Lithium Monopoly in the Making? Beijing Expands in the Lithium Triangle
September 7th, 2022
Via Geopolitical Monitor, a report on China’s growing engagement in the “Lithium Triangle”: China aims to expand its influence in the “Lithium Triangle” as a component of a broader campaign to construct a near-monopoly in the global lithium market. The Lithium Triangle, comprising Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, accounts for approximately 56% percent of global lithium supply. Beijing’s […]
Read more »BRI: An Old Belt Being Pushed Aside?
September 7th, 2022
Via The Diplomat, a look at how the BRI is becoming less and less prominent in Chinese leaders’ speeches as the Global Development Initiative takes over: Nearly a decade after its launch, the Belt and Road Initiative – what was once nicknamed the “project of the century” – is slowly vanishing from Chinese leaders’ speeches. […]
Read more »Russia’s Inroads Into Africa
September 5th, 2022
Courtesy of The Financial Times, commentary on Russia’s inroads into Africa: That China has made huge diplomatic, commercial and strategic inroads in Africa is news to no one. That Russia has done so barely without spending a rouble is less known. Yet over the past decade, and at an accelerating pace, Moscow has built a […]
Read more »Afghanistan Hopes To Join CPEC
September 5th, 2022
Via Ariana News, a report that Afghanistan hopes to join the CPEC: Afghan Minister of Commerce and Industry has said that Afghanistan should be included in the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure project. “In talks we had with China, it was mentioned that we should partner with China in the Belt and Road Initiative and […]
Read more »China’s “Sinostan” Ambitions
September 5th, 2022
Via Diplomatic Courier, a review of a book that explores how China found itself with a remarkably expansive, though unintended, empire in Central Asia: Over the course of the summer, China found itself headed for a foreign debt crisis. Many of its loans, made under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—Beijing’s globe-spanning infrastructure and influence […]
Read more »Dropped Call: Massive Hike In Lebanon’s Cell Service Fees
September 5th, 2022
Courtesy of The Washington Post, a report on the impact that a massive hike in cell service fees has had upon Lebanon’s poor: Shopping for grapes at Beirut’s wholesale market to resell from her produce cart, an exhausted Rawaa Ghosn described how another layer of her increasingly tenuous life was peeled away after she had […]
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.