Syria: The Economist’s Country of the Year 2025
December 19th, 2025
Via The Economist, an award for Syria: Each Christmas The Economist names a country of the year. Not the happiest: that would nearly always be Scandinavian, making for a dull, predictable contest. Nor the most influential: that would always be a superpower. Rather, we try to identify the country that has improved the most, whether economically, politically […]
Read more »Is Tourism Mozambique’s Next Economic Revolution?
December 17th, 2025
Via The Business Year, a look at Mozambique’s tourism potential: As Mozambique continues to diversify its economic model beyond extractive industries, tourism is increasingly emerging as one of the country’s most promising long-term growth engines. This strategic shift was clearly articulated at the Mozambique Tourism Summit 2025, held in Vilankulo, Inhambane Province, a location symbolically […]
Read more »How Pepsi trounced Coca-Cola in the Middle East
December 17th, 2025
Via The Economist, a look at how Pepsi trounced Coca-Cola in the Middle East Order a fizzy drink in Baghdad or Beirut and chances are you’ll be served a Pepsi. Unlike anywhere else in the world, in the Middle East Pepsi has managed to trounce Coca-Cola. Its success is part random chance, part clever navigation of […]
Read more »The Promise of Simandou: A Giant Iron-Ore Mine Could Bring Guinea Riches or Ruin
December 16th, 2025
Via The Economist, a look at how a giant iron-ore mine could bring Guinea riches or ruin – depending on how the country’s junta uses the windfall: Underneath a ridge in the southern highlands of Guinea, a west African country of 14m people, lies one of the world’s biggest deposits of iron ore. Mining of the […]
Read more »Venezuela’s Oil Is a Focus of Trump’s Campaign Against Maduro
December 16th, 2025
Courtesy of the New York Times, a report on how – in public – the White House says it is confronting Venezuela to curb drug trafficking but, behind the scenes, gaining access to the country’s vast oil reserves is a priority. The Nobel Peace Prize winner made her pitch by live video to a business […]
Read more »Afghanistan’s Uncertain Gamble for Economic Survival
December 13th, 2025
Via Asia Sentinel, a report on Afghanistan’s economy, caught between countervailing forces: Afghanistan, in a desperate domestic struggle for mere survival amid an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, a severe economic collapse, and a profound human rights crisis, is now caught in a dangerous geopolitical squeeze. India is maneuvering to exploit Kabul’s standoff with Islamabad, the United […]
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.