Junta-led Mali Begins Construction of Gold Refinery In Partnership With Russia
June 21st, 2025
Via Business Insider, a report on Mali’s decision to begin building a new gold refinery backed by Russia, a move its military-led government says will help the country gain greater control over its natural resources: Mali is constructing a new gold refinery supported by Russian investment to enhance control over its natural resources. The refinery […]
Read more »Balkan Glitz: Jared Does Albania
June 21st, 2025
Via Air Mail, a report on why the president’s son-in-law pursuing a multi-billion-dollar development deal on an uninhabited—and uninhabitable—former Cold War base: In 1948, a group of Soviet military officers and East German engineers visited Albania’s Sazan (then known as Saseno) Island, a 2.2-square-mile lump of granite strategically positioned between a Soviet Navy base on Albania’s mainland […]
Read more »Venezuela Is Open for Investment*
June 20th, 2025
Via The Atlantic, commentary on Venezuela’s openness for investment (provided the dictatorship falls): The end of Nicolás Maduro’s vicious dictatorship, many people can agree, would be a good thing. Millions of Venezuelans certainly want it; various members of the Trump administration have said they want it, too. The European Parliament passed a resolution urging world leaders to support Venezuela’s […]
Read more »China, Kyrgyzstan, and the Quiet Construction of a Sanctions-Resistant Trade Corridor
June 20th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a report on how every dollar that moves from Shenzhen to Bishkek to Moscow teaches China something new about how to operate in a sanctions-constrained world: Kyrgyzstan is not merely a passive conduit in Russia’s sanctions evasion effort. It is a testbed. While policymakers in Washington and Brussels remain focused on punishing Russia’s known […]
Read more »Chinese Companies Set Their Sights on Brazil
June 20th, 2025
Courtesy of the New York Times, a report on how – confronted with tariffs and scrutiny in the United States and Europe – Chinese consumer brands are betting that they can become household names in Latin America’s biggest economy: Chinese companies urgently need to find new markets. Competition is intense at home, where the collapse […]
Read more »Damac puts $2.3B on Jakarta AI
June 20th, 2025
Via Semafor and Damac, a report on new UAE investment in Indonesia’s AI sector: Damac puts $2.3B on Jakarta AI Damac, Dubai’s largest private developer, is on a multibillion dollar spending spree to develop artificial intelligence infrastructure, this time in Indonesia. Subsidiary Edgnex is investing $2.3 billion in a 144 megawatt Jakarta data center. The […]
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.