
By J K Stableton (1900) (pdf)
An interesting read and thought provoking which you get to at:
https://electricscotland.com/educati...00stabuoft.pdf
Margaret Calderwood
Diarist, was a daughter of Sir James Steuart of Coltness, bart., and sometime solicitor-general for Scotland. A keen observer of men and things, and her remarks are shrewd and pointed, while her writings have additional value as preserving the Scottish words and idioms prevalent in her time in educated society.
You can read more about here and read her book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...d-margaret.htm
Memorials of Rev. Carstairs Douglas, M.A., LLD.
Missionary of the Presbyterian Church of England at Amoy, China (1877) (pdf) See also his Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy (1899) (pdf)
You can learn about him and also read his dictionary at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...rs-douglas.pdf
Arnot, Frederick Stanley
Missionary and Explorer in Central Africa.
You can learn about him and his work at:
https://electricscotland.com/history..._frederick.htm
Bailie Nicol Jarvie's Journey to Aberfoil
To which are added, St. Patrickwas a Gentleman and The Auld Sark Sleeve (1829)
Learn more at:
https://electricscotland.com/poetry/...col-Jarvie.htm
Catalogue of a Collection of old Wedgwood belonging to Arthur Sanderson, Esq.
Arranged for Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Art, Chambers Street, Edinburgh in 1901 (pdf)
You can study this at:
https://electricscotland.com/art/cat...olle00sand.pdf
Scottish Society of Indianapolis
Got in their May/June 2023 newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...olis/index.htm
A Series of Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings
By the late John Kay, Miniature painter, Edinburgh with biographical sketches and illustrative anecdotes in 4 parts (1838) Edited by Hugh Paton
Lot of good reading in these volumes which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/art/johnkay.htm
Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland
Agriculture of Orkney
By Robert Smith, Binscarth, Finatown, Orkney, and Gordon Watt, B Sc., County Organiser for Orkney, North of Scotland College of Agriculture, Aberdeen (1939) (pdf)
You can read this report at:
https://electricscotland.com/agricul...griculture.pdf
Story
Europe’s focus is on Ukraine and the east
but relations with Africa are as important
By Jeremy Cliffe
By 2050 two in every five children in the world are projected to born in Africa. It is the continent of the future.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Europe has been looking east. Attention has turned not only to the support of Kyiv but to other previously neglected neighbours in the region.
Instability in the western Balkans, the geopolitical trajectory of the Caucasus, and the future of Turkey: these have all risen up the agenda in London, Paris, Berlin and Warsaw. One manifestation is the European Political Community (EPC), a forum for strategic dialogue championed by Emmanuel Macron and launched at a summit in Prague in October 2022. The EPC is made up of every state on the continent (including Britain) apart from the twin pariahs of Russia and Belarus, and stretches as far east as Azerbaijan. It gathers for its second meeting on 1 June in Moldova, another eastern country increasingly accorded European prominence.
And rightly so. For too long, the non-EU states to the east and south-east have been overlooked despite their vital importance to the continent’s wider interests. Meanwhile China, and in some cases Russia, has been able to build influence in these nations. As I argued in March on these pages, the Union urgently needs to summon the self-confidence and ambition required to accelerate its next enlargement.
Yet it is not enough to look east. What the shock of Russia’s invasion on 24 February 2022 exposed was not just a failure to look in that eastward direction, but a fundamental complacency about Europe’s vulnerability to turmoil from all directions. Britain is far from guiltless, with buccaneering fantasies about a new role as a de facto Indo-Pacific power that are often eclipsed by the hard-nosed reality that it is affected more by events closer to home.
The conflict in Sudan is a reminder of this vulnerability. International headlines have concentrated on the evacuation of foreign nationals, but others have turned to the more disturbing longer-term outlook. “God forbid if Sudan is to reach a point of civil war proper,” the country’s former prime minister Abdalla Hamdok told an audience in Nairobi at the end of April. “Syria, Yemen, Libya will be a small play [in comparison].” Such a prospect means not only humanitarian catastrophe but ripples that will surely break on European shores – whether as a surge in migration, an overspill of the violence, or trade disruption (Port Sudan is a transit point on routes between Asia and Europe).
For years Europe has treated relations with its south as, if anything, an even lower priority than its relations to the east. Its re-engagement with North Africa after the Arab Spring petered out in the grim aftermath of the 2011 military intervention in Libya, and the more gradual failure of pro-democracy movements in states such as Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia. Franco-German military efforts to stabilise Mali are being wound down. The only new European interest in the region has been primarily concerned with securing alternative sources of gas to Russian ones.
In a paper for the European Council on Foreign Relations, Alberto Rizzi and Arturo Varvelli argue that “drawn-out instability and security challenges have led the EU to progressively distance itself from deeper engagement with the challenge of democratisation in the region and it has remained muted on promoting intra-regional cooperation and engagement”. They note that the Union’s Global Gateway investment programme – an attempt to match China’s network of “Belt and Road” infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa and Latin America – envisages North Africa merely “as the endpoint of corridors for manufacturing and critical raw materials in Africa rather than as a nearshoring destination to be directly integrated within EU supply chains”. The EPC is another example: it is focused on the continent’s east and beyond, with little to offer neighbours to the south.
The European establishment appears to see the Mediterranean less as a common space with a shared future, than a mere membrane across which can flow migrants and security threats (bad) or energy (good). The southern strategy, such as one exists, is largely confined to the management of those flows.
The states on Europe’s southern littoral are savvier than most. Spain’s government has recently normalised and deepened relations with Morocco. Madrid is also expected to make Africa a focus both of its presidency of the EU Council in the second half of this year, and of the third summit of the EPC in October, which it is hosting in Granada – a city symbolic of the continent’s ties with the Arab Muslim world.
That is a welcome start. But it must be just that: the start of something bigger, of a long-term expansion of the energies devoted to Europe’s south and beyond. The next steps might involve opening up the EPC to them (if Azerbaijan can be included, why not Tunisia or Morocco?), upgrading the relationship between the EU and the African Union, and reorienting the Global Gateway investments towards the south.
This matters for the short term – for the management, mitigation and ideally prevention of crises like the one breaking out in Sudan. But it makes even more sense in the long term. Where China’s population has already peaked, Africa’s demographic boom is just beginning. By 2050 two in every five children in the world are projected to born there. It is the continent of the future.
Considering this, Europe’s position on Africa is significant. The focus on the east is right. But Europeans must look south too.
END.
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair
MyHeritage
During the month of May 2023, MyHeritage added 46 million records from 30 collections around the world, with records from Belgium, Canada, Finland, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. The collections include birth, marriage, divorce, death, military, naturalization, and student records.
You can find a full list of the newly added collections and some sample records from them in their blog post at:
https://blog.myheritage.com/2023/06/...d-in-may-2023/
---------
Works of D. C. Beard page
I added this page a number of years ago to our Pioneering section on the Electric Canadian site. My thinking was as there were so many stories about Pioneering on there and also the many bush craft channels on YouTube that his many books would be of interest to you.
Well recently I've been seeing many more channels on YouTube about building your own home that I thought it would be worth adding a few more books to cover this aspect of things so below you'll see the ones I've added this week to that page in our Electric Canadian section.
Scottish News from this weeks newspapers
I am partly doing this to build an archive of modern news from and about Scotland and world news stories that can affect Scotland and as all the newsletters are archived and also indexed on Google and other search engines it becomes a good resource. I might also add that in a number of newspapers you will find many comments which can be just as interesting as the news story itself and of course you can also add your own comments if you wish which I do myself from time to time. Here is what caught my eye this week...
Britain is not the sick man of Europe that accolade goes to Germany
To survive in a modern, digital world, the German economy requires not a green transition but a full-scale revolution.
Read more at:
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment...lfgang-munchau
Planet Holyrood
The panel discuss the collapse of the deposit return scheme and ask Is devolution broken?
You can view this at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHK96sJKPtI
A great deal for Britain
Some things social media forgot to tell you about the UK-Australia trade deal
Read more at:
https://thecritic.co.uk/a-great-deal-for-britain
More than 18,000 people died in Scotland last year while on NHS waiting lists
MORE than 18,000 people died in Scotland last year while on NHS waiting lists, MSPs were told today.
Read more at:
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/new...waiting-lists/
Minimum pricing has no impact on worst problem drinkers
SNP ministers effectively banned cheap alcohol, promising the policy would slash deaths, hospital admissions and worklessness among the heaviest consumers. But five years on, a fresh study suggests they got it wrong.
Read more at:
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/minimum-pricing/
Joining the CPTPP delivers a UK pivot towards the Asian-Pacific powerhouse
IGNORE the usual suspects, the fact is Brexit Britain joining CPTPP is a fantastic long term opportunity, representing a globally significant event. It makes re-joining the EU single market simultaneously less likely and less desirable economically.
Read more at:
https://thinkscotland.org/2023/04/jo...ic-powerhouse/
Rise in out-of-work Scots not seeking jobs
The number of Scots out of the labour market and not seeking jobs has increased, according to the latest official figures. The rate was up to 22.9% for Scotland and down to 21% for the UK as a whole between February and April.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland...iness-65887277
Did climate change cause Canada's wildfires?
Isabella Kaminski digs into the science on the role climate change and other factors play in wildfires.
Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...adas-wildfires
How a UK hydrogen car industry could cut fuel costs and carbon emissions
British car company Jaguar Land Rover’s owner, the Indian conglomerate Tata, is expected to finalise a deal soon to build a multi-billion pound electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in the UK
Read more at:
https://theconversation.com/how-a-uk...issions-201815
Prince William chats to Michael Gove and Keir Starmer as he prepares to launch new project
Prince William is preparing to launch a new project in the coming weeks, around the time of his 41st birthday.
Read more at:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal...s-michael-gove
Electric Canadian
Selkirk Spirit Dancers
Pelly Crossing, Yukon video which you can watch at:
https://www.canadashistory.ca/youth/...017/keyshawn-s
King's Series in Woodwork and Carpentry
Added this popular series of 5 books to our Works of D. C. Beard page.
You can view these at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...eard/index.htm
Practical Mechanics for Boys
In language which every boy can understand, and so arranged that he may readily carry out any work from the instructions given, with many original illustrations by James Slough Zerbe (1914) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...hani00zerb.pdf
Electricity for Boys
A working guide, in the successive steps of electricity, described in simple terms with many original illustrations by J. S. Zerbe, M.E. (1914) (pdf)
You can read this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...y_for_Boys.pdf
Thoughts on a Sunday Morning - the 11th day of June 2023 - Spirituality
By the Rev. Nola Crewe
You can view this at:
http://www.electricscotland.org/foru...3-spirituality
A practical farm root cellar
by Dept. of Agriculture, Canada (1940) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...mroo00cana.pdf
Carpentry for Boys
In simple language, including chapters on drawing, laying out work, designing and architecture with 250 Original Illustrations by J. S. Zerbe, M.E. (1914) (pdf)
You can read this at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...boys00zerb.pdf
Electric Scotland
Scottish Society of Louisville
Got in their June 2023 newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...ille/index.htm
Statistical observations on the Health of the labouring population of the district of Kelso, in two decennial periods, from 1777 to 1787 and from 1829 to 1839.
By Charles Wilson, M.D., Corresponding Member of the Medical Society of London, &c., Surgeon to the Kelso Dispensary.
You can read this at:
https://electricscotland.com/agriculture/kelso.pdf
On Home-Brewing and the theory of Fermentation
By Mr Towers, C.M.H.S.
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/agricul...rmentation.pdf
On the Culture of the Onion, the Leek, and the Early Potato
By Mr. Towers, Author of the Domestic Gardener’s Manual (pdf)
You can read this article at:
https://electricscotland.com/agriculture/leeks.pdf
Diary of a Western Schoolmaster
By J K Stableton (1900) (pdf)
An interesting read and thought provoking which you get to at:
https://electricscotland.com/educati...00stabuoft.pdf
Margaret Calderwood
Diarist, was a daughter of Sir James Steuart of Coltness, bart., and sometime solicitor-general for Scotland. A keen observer of men and things, and her remarks are shrewd and pointed, while her writings have additional value as preserving the Scottish words and idioms prevalent in her time in educated society.
You can read more about here and read her book at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...d-margaret.htm
Memorials of Rev. Carstairs Douglas, M.A., LLD.
Missionary of the Presbyterian Church of England at Amoy, China (1877) (pdf) See also his Chinese-English Dictionary of the Vernacular or Spoken Language of Amoy (1899) (pdf)
You can learn about him and also read his dictionary at:
https://electricscotland.com/history...rs-douglas.pdf
Arnot, Frederick Stanley
Missionary and Explorer in Central Africa.
You can learn about him and his work at:
https://electricscotland.com/history..._frederick.htm
Bailie Nicol Jarvie's Journey to Aberfoil
To which are added, St. Patrickwas a Gentleman and The Auld Sark Sleeve (1829)
Learn more at:
https://electricscotland.com/poetry/...col-Jarvie.htm
Catalogue of a Collection of old Wedgwood belonging to Arthur Sanderson, Esq.
Arranged for Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Art, Chambers Street, Edinburgh in 1901 (pdf)
You can study this at:
https://electricscotland.com/art/cat...olle00sand.pdf
Scottish Society of Indianapolis
Got in their May/June 2023 newsletter which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/familyt...olis/index.htm
A Series of Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings
By the late John Kay, Miniature painter, Edinburgh with biographical sketches and illustrative anecdotes in 4 parts (1838) Edited by Hugh Paton
Lot of good reading in these volumes which you can read at:
https://electricscotland.com/art/johnkay.htm
Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland
Agriculture of Orkney
By Robert Smith, Binscarth, Finatown, Orkney, and Gordon Watt, B Sc., County Organiser for Orkney, North of Scotland College of Agriculture, Aberdeen (1939) (pdf)
You can read this report at:
https://electricscotland.com/agricul...griculture.pdf
Story
Europe’s focus is on Ukraine and the east
but relations with Africa are as important
By Jeremy Cliffe
By 2050 two in every five children in the world are projected to born in Africa. It is the continent of the future.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Europe has been looking east. Attention has turned not only to the support of Kyiv but to other previously neglected neighbours in the region.
Instability in the western Balkans, the geopolitical trajectory of the Caucasus, and the future of Turkey: these have all risen up the agenda in London, Paris, Berlin and Warsaw. One manifestation is the European Political Community (EPC), a forum for strategic dialogue championed by Emmanuel Macron and launched at a summit in Prague in October 2022. The EPC is made up of every state on the continent (including Britain) apart from the twin pariahs of Russia and Belarus, and stretches as far east as Azerbaijan. It gathers for its second meeting on 1 June in Moldova, another eastern country increasingly accorded European prominence.
And rightly so. For too long, the non-EU states to the east and south-east have been overlooked despite their vital importance to the continent’s wider interests. Meanwhile China, and in some cases Russia, has been able to build influence in these nations. As I argued in March on these pages, the Union urgently needs to summon the self-confidence and ambition required to accelerate its next enlargement.
Yet it is not enough to look east. What the shock of Russia’s invasion on 24 February 2022 exposed was not just a failure to look in that eastward direction, but a fundamental complacency about Europe’s vulnerability to turmoil from all directions. Britain is far from guiltless, with buccaneering fantasies about a new role as a de facto Indo-Pacific power that are often eclipsed by the hard-nosed reality that it is affected more by events closer to home.
The conflict in Sudan is a reminder of this vulnerability. International headlines have concentrated on the evacuation of foreign nationals, but others have turned to the more disturbing longer-term outlook. “God forbid if Sudan is to reach a point of civil war proper,” the country’s former prime minister Abdalla Hamdok told an audience in Nairobi at the end of April. “Syria, Yemen, Libya will be a small play [in comparison].” Such a prospect means not only humanitarian catastrophe but ripples that will surely break on European shores – whether as a surge in migration, an overspill of the violence, or trade disruption (Port Sudan is a transit point on routes between Asia and Europe).
For years Europe has treated relations with its south as, if anything, an even lower priority than its relations to the east. Its re-engagement with North Africa after the Arab Spring petered out in the grim aftermath of the 2011 military intervention in Libya, and the more gradual failure of pro-democracy movements in states such as Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia. Franco-German military efforts to stabilise Mali are being wound down. The only new European interest in the region has been primarily concerned with securing alternative sources of gas to Russian ones.
In a paper for the European Council on Foreign Relations, Alberto Rizzi and Arturo Varvelli argue that “drawn-out instability and security challenges have led the EU to progressively distance itself from deeper engagement with the challenge of democratisation in the region and it has remained muted on promoting intra-regional cooperation and engagement”. They note that the Union’s Global Gateway investment programme – an attempt to match China’s network of “Belt and Road” infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa and Latin America – envisages North Africa merely “as the endpoint of corridors for manufacturing and critical raw materials in Africa rather than as a nearshoring destination to be directly integrated within EU supply chains”. The EPC is another example: it is focused on the continent’s east and beyond, with little to offer neighbours to the south.
The European establishment appears to see the Mediterranean less as a common space with a shared future, than a mere membrane across which can flow migrants and security threats (bad) or energy (good). The southern strategy, such as one exists, is largely confined to the management of those flows.
The states on Europe’s southern littoral are savvier than most. Spain’s government has recently normalised and deepened relations with Morocco. Madrid is also expected to make Africa a focus both of its presidency of the EU Council in the second half of this year, and of the third summit of the EPC in October, which it is hosting in Granada – a city symbolic of the continent’s ties with the Arab Muslim world.
That is a welcome start. But it must be just that: the start of something bigger, of a long-term expansion of the energies devoted to Europe’s south and beyond. The next steps might involve opening up the EPC to them (if Azerbaijan can be included, why not Tunisia or Morocco?), upgrading the relationship between the EU and the African Union, and reorienting the Global Gateway investments towards the south.
This matters for the short term – for the management, mitigation and ideally prevention of crises like the one breaking out in Sudan. But it makes even more sense in the long term. Where China’s population has already peaked, Africa’s demographic boom is just beginning. By 2050 two in every five children in the world are projected to born there. It is the continent of the future.
Considering this, Europe’s position on Africa is significant. The focus on the east is right. But Europeans must look south too.
END.
Weekend is almost here and hope it's a good one for you.
Alastair