Archive for 2023

The Possible Outcomes If Indonesia Joins BRICS

Via Modern Diplomacy, commentary on possible outcomes if Indonesia were to join the BRICS: Before we delve further into the complexity of the possibilities that could occur if Indonesia joins BRICS, it is important to know what BRICS is and the agenda it has. BRICS is an association of 5 countries consisting of Brazil, Russia, […]

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China’s Remote Deserts Are Hiding an Energy Revolution

Courtesy of Bloomberg, a look at China’s strategy to use remote regions to host vast green projects; Out of the rolling yellow dunes of the Kubuqi desert arises what appears to be an oasis, shimmering blue beneath the northern China sky. Row after row of hundreds of solar panels cover this otherwise barren stretch of […]

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Pondering The BRI’s Alleged New Roads

Via the East Asia Forum, commentary on China’s BRI future: Not so long ago, countries were ecstatic about the potential of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a mega-infrastructure scheme launched in 2013 that would connect the world through ports, power grids, railways, roads and telecommunications networks. Western pundits worried that BRI projects were pulling […]

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How Capitalism is Destroying the Horn of Africa: Sheep and the Crises in Somalia and Sudan

Via the Review of African Political Economy, commentary on how the ongoing crisis in the Horn of Africa can be linked to a violent transnational extractive economy that links the Horn and the Gulf States. The authors note that Sudan and Somalia, two countries that have suffered sustained violence in recent years, were together supplying 90% […]

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Colombia’s Ecopetrol Examining Gas Imports from Venezuela

Via Reuters, a report on Colombia’s Ecopetrol consideration of importing gas from Venezuela: Colombia’s majority state-owned oil company Ecopetrol (ECO.CN) is exploring an offer from Venezuela’s PDVSA to supply the Andean country with gas from December 2024, it said on Tuesday. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said during a visit to Venezuela over the weekend it was […]

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AI Models Estimate State of Economy in North Korea

Via Energy Daily, a report on how AI models and satellite imagery can be used to estimate the state of economy in hard-to-visit, low-resource countries such as North Korea: An international team of scientists has succeeded in using an artificial intelligence model to estimate socioeconomic situations of difficult-to-visit, information-scarce countries such as North Korea. The […]

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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.