How an Afghan Drug Kingpin Became Beijing’s Business Partner in Kabul
February 11th, 2024
Courtesy of Foreign Policy, a report on Bashir Noorzai – who was once serving a life sentence in the United States – is now the key conduit for growing business ties between China and the Taliban: A drug kingpin whose heroin empire helped fund the Taliban’s long war in Afghanistan—and who was released early from […]
Read more »Afghanistan: Critically Important Trade Route For Kazakhstan
January 23rd, 2024
Via The Diplomat, a report on Afghanistan’s market and its position as a trade route that can connect Central Asia to South Asian ports are critically important to Kazakhstan: As the global community experiences a turbulent and unpredictable period, Kazakhstan, alongside other countries, faces a range of challenges and risks. A timely reorientation and adjustment […]
Read more »The Taliban’s Curious Love of SIM Cards
January 16th, 2024
Via Rest of World, commentary on how Afghanistan’s extremist rulers learned what all governments now know: SIM cards are worth every penny: A few months ago, Pakistan began forcibly deporting thousands of Afghans who had fled over the border when the Taliban returned to power in 2021. They returned to an Afghanistan engulfed by poverty, […]
Read more »As Afghan Economy Struggles, Taliban Increasingly Looks To Go It Alone
December 22nd, 2023
Courtesy of The Washington Post, an article on the Afghan economy: More than two years after the Taliban’s takeover, its internationally isolated government is pushing ahead with a plan to make the Afghan economy more self-sustaining, if not outright self-sufficient. Afghan officials are overseeing the construction of dams and canals to boost agriculture, and tunnels […]
Read more »Afghanistan Shows Gap Between BRI Rhetoric and Reality
November 9th, 2023
Courtesy of Nikkei Asia, commentary on how China’s BRI has not brought stability to Afghanistan but, instead, requires it: China’s close embrace of the Taliban was on display once again at last month’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, where acting Minister for Industry and Commerce Nooruddin Aziz represented the government in Kabul that no […]
Read more »The Taliban’s Quest for Foreign Funding Starts With China
October 26th, 2023
Via The Diplomat, a report that the Taliban are focusing on the countries that are most likely to be interested in investing in Afghanistan, notwithstanding its human rights record or potential for violence: While the West is adamant about isolating the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, owing to its human rights record, the latter is having […]
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.