Kremlin’s Grip on Russia’s Vast Expanse Complicates Vladivostok’s Ambitions To Become Trading Powerhouse
October 5th, 2025
Via the New York Times, a look at how – in a country where power is highly centralized – Moscow sets the tone for Vladivostok, 4,000 miles away, complicating longstanding ambitions to make it a trading powerhouse. At first glance, Vladivostok, Russia’s maritime stronghold and main trading hub on the Pacific, seems hardly Russian at […]
Read more »The China-Russia Axis Is Getting Firmer, and It’s Built on Gas
October 4th, 2025
Via Foreign Policy, a report on how Moscow pivoted to the east a decade ago, but it is now besmitten—or captive. An interesting thing happened late this summer: Russia and China dramatically deepened their energy relationship, less for economic reasons than for geopolitical ones. The ramifications, not so much for energy markets but for international […]
Read more »Cocoa OPEC on Spot as Ghana Wobbles and Ecuador Rises
October 3rd, 2025
Via The Africa Report, a look at how the cocoa OPEC is on the spot as Ghana wobbles and Ecuador rises: Abidjan banks on volume, while Accra fights to hold second place into 2026-2027. Belief in a cocoa ‘OPEC’, despite headwinds. That was the mood on 1 October in Abidjan at the launch of the […]
Read more »Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai or Goodbye
October 1st, 2025
Via Emerging World, a look at how a visit to Jebel Ali port in Dubai is like looking under the hood of globalization: “Do you own a glass building?” “Well, no, unfortunately I do not,” I told the bright-faced and enthusiastic Chinese woman whom I had just met a few minutes earlier. “Mabel” – her […]
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.