One of many possible high-speed rail networks. Note that one can, as in this example, bypass Eritrea and Somalia in the northeast. Similarly, while we expect that the King of Morocco is much too intelligent not to want Casablanca as a multi-modal port,were there some sort of problem in northwestern Africa one might discard the purple route in favor of the yellow. There are several variations on how to get from Tripoli in Libya to Bamako in Mali. From there the choice of which port to connect to is arbitrary.
If the yellow line continues west to Bissau, or of the purple line connecting to Nouakchott in Mauritania gets built out, all is well for Guinea-Bissau. Instead, if the yellow line swings south to Conakry in Guinea Guinea-Bissau and Senegal are in for a very bleak future. We burned through an enormous amount of non-GPU cycles exploring the economics of an east-west route running from Boosaaso near the northeastern tip of Somalia almost due west across to Bissau. Feasible only if Suez is really blocked.
