Taliban Cancel Oilfield Deal With Chinese in Afghanistan’s North
June 25th, 2025
Via Nikkei Asia, a report that the Taliban have canceled an oilfield deal with the Chinese in Afghanistan’s north due to slow progress: Afghanistan’s Taliban government has terminated a two-year-old oil extraction and development contract with a Chinese company due to alleged violations of contractual obligations, with some experts believing the move to be a […]
Read more »Could CPEC Become South Asia’s Peace Corridor?
June 17th, 2025
Via The Diplomat, a look at the recent decision to extend CPEC into Afghanistan is a boost to regional cooperation. But geopolitical rivalries cloud hopes. Often hailed by Chinese and Pakistani analysts as a “game-changer,” the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) gained fresh strategic significance recently with Beijing brokering a rapprochement between Pakistan and Afghanistan. At a […]
Read more »Minerals for Recognition: The Taliban’s Shadow Diplomacy
June 10th, 2025
Via Geopolitical Monitor, a report on the Taliban’s use of mineral potential to help improve its diplomatic presence: Since the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan’s mineral and extractive industries have assumed growing strategic importance in the broader context of sustaining the country’s fragile economy. The abrupt loss of access to international financial assistance, the freezing […]
Read more »The Taliban’s Cyber Caliphate
May 22nd, 2025
Via Modern Diplomacy, a look at how the digital battleground has become an increasingly critical theatre for modern geopolitical conflicts, and the Taliban’s recent social media campaign targeting the UAE and Saudi Arabia underscores this shift: The digital battleground has become an increasingly critical theatre for modern geopolitical conflicts, and the Taliban’s recent social media […]
Read more »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 »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 »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.