Archive for 2023

Bolivia’s Economic Model Is Running Out of Gas

Via World Politics Review, commentary on how Bolivia’s hydrocarbon-led economic model is running out of gas: In the past 15 years, the Bolivian economy tripled in size and poverty was cut in half, achievements built in large part on state spending fueled by the income from natural gas exports. But since 2013 those exports have […]

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Kazakhstan: Eurasia’s Next Middle Power

Via National Interest, a look at Kazakhstan’s rise as a middle power: Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is certainly on a path to enhance his country’s diplomatic profile by turning it into a “middle power,” a concept born during the Cold War to characterize states that “punch above their weight” in world politics. Considered to be […]

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China and Sudan: An Investment in Peace?

Courtesy of The Diplomat, commentary on the potential that Beijing could hold the key to any future peace in Sudan: Sudan is now in the fourth week of intense military confrontations in the ongoing armed conflict between two warring military factions. A U.S.-brokered framework agreement had fallen through in Sudan, which has historically had more […]

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China-North Korea Truck Trade May Fully Resume In 1 Month, Along With Tourism

Via South China Morning Post, a report that China-North Korea truck trade may fully resume in 1 month, along with tourism: North Korea may reopen its border with China as early as next month to fully resume truck shipments and personnel travel, according to a source briefed by officials on both sides. Two travel agencies […]

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Paul Kagame, Crystal Ventures, and Rwanda’s New Economic Diplomacy

Courtesy of The Africa Report, a look at how – over the past two years – Rwanda has been aggressively expanding its businesses, including the commercial wing of President Paul Kagame’s party, Crystal Ventures, and its foreign-focused subsidiary, Macefield Ventures. These expansions have reached countries such as the Central African Republic, Mozambique (where the Rwandan […]

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Africa’s ‘Warlords’ Are Actually Savvy, Globalized Business Managers

Via World Politics Review, commentary on the business and managerial acumen of Africa’s ‘warlords’: In most Hollywood films that use civil wars in Africa as a plot device, the commanders of armed groups are usually portrayed as erratic tyrants with little understanding of the wider world. Such assumptions even permeate news coverage of subnational militias, […]

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ABOUT
WILDCATS AND BLACK SHEEP
Wildcats & Black Sheep is a personal interest blog dedicated to the identification and evaluation of maverick investment opportunities arising in frontier - and, what some may consider to be, “rogue” or “black sheep” - markets around the world.

Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.