[LINK] Three Looks at the Future

[rfmcdonald]

As if in response to my pessimistic posting on Montenegrin independence of earlier this month, optimussven reports that independent Montenegro will be primed for a tourism-driven economic boom.

Examining the South Pacific, Jonathan Edelstein notes that the autonomous island-state of Niue, closely associated with New Zealand and accordingly experiencing massive emigration, is trying to boost its population by recruiting Tuvaluans. Do the Tuvaluans refuse to stay any longer than is necessary to acquire the right to migrate to New Zealand? Some Niueans want to create a second-class citizenship that will force them to stay.

Stefan Theil, writing for Newsweek's international edition, observes that the combinatino of low fertility rates and the uneconomic nature of marginal farming is contributing to the revival of Europe's wilderness. This has numerous ecological and human ramifications, but the concentration of Europe's aging population in urban areas is a remarkable transformation for a continent that, even a century ago, was mostly rural.