Andrew Watson: The 'most influential' black footballer for decades lost to history

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  By Andrew Aloia BBC Sport Last updated on 11 October 2021 11 October 2021 . From the section Football Watson was a trailblazer who helped transform how football was played There are two murals of black footballers facing one another across an alleyway in Glasgow. One helped shape football as we know it, the other is Pele. Andrew Watson captained Scotland to a 6-1 win over England on his debut in 1881. He was a pioneer, the world's first black international, but for more than a century the significance of his achievements went unrecognised. Research conducted over the past three decades has left us with some biographical details: a man descended of slaves and of those who enslaved them, born in Guyana, raised to become an English gentleman and famed as one of Scottish football's first icons. And yet today, 100 years on from his death aged 64, Watson remains something of an enigma, the picture built around him a fractured one. His grainy, faded, sepia image evokes many differen

Congo Digs In Over Renewal of Billionaire Gertler’s Oil Permits By Bloomberg• 21 June 2021 Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler

 

Democratic Republic of Congo and Dan Gertler are headed for a fight over the Israeli billionaire’s two oil blocks bordering Uganda.

Congo’s oil ministry sent a letter to Gertler’s Oil of DRCongo when the permits expired on June 16 asking for all data and payments related to the project’s 2010 production-sharing agreement.

Gertler’s company still controls the permits because they are under force majeure, a spokesman said by email. “As a result, there is no change to the status of the licenses and Oil of DRCongo has written to the Ministry of Hydrocarbons to confirm this,” he said.

Development of the two blocks on Lake Albert has been complicated by U.S. sanctions against Gertler for alleged corruption in his mining and oil deals in Congo. Gertler denies all wrongdoing and has never been charged.

Congo has discussed transferring the permits to several other oil companies, including Tullow Oil Plc, Total SE and Eni SpA. Total already controls the oil fields on the Ugandan side of the Lake. The French company signed a $5.1 billion deal with Uganda in April to develop a pipeline to ship the oil to a port in Tanzania.

Read More:
Total Signs Agreements with Uganda on East Africa Oil Project
Congo Wants to Sell Gertler’s Oil Blocks on Ugandan Border (1)

Congo has yet to negotiate access to the proposed pipeline or to find an alternative way to ship the oil, which justifies the continuation of force majeure, the Oil of DRCongo spokesman said.

A spokesman for Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi declined to comment.


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