Is China’s Growing Zimbabwe Alliance Key To Its Bigger Plans For Southern Africa?
February 28th, 2025
Via South China Morning Post, a look at how Beijing is betting on resources, labour and long ties to makes Zimbabwe a major steel hub, and a strategic foothold in the region, experts say In Beitbridge, a border town in southern Zimbabwe, a mega industrial park that will eventually produce electricity, chromium-based materials and steel […]
Read more »Indonesia’s $1 Billion Win in Apple Negotiations Sets New Precedent
February 28th, 2025
Via Bloomberg, a report on Indonesia’s negotiations with Apple: For five months, Indonesians didn’t have access to Apple Inc.’s latest iPhone 16, as a tug of war between the country and company ensued. The tussle was initiated by a more assertive new government, which banned sales of the handset on the grounds that the US company didn’t […]
Read more »Priorities For Rebuilding Syria’s Economy
February 28th, 2025
Via Eurasia Review, commentary on the priorities for rebuilding Syria’s economy: After more than a decade of war, destruction and economic collapse in Syria, the country’s new government faces an urgent and formidable challenge: rebuilding the nation’s shattered economy. Years of conflict have devastated infrastructure, displaced millions and left the country struggling with widespread poverty, […]
Read more »How Trump and Biden’s Focus on Minerals Became Core to U.S. Foreign Policy
February 27th, 2025
Courtesy of the New York Times, a look at how President Trump has turned to high-pressure tactics to acquire critical minerals: President Trump’s intense interest in Ukraine’s minerals seemed to come from out of the blue. He dispatched his Treasury secretary to Kyiv this month to negotiate with Ukraine’s leader, then began ratcheting up the pressure publicly in what […]
Read more »India Could Put Chabahar on Slow Burner as IMEC Gathers Pace
February 27th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a report on how abandoning its Chabahar port project is not a preferred option for India as its Central Asia ambitions depend on trade via this Iranian port: To apply “maximum pressure” on Iran to “end its nuclear threat, curtail its ballistic missile program and stop its support for terrorist groups,” U.S. […]
Read more »Afghanistan and Uzbekistan Reach Agreement On Railway Project
February 26th, 2025
Via AMU.tv, a report on a new agreement between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan on a railway project: Taliban’s deputy chief minister, Abdul Ghani Baradar, said on Sunday that they reached an agreement with Uzbekistan on the planned Hairatan-Herat railway project as the Uzbek side will send its team for feasibility studies. Addressing reporters upon returning from […]
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.