Kazakhstan: Crossroads of Eurasia
February 4th, 2024
Via Geopolitical Futures, a look at Kazakhstan’s growing importance as a key hub for east-west commerce: In light of the geopolitical shifts caused by Russia’s pivot to the east, alongside China’s push to forge overland trade paths to Europe and the quest for alternatives to Russian routes, Kazakhstan’s role as a transit hub is growing […]
Read more »Bill Gates-Backed Mining Company Discovers Vast Zambian Copper Deposit
February 4th, 2024
Courtesy of The Financial Times, an article on KoBold Metals’ Zambian copper discovery, which comes as US steps up African metals push to rival China’s dominance: A mining start-up backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos says it has discovered a vast copper deposit in Zambia, offering a potential boost to the west’s efforts to cut […]
Read more »Kinshasa Reviews Mining Deal With Chinese Firms To Seal Loopholes
February 4th, 2024
Via The East African, a report that the DRC is reviewing a controversial mining deal signed with China: The Congolese government says it has rectified a controversial mining deal it had signed with China, potentially upending what had looked like a source of bad relations between Kinshasa to Beijing. The new deal, officials said this […]
Read more »Global Race For Critical Minerals: Was Ukraine Merely The Preliminary Heat?
February 4th, 2024
Via Belt and Road blog, commentary on the global race for critical minerals: In summer 2021, Ukraine and the EU Commission signed a ‘Strategic Partnership on Raw Materials and Batteries’. Thierry Breton, Internal Market Commissioner with extended responsibility for defense and space, praised the “great potential of critical raw materials in Ukraine” to “reduce strategic dependencies”. The […]
Read more »India’s Quiet Push to Steal More of China’s iPhone Business
February 3rd, 2024
Courtesy of the New York Times, an article on India’s efforts to win more iPhone business from China: India is quietly grabbing from China more manufacturing of Apple’s iPhones and other electronics gear. It is happening in South Indian industrial areas on muddy plots that were once farmland. In Sriperumbudur, people call Apple “the customer,” […]
Read more »New Scamble for Africa
February 3rd, 2024
Via the Belt and Road Blog, commentary on Africa, China, geopolitics, and the Global South: This January, the foreign ministers of China and the USA went on a tour of Africa in quick succession. US government circles described it as a coincidence, although it is clear that the respective Chinese foreign minister is making his first […]
Read more »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.