And = or?

One absolutely bizarre thing about German is the tendency to use the word "or" (oder) in a list where we would always use "and" in English:

In Südafrika, Nordafrika oder Südamerika wird sich die Photovoltaik ebenfalls verbreiten.

In South Africa, North Africa, and South America, photovoltaics will also become widespread.

The problem for me here is that "or" is not motivated; no argument can be made in the sentence above that the PV market will only boom in one of the three regions, but not in all of them.

If this were and aberrancy – one writer's careless mistake – I would not bother writing about it, but in fact it is everywhere. I get this from all of my clients and read it frequently in various newspapers. Bizarre.