Challenges to China’s Growing Interests in Afghanistan
March 26th, 2025
The Diplomat reports on how – while Chinese investment in Afghanistan is rising, particularly in the mining sector – the operations face both local pushback and logistical headaches: In a recent post on X, Amrullah Saleh, the former vice president of Afghanistan, accused Chinese mining companies, “in collaboration with Taliban commanders,” of “rampant plundering and theft” […]
Read more »India’s Nascent Blue Economy: Structural Constraints and Climate Change Challenges
March 22nd, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a report on how – as the Indian government finalizes its blue economy policy – there is a clear case for open, inclusive, and transparent dialogue with all stakeholders: India’s National Policy on the Blue Economy has been in the making since 2021, when a draft policy was launched. Since then, the government has […]
Read more »Getting Out of Afghanistan’s Opium Quagmire
March 22nd, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a look at Afghanistan’s opium economy and drug quagmire: Following a ban on poppy cultivation in Afghanistan imposed by the de facto authorities, the Taliban, in April 2022, opium production plunged by an estimated 95 percent by 2023 from 6,200 tons in 2022 to 333 tons in 2023. Poppy fields were reduced from 233,000 […]
Read more »The Railway That China Hopes Will Take On The US In Africa
March 22nd, 2025
Courtesy of The Financial Times, an article on the railway that China hopes will take on the US in Africa: Mukololo Chanda still recalls the glory days of Africa’s “freedom railway”. Almost four decades ago, fresh from high school in Zambia, she began working as a switchboard operator on the railway built by Mao Zedong’s […]
Read more »A Dubai Property Tycoon’s $10 Billion Plan To Save Afghanistan
March 22nd, 2025
Via The National, an article on how – despite the Taliban’s restrictions on women have made the nation a pariah in the global economy – billionaire Mirwais Azizi sees an opening: When The National visited the remote Afghan village of Sia Ab in October 2023, it was a place of carnage. Three weeks earlier, Sia Ab had been near […]
Read more »Laos Must Not Blow Chance To Become the ‘Battery of Southeast Asia’
March 22nd, 2025
Via Nikkei Asia, an article on Laos’ hydropower ambitions: Laos’ National Power Development Plan (NPDP), published in 2020, marked a critical turning point in the country’s electricity sector planning process. Designed in response to the mounting debt of the state-owned power utility, Electricite du Laos (EDL) — which contributes significantly to the country’s approximately 40% […]
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.