The Dark Ages

With the focus on the Middle East in recent years, another part of the world seems to be sinking ever deeper into self-neglect:

The lights have gone out, literally. Over half a century of poor maintenance and neglect, the power grid of the Central African Republic has collapsed. The capital has gone dark. Two nearby hydroelectric power stations, which provide most of the nation's electricity, have failed from years of neglect. The government is calling on foreign aid donors to fly in generators for hospitals and other essential services. Generators that have been brought in previously have not been maintained, and wear out quickly. This is not an exceptional event, for colonial era infrastructure, from roads to power plants, are collapsing from decades of post-independence neglect. This causes more unrest, as factions battle for a dwindling supply of resources.

If the next battlefield in the ongoing War on Terror is to be fought in Africa, I suppose the good news will be that the bad guys will be pretty much reduced to the Stone Age, so we won't have to do it for them.