Any pan-European entity is likely to confirm Britain's position as the continent's main builder of military aircraft.
Sceptics have questioned South Africa's ability to host the continent's first-ever football World Cup.
The country will join the European Union in July, marking the end of more than ten years of campaigning to enter the region's single market and join the continent's elite club.
Very much Africa's superpower, South Africa has the continent's biggest economy, though this went into recession in May 2009 following a sharp slowdown in the mining and manufacturing sectors.
Mr Briedis, however, begins by noting that when French geographers recently plotted the mid-point between Europe's cartographical extremes, they found the continent's true centre was a derelict farmhouse just outside the city.
The crisis has turned Kenya from one of Africa's most stable and prosperous nations into the continent's latest crisis.
As has now become custom with the Tunisian champions, the coach has paid the price for the club's failure to reach the final of the continent's top club competition.
Even as France faces stiff new competition from China, the U.S. and Germany to capitalize on the continent's vast economic potential, the country remains uniquely positioned to respond to Africa's security crises.
Increasing Africa's slice would be a useful boost to the continent's international trade.
But, like Liberia's new president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the continent's first female elected as head of state, women are determined to make a gender difference in the way they do business.
Nigeria is sub-Saharan Africa's second-biggest economy after South Africa's and the world's eighth-largest oil exporter, yet the continent's most populous country (with 140m-plus citizens) has yet to fulfil its economic potential.
Although Asia's big banks may be shunning New York, the continent's technology companies keep coming.
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He even dabbled in international politics, questioning whether Turkey's bid to join the European Union might obscure the Continent's Christian heritage.
But thanks to creeping taxes and additional business regulations, Britain's growth rate in recent years has sagged to the Continent's levels, prompting Prime Minister Tony Blair, with an eye to next year's election, to promise regulatory relief.
The winner of Monday's award was decided by votes from national coaches of the continent's 53 countries affiliated to the Confederation of African Football (Caf).
Many of Europe's leading industrialists laid out an array of problems facing the continent's manufacturers, from more expensive energy compared with US competitors to the lack of financing, especially in countries such as Italy and Spain for small companies.
Sunday's vote was seen as a referendum on the survival of the continent's common currency.
But the country's campaign to win the AU leadership role created sharp differences among the continent's top leaders.
Tuesday's vote is only the latest evidence of how a crisis-hit continent's appetite for climate change policies appears to have faded in recent months.
It is the world's second-largest cocoa producer, after Ivory Coast, and the continent's second biggest gold miner, after South Africa, according to the United Nations.
It claims the growth of Africa's population, expansion of the middle class and rising optimism about the continent's future will play a crucial role in the development of its retail industry.
By contrast, it took Nigeria -- Africa's most populous country -- another three decades to establish itself among the continent's top national sides.
The world's second-largest cocoa producer after neighboring Ivory Coast, it is also the continent's biggest gold miner after South Africa, according to the United Nations.
Though the south's vote for independence will raise the hopes of separatists elsewhere in Africa, the continent's leaders - and the West - have resisted efforts to redraw boundaries, fearing the potential for large-scale conflict.
Europe's firms and workers are too cosseted, they argue, and as a result the continent's economies are unable to pull their weight in the world economy.
Largely because of the political difficulties, the chances are that Europe's chronic unemployment will drift on for some time, further damaging the lives of the continent's least fortunate citizens.
This year's Caf African Footballer of the Year has been will be chosen by the national coaches of the continent's 52 member associations.
Africa's governments have recognised their responsibility to put in place the policies and investments which will enable the continent's farmers, big and small, to provide the food needed.
And while townships like Khayelitsha and Gugulethu remain a stark testament to the lasting impact of institutionalized inequality, Cape Town's distinct amalgam of Africans, Afrikaaners, Anglophones and Cape Malays has produced what may be the continent's most vibrant ethnic melting pot.
It took several years for the virus to break out of Congo's dense and sparsely populated jungles but, once it did, it marched with rebel armies through the continent's numerous war zones, rode with truckers from one rest-stop brothel to the next, and eventually flew, perhaps with an air steward, to America, where it was discovered in the early 1980s.
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