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Soriek  6mo ago (text post)   967 thread views

Transnational Thursdays 24

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Germany

Germany has been taking a little tour of Africa and boosting relationships. President Steinmeier recently visited Tanzania where he committed to openly discussing Germany’s colonial crimes against Tanzania in hopes of boosting diplomatic relations, including meeting with victims of the repression of the Maji Maji rebellion (estimated 200k-300k death toll).

Chancellor Scholz also made visits to Ghana and Nigeria, where he proposed Germany buying more natural gas from Nigeria. This is partially a continuation of several years of Germany deepening energy times with Africa, including importing more from Algeria and offering to help Senegal develop off shore gas fields. However, onlookers are wondering if the present push is also a result of the slow moving fallout of shuttering Germany’s nuclear power supply, which has made securing a steady electric supply a larger concern for “energy hungry Germany” than normal. If so, turning to Nigeria isn’t necessarily a great sign here as they’ve had recent difficulties keeping their own power grid running, but hey, they just cut off power to Niger so I guess they got extra for sale.

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